Sometimes you can actually see the reel of time unwind. The hands on the
clock twirl counter-clockwise. The prices on the gas pump go backward. Who's
directing this movie, Salvador Dali?
Fair is fair: Just as there were congressional hearings when gas prices
soared and Big Oil was accused of manipulating the market, shouldn't there
now be outraged voices demanding to know why gas prices have dropped?
Shouldn't Congress be investigating this dangerous conspiracy?
Remember when the junior senator and ace investigator from Arkansas, Mark
Pryor, got the head of the Federal Trade Commission before the Senate
Commerce Committee and, along with some of his more suspicious colleagues,
started browbeating her?
Back then Sen. Pryor was demanding that the FTC produce proof of some dark
and sinister plot to raise gas prices. The lady - Deborah Platt Majoras -
quietly and patiently stood her ground, trying to explain the law of supply
and demand. But of course Mark Pryor and his suspicious colleagues weren't
interested in the actual data; they had angry constituents to appease and an
issue to demagogue.
Now those danged oil companies are clearly involved in another nefarious
conspiracy, this time to lower consumer prices. But somehow I don't think
there's going to be another investigation.
It's another World Series without the Damn Yankees. The world seems off its
axis. I begin to have the strangest sensation. It's surreal, dizzying,
entirely new. Maybe I should call a doctor. I begin to feel Š a certain
sympathy for New York Yankee fans. Dave, my mind is going. I can
feel it.