So we will probably not ever see $2.50 a gallon gasoline again in the US. It may be that we will never even see it drop under $2.99. The times have finally caught up with us, and we were warned for 20 years. We hardly listened. We bought giant gas-hogs and SUV's that fit our national motto of "bigger is better." And now some car dealers won't even take them in trade.

About a dollar and a half of the current oil price 'bubble' is due to commodity speculators. They are the investors who place "buy" orders on the commodity exchanges. Oil, wheat, corn and soybeans are way out of line because of buying pressure there.

Another factor and a larger one in the "bubble" is the action our government took to fight the subprime mortgage crisis. The Federal Reserve Board lowered interest rates in a flurry of consecutive moves. This made money cheaper. When money gets cheaper to borrow, it creates inflation.

Inflation is occurring at an alarming rate. If you don't believe it, go out this morning in your Chevy Silverado and fill up its tank. Then go to the supermarket and buy some beef, chicken, dairy products and baking supplies.

The Fed was reacting to a phenomenon called the subprime mortgage crisis. Banks and the money suppliers loaned tons of dollars to people who couldn't afford the houses they were purchasing. They bought the houses believing, like some did, that house prices would continue to escalate. They could flip their properties in a short time and make a profit.

Didn't happen. In fact, the average price of homes, both new and old, across the country dropped. The buyers were upside down. Their houses were valued below what their loans were for. Then came the rash of foreclosures.

So the Fed cut the rates. That ballooned the problem, because we have never faced the dual problem of declining housing prices and runaway inflation at the same time.

Instead of cutting rates, the Fed should have increased them!

The effect was this: The US interest rate is about 2 percent now. Most competitive countries' rates are about 5 percent. Money flows to the higher rate, so investments from wealth (i.e., oil-rich countries) flows to Europe and Asia. That increases the value of those other currencies, and the US dollar drops in relative value.

We buy oil with US dollars, so the surcharge caused by the imbalance of currency values is a big reason why we paid $132 a barrel for oil yesterday.

Take out the currency imbalance and the oil would have cost us about 90 dollars a barrel - still high and way out of whack.

Emerging economies like China and India are big oil buyers now, and they will be competing at the exchanges for even greater pieces of the diminishing supply of crude oil. That is another factor in the increase of the price of crude.

When energy supplies diminish, and fossil oil is beginning to do just that, it commands higher prices. In the meantime we sit here wondering where are our elected officials when we need them? We have not built a new nuclear power facility since 3 Mile Island. The rest of the world is two decades ahead of us in that arena. France gets 75 percent of its electricity from uranium.

Where are our wind farms? Where are our hydrogen-powered vehicles? Where are our leaders?

Oh. They just passed a new farm bill over the veto of President Bush. I don't always agree with him, but he was correct with his veto. Why do corporate farmers deserve big tax-funded cash payouts for NOT planting when the prices of grains are doubling and tripling?

The reason is that the elected officials have deep pockets and the farm and agribusiness lobbies have piles of cash.

Government is money. Our money. They make us pay it or go to jail. Then they allow their sponsors to take more money out of our pockets, our gas tanks and our groceries.

Anyone in the Capitol building who voted YES on that farm bill should be put up against the bloody wall.

Remember in November that you only have one little bullet - oh! ... I mean "ballot."

Remember that when you have to go to your voting place on your bicycle.


One more phase remains in this ridiculous economic spin: The pressure from labor.

When costs outstrip wages people have to struggle to keep up. They do that by asking for more pay. The unions are going to demand higher wages. So will just about everyone who works, union or not. That increases inflationary pressure, too. But again, you have to earn enough to pay your bills.

In the meantime the government continues to lavish cash it doesn't have on tangential schemes. We are paying enormous sums for a war that wasn't necessary. We are ignoring the real enemy, the terrorists they allowed to escape into the safe haven territory of one of our "allies," Pakistan. The government is throwing money it doesn't have at most of us right now, and calls it a 'stimulus' that should awaken the economy. The only thing the stimulus package will do is enrich the bank accounts of the oil producing nations, the speculators and the doyens who pay the farm lobbyists.

Another thing: It will do no good to tax or blame the gasoline corporations for the price of filling up your tank. It isn't entirely up to them. We pay eighteen cents in federal tax at the pump. That's all. The bulk of the cash goes straight across the ocean to the oil producers, the ones we are spending our tax dollars to protect from their fears (Iran, terrorists, etc.)

I have a better idea: let's go for REAL campaign reform and cut the legs from the corporate and industry lobbies. Delete PAC (Political Action Committees, which are primarily funded by corporate and industry groups.) Require complete public posting of campaign contributions right down to the last dollar. Put a limit on ANY campaign contribution of $100 or $200, and delete the large cash donations of soft money that get into the politician's coffers.

But that will never happen, will it? Because it is the elected bunch who would have to pass such legislation, and that would put a halt to the cash flow that causes them to pass such awful legislation as the recent farm bill.