Letter to the editor

To the Editor:
Is enough, enough? Evidently not! Today, oil futures are trading above $120 a barrel.

Everyone knows this is absurd. Even a few oil executives are admitting these prices are generated by greed and not market driven.

The entire world is teetering on disaster, and most Americans are too apathetic to care. We would rather go hungry and destitute than declare our dissatisfaction. Sadly many Christians are welcoming this as a sign of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Listen to me, if it is the beginning of the end, “great,” I’m ready to be raptured, but by chance, if it is not, and the probability is, IT IS NOT, then we can only blame our indecisiveness.

In my opinion, the problem that we are facing is fabricated. The world’s population is growing by 60 million a year, primarily in third world countries, where Islam is the chief religion. China and India are expanding their economies at a ferocious rate, but their standard of living is decades away from ours. The truth is; China and India do not have the capability of achieving our economic status due to simple environmental deterministic factors.

Geography and bloated populations will not allow them to grow beyond certain perimeters. Their economic ascension will flatten in the next decade. With all of that said, here is the bottom line. Our politicians have lied to us, every one of them. The earth is not out of oil, and demand, even though greater, is not the culprit. The problem is oil companies and OPEC is limiting the supply for exorbitant profits. I am not a gambling man, but I would be willing to wager that if Congress announced that exploration and drilling would begin immediately on all government managed lands, oil futures and gas prices would drop 20% by the end of next week.

Subsequently, if Congress and this President announced the building of new oil refinery along the Gulf Coast, the price of crude would plunge another five percent. By the way, we should quickly initiate both of those endeavors.

Oil companies and OPEC should be held accountable. It might be time to fragment these oil monopolies for the betterment of society, and we might need to inform OPEC that they can’t eat their oil–just food for thought.

Cordially,
Dr. Andrew Brasher
Batesville