A couple of comments and predictions about the upcoming elections

First I have a question: Isn't it great how the price of gasoline has dropped almost a buck from what it was a month ago? And then I have an answer: No, it isn't great, it is, I think, a premeditated move on the part of Big Oil to influence the upcoming elections. It has been well publicized that the American public was not at all happy about paying $3.00/gallon to fill up the tank of the family SUV. Since there has been nothing on the world stage to account for the rapid drop in oil prices, I have to assume that said drop is the result of decisions made in the executive suites and boardrooms of the Big Oil companies. I have a sneaking suspicion that the thinking goes, "If we drop oil prices, people will be happier with the Republicans." While philosophically I can't complain about gasoline costing more (because it is a non-renewable resource which needs to start funding its replacement(s)), I think that the recent price hikes have been more about lining the pockets of Capital and not about funding alternative energy research, and I think that the oil companies are a little worried about what the Democrats will do to those obscenely huge profits they have been amassing during the Bush years.

My second prediction is that I think that the owners of this country will do their level bests to trash the economy over the next two years should the Dems recapture the national legislature. This is especially true in that the Democrats seem to have a very dangerous potential candidate for the presidency in Barack Obama. Mr. Obama has the power, I believe, to bring a real vision back to this country, but that vision is not the one the owners want to see. Accordingly, it would be in the owners best interest to trash the economy and blame it all on the Democrats in Congress. That way, in two years, they could advance their neo-conservative successor to Bush, and his crowded coattails as the panacea most needed by the nation to get out of the "economic slump those Congressional Democrats have gotten us into...". What will be interesting is seeing if the Democrats have learned who their actual opponents are, and then how to campaign successfully against them.