Part of the problem with posting a rant like last week's on the gas shortage is that if you don't follow up quickly, the words just hang out there in cyberspace until something new is posted. Life goes on and I've been going with it, and haven't been preoccupied or even particularly inconvenienced by the shortage.The gas shortage and the associated lines have eased up as the week progressed. By Tuesday, several stations were still closed, but those open no longer had long lines, although they were certainly busy. By Thursday, one could actually see avaialable pumps that didn't have plastic bags over them. No one's really much talking about it anymore.
The reason for the shortages here in the South has officially been given as the failure of the Gulf Coast refineries to recover from hurricanes Gustav and Ike - a disruption in the supply line. Unlike other parts of the country, Georgia gets all of its gasoline from refineries on the coast. However, Georgia's Republican Governor has requested that the President, that reclusive fellow holed up in the White House, release some petroleum from the National Reserve to help the shortage. Hwoever, since the petroleum in the reserve is unrefined crude, it would take several months for operable refineries to process it and to see the product at the pump - long after the effects of the shutdown have passed. Thanks, Guv.
But Purdue must be sad, because a wingnut group that sued to challenge Hartsfield Airport's ban on handguns, despite the Governor's recently sponsored law allowing concealed handguns on public transportation, got shot down in Federal court. No pun intended. U.S. District Court Marvin Shoob said, in effect, "Are you frigging kidding me? Guns at the airport? No way!" A short sigh of sanity in a topsy-turvy political season.
Meanwhile, I've been subjected to daily tirades at the office about how Obama's going to tax us all into indentured servitude, how the whole country's going to be ruled by a Soviet-style politoboro, and the particularly offensive idea that the whole subprime mortgage mess is all somehow the fault of previous Democrateic Presidents (Carter and Clinton) who pushed so-called "equal opportunity" in lending and housing. Logic and informed comment don't alleviate their anxieties or quiet their arguments, but if I calmly hold my ground and remind them of the facts, they eventually walk away, muttering things about Bill Ayers and crypto-Islamic fanaticism under their breath.
For the next two days, I will be attending a conference of retail developers in the hope of scaring up some brownfield redevelopment work. At last year's conference, I heard a panel conclude that if Hillary Clinton got elected President, which seemed quite plausible at this time last year, there would be no available capitol for investment, and all bets for the retail development industry would be off. Well, heh, heh, there were half right - I wonder how those loans from Lehman Brothers and Merrill are flowing?
I can't wait to learn how this is the fault of the Democrats.
1 comment:
I have been saving for retirement for 30 years. I paid off all my mortgages, car loans and credit cards. I was thinking about retiring in the next year, two at most, while I still have the physical vigor to do a little farming.
I the last two days, I have lost more savings than I once made in a year's wages. I will be working a bit longer than planned. That is work more or less against my will...and not any better than indentured servitude. Much greater than taxes, of which I have probably paid far more than your office mates, is the price of conservative economic ideas. Selfishness is only fit soil to grow more selfishness.
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