Good job, I enjoy your work..

The number one consumer (still) of petroleum is the good old US OF A and as such should be entitled to discounts on large lot (barrel)purchasing. Way!Obviously the greasy oil boys don't see it that way. Instead they prefer bribing Congress and the Bush/Cheney regime to increase their illegal gains. Yes I say illegal because these greasy old boys are the people driving up the price of oil via hedge funds and phony speculation in the brokerage pits impacting Wall Street.
Now our SEC and our Congress are well aware of these illegal practices but do nothing to upset their masters.
Right now Congress is investigating professional athletes for using steroids and HGH; making a huge international showing of how morally exacting and demanding the Congress of the United States is. I've heard that this ethical Congress will next investigate dog breeders for passing half breeds as pure breeds and then antiques shops for passing phony antiques to unsuspecting customers. But there is one investigation coming up that will address a real serious problem. That will happen when Congress begins investigating florist shops!
This is not a joke! It has been determined, possibly by the FBI or CIA or some secretive branch of the Federal government, that florist shops all over the country have been passing half dead flowers as fresh. Don't laugh! Imagine you are on a date, as may have happened to a young FBI agent, and you buy roses from a florist and that night, as you hand them over to your fiancée they bend over and drop dead, petals falling off like in autumnal shower of dead leaves! Engagement off! But that's not even the tip of the ice berg! You order a few hundred flowers to be delivered from the florists for the next day and when they arrive at the funeral home they are already dead! How devastating!
Obviously Congress has some real serious work ahead of it for the next ten or so years with all these important investigations coming up so any chance of Congress investigating the illegal practices and profit gouging of the greasy oil corporations is out of the question.
However maybe if Congress were to understand the economics of a "BEC" it might rearrange its priorities.
When a commodity or property, of one kind or another, is basic to the optimal functioning of an organization, entity or group; whether that group is a business, society or government or any other entity, then that commodity or property is a "BEC", Basic Essential Commodity, and as such deserves special academic and governmental monitoring and if need be regulating. Blood is a BEC as it is essential to the optimal functioning of the human body as oil is a BEC relative to the infrastructure of our highly industrialized society.
As Americans living in a capitalistic society and culture we generally accept the operations of our capitalistic society with few questions but what must always be remembered is that capitalism is a strictly mechanistic system and without some sort of human intervention would reek havoc on human societies across the globe. That's why there are anti-monopoly regulations (which have not been enforced for the last 7 years) and supposed Congressional oversight as evidenced by Congressional mandates on auto manufacturers, pharmaceuticals for public safety, health and welfare; you know, all the workings of Congress and the cabinets of the executive.
Let's ask our selves this simple question; when a BEC threatens National Security when is governmental oversight and or action warranted? When the cost of living rises; not necessarily! When it costs more for airline tickets, no! But action is warranted when any such BEC threatens the economy of the United States to the point where it is driving that economy into a recession at the least or a depression as is quite possible at this juncture in our countries economic status! Then the BEC becomes a matter of national security.
Oil is the straw that breaks the camel's, or in this case, the US economies back. As such the Congress of the United States needs to get off its "sensationalistic seeking butt" and do some real honest to goodness investigating of the oil industries abuses of profit gouging and oil price manipulation!
When you consider that our soldiers are dying and killing in Iraq for the oil corporations then it's high time the greasy oil corporations make pay back in the form of lowered petroleum prices relative to the bodies of American soldiers maimed and lost in service for their corrupt industry!