The Absurd Report

The pea brains in Congress and many of their cronies around the country have found the problem that, they feel, is causing us so much pain at the pump. First they tried to demonize the oil companies. But that did not work too well. After that witch hunt, those on Capitol Hill are getting inundated with requests, if not demands, to get off the backs of oil companies and open up areas placed arbitrarily off limits to exploration and production.

So enter the “new” reason why gas prices are so high. The “new” problem is now that people are investing and taking risks.

How dare people take risks! Don’t they know that they might fail? And if they fail, why government will have to pick them up at tax payer expense – or so the old canard goes.

However the trick here is that these people investing their own capital are not being called “investors”. The new term of derision hurled at these folks is “speculators”. Every time you hear this word now the hope among those who are really the problem (Congress, radical environment activists, loopy animal rights folks, etc.) is that you are conditioned to react with a mighty gasp, a knot in your gut and nod your head in blind agreement that the problem with the price of oil is the “speculators”.

It just sounds so sinister.

Many of our elected officials are working their grubby little fingers to the bone trying to find ways to rein in “speculation” in the oil markets. Congressman Hinchey has even repeated a previous call by Maxine Waters to “nationalize” the oil industry much like Hugo Chavez has done in the Marxist “utopia” of Venezuela.

But many of our elected officials don’t seem to care too much about why this speculation is taking place.