Death Takes a Holiday

The only 2 things that are supposed to be inevitable in life are death and taxes. Well if John McCain and Hillary Clinton had their way at least one of these would take a holiday.

The problem is that it is not so easy to make the gas tax disappear for the summer since doing so basically means giving it up for all time. After all, does anyone really think you could get people to swallow an $.18 per gallon increase come the fall? People are naive if they think the oil companies aren't going to just look at this as more money they can ultimately tack on to the cost thus not giving us any holiday at all.

If the government wants to go after big oil it could do a windfall tax and then use that money to fund tax rebates back to consumers. This type of action would also prevent less than honorable pricing activities from occurring.

However, the bigger problem is the obviously bloated price of a barrel of oil. Even if you allow for the slide in the dollar and the increase in global demand the price should only be around $65 a barrel. Unfortunately, oil is the current get rich quick scheme for investors, hedge fund managers, and other speculators who see the continued rise in prices the same way you might look at the rise in the price of your stock with a smile.