George wrote:
You need to read up on a seventy-year experiment in command economy in a
country with natural resources of all sorts so abundant they still haven't
been properly cataloged - which couldn't heat water for a shower, if there
_were_ a shower, for the "sheeple".

Be careful of what you wish for.


If you are referring to socialist/communist societies, that is not at
all what I was getting at, George, nor is it what I wish for at all.
What I was lamenting was the fact that we have a system in which free
markets are a very good thing, but that some products that have gone
beyond just being a luxury into being a necessity, have fostered such
greed by the companies, that they have entered into collusion to force
artificially usury-high prices on the public. I have no qualm at all
with making a good honest profit, after all that is precisely what a
business is in business to generate and rightly so. But if there were no
shady deals going on I believe completely that we would not have had
much if any higher price on any fuels due to the relatively small hike
in price per barrel recently, and none at all during Katrina. There was
simply no shortage here. Maybe in the Gulf region, but not here. Here in
the Northeast during the Katrina aftermath, our fuel prices were going
up daily, and even sometimes several times per day. Yet if you find out
where our Northeastern oil supplies come from it would not be from the
Gulf region. California's gas prices were even more out of control - do
you think they get gas from the Gulf? NO. It was usury, pure and simple,
to take advantage of Americans during a crisis. They did it again during
both Gulf (that *other* gulf) wars. Sorta makes that economic terrorism,
doesn't it?

So what my point was about our "sheeple" here, and in Europe, was that
few are willing to do anything at all to force - through the
marketplace, and through our government prosecuting the crimes that are
committed according to Federal law, like with the Windfall Profits Tax
Act which was enacted to prevent or punish for this very thing. That
ain't socialism. Its just common sense and it protects the country, the
economy, and us - the sheeple.

I apologize if I may be imprecise in my ability to get my argument
across clearly, been running on little sleep for the last week.