Gallon goons.

What IS it with the gas prices already?! Can it BE any worse? Looking at how things are, I believe they can.. I just received this interesting e-mail from all major airline companies put together, imploring their customers to sign a petition against all this “futures trading”. The aviation industry sure must be feeling the pinch. Forget the freebies and the expensive air-fare; they don’t even start the planes at the gate anymore. The tug pulls/pushes them out to the runway before they even switch on their engines!

To think that the price of oil is this high because some nitwit decided that he would “predict” what it would be on paper and it keeps changing hands, again on paper. And the final delivery by the barrel is done ages from now. It was interesting to learn that trading regulations that were put in place to avert such an instance in the very beginning have become lax over time, and they have been bent to accommodate all these people who have driven us to this stage today. Face it, these people are smart – they are making money off a commodity that they have no direct use for, and are not even end users who are going to take possession of the barrel. Such price hikes driven by market manipulation are affecting the general economy as a whole. And people who are actually doing all this are not feeling the pinch, that’s for sure. Makes me wonder why I cannot apply myself to learning the tricks of the trade and be more knowledgeable about how the finance industry churns.

Until then, I keep reminiscing about the day when gas was $1.75 a gallon at the pump. Sigh, those glory days have long gone.