Crude

Crude

By JT Seravat

“Hey, Shirley, I’ll have a draft, a shot of Jack Daniels and a barrel of Texas Light Crude.”

“There you go, JT. That’ll be $142.85, or do you want me to start you a tab, darling?”

“Shirley, you’ve got to be kidding. I don't mind paying $140. for a barrel of Texas Light Crude, but $2.85 for a shot and a beer — that's outrageous. Did you guys raise your prices again?”

OK, here it is, a few possible solutions to the high price of oil, which I’ll be forwarding to the White House.

First, invade Venezuela, win the peace and give the country to the top ten brokerage firms and hedge funds that drive the price of oil up every day. I think owning their own country with the agreement they not raise the price of oil tomorrow by another $4.50 due to a rumor that the cashier at the Exxon station in Piscataway, N.J., has not gone to the bathroom in two days is a fair deal.

Second, surround the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) with New York City cops and a few SWAT teams. Bring in an FBI hostage negotiator to find out what the speculation traders really want and agree to their demands if they promise not to trade oil again. As 50 guys in $12,000 suits leave on a bus to the airport, each holding a Hermes carbon fiber briefcase with $500, million in diamonds in it and a Heidi Klum look-alike on his arm, we can be confident that oil prices will come down tomorrow. Oh, and we can all wave goodbye as they fly off on their very own Gulfstream G650.

Lastly, leaders of national organizations whose members are affected by the high price of oil and gas, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Air Transport Association of America President James C. May, National Retail Federation Chief Economist Rosiland Wells, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Jim Johnston, National Federation of Independent Business President Todd Stottlemyer and American Hotel and Lodging Association President Joseph A. McInerney, should go to Washington, D.C., and demand that controls be put on speculation trading in all commodities, including oil and gas.

Well, Shirley, my bartender, liked the first two ideas — she thought they were funny.

She didn’t like the last one, although she did wonder out loud why those groups wouldn’t do just what I suggested and force people in power to do something so she wouldn’t have to pay $4.22 a gallon for gas.

I was sorry to have to explain to her that it wasn’t that simple.

See, we live under a free market capitalistic society, and the government can’t go around regulating these speculators if they want to drive up the price of oil and gasoline.

You can’t have government passing laws to stop some poor commodity trader sitting on the 30th floor of The Holdemup Brothers firm’s commodity trading desk from driving up the price of oil to $300 a barrel if that’s what the market will bear; it’s un-American.

Shirley said if that was true that it was un-American to pass such a law, how come they could pass a law to arrest Frank last week for stealing a carton of cigarettes from the Pic-n-Save and sentence him to 60 days in county jail?

Good question.

First published June 29, 2008

© 2008 Seravat Writers Group LLC