A Guest Post

As loyal readers know, Kemp and I are very passionate in our views, and we love it when people become just as passionate in their views and decide to share them with us.

Tonight I am especially pleased and proud to welcome a first time guest poster to our humble blog. Please give a TBWA welcome to my finacee, Gail. Thanks honey, I am honored that you wanted to share in my little hobby.

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“On April Fool’s Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil,” said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. at today's Congressional meeting with the heads of several oil companies.

How true, how true.

The oil companies claim that thier $123 Billion dollar profits are in line with other industries. I don't see that. What I see are small businesses folding because people are radically changing their spending habits. I see larger retail chains with flat and negative growth. The car industry is definitely suffering and will only get worse, if the price of gas continues toward and past $4 a gallon.

This is where I want to sit down and ask the heads of the oil companies, how is it that the price of gas refined a year ago can go up in the blink of an eye, based on the price of a FUTURE barrel of oil...but when that price of the FUTURE barrel of oil comes down, the price of gas that was refined a year ago doesn't?

Does anyone else remember when gas only went up once a week (if that), and it was a penny or two? You can drive by a gas station in the morning on your way to work and on the way home eight to ten hours later, the price has jumped ten cents or more. And this can happen more than once a week.

The next question I'd like to ask them is if they can afford to fill the gas tanks on their cars, and are they changing their purchasing habits, because gas is a much higher portion of their home budgets, like the rest of us?

I think if the oil companies took a miniscule 2.5% out of their gargantuan pockets by lowering prices and profit levels on end use gasoline, now THERE'S an economic stimulus package (that doesn't come out of my own pocket in 2009). Congress and the oil companies need to listen to the people this is affecting most. Not the poor-they probably don't own cars! It certainly isn't the oil company executives. It's us in the middle class. Those of us whose family budgets are in crisis, because we can't decide whether to drive to work or feed our kids...