My favorite is the one that stumbles over himself at the 38 second mark.

Daily Job Cuts: October 10, 2012 Layoffs Report

Cummins announces plans to cut up to 1,500 jobs by end of 2012 http://trib.al/6a7AyE

FEDEX to cut thousands from workforce… http://drudge.tw/TycFJh

AP: American Airlines Notifies Thousands of a Layoff Risk as American goes through a bankruptcy reorganization.

KSL.com Nearly 300 employees laid off at EnergySolutions in Utah.

Orlando Sentinel: Lockheed Martin cuts 200 jobs.

These are just job layoffs. There’s another list of business closings…

Not convinced? Here are a few more statistics to ponder. This is every day life for many of us.

CNN: Home Ownership Falls to 1965 levels.

After a decades-long rise in in home ownership the rate dropped to 65.5% in the second quarter of 2012. A senior manager at Amherst Securities says if you include borrowers who have not made a mortgage payment in over a year and are facing foreclosure the ownership rate is actually 63.3%.

Nearly everyone knows someone who bought a home that is now worth less than they paid. The resulting foreclosures hurt all homeowners.

Bloomberg News: Food Stamp Recipients Jump in July.

About 46.68 million Americans received food stamps in July, the government said in a report released late on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, a traditional time for dumping bad news. The report for July, the most recent month that data was available, showed participation up by 11,532 from June and 2.9 percent higher than a year earlier.

The Obama legacy. Nearly 1 in 7 Americans are now on Food Stamps. That’s a record number!

Since when did we become dependent on the government to feed us? If we had jobs we wouldn’t need food stamps.

Consumer Reports: Price of gas in January 2009 $1.88.

National average price of gas on October 8, 2012 is $3.81. Californians are now paying average of $4.66 per gallon.

Ouch! My friend lives in Temecula, CA and drives into the city each day for work. There is no train. It’s a crazy $6.00 a gallon this week!

Reuters: US Loses Prized AAA Credit Rating.

In August, 2011 S&P dropped the credit rating for the United States of America due to concerns about the government’s budget deficit and the country’s rising debt burden. In September, 2012 ratings firm Egan-Jones cut its credit rating on the U.S. government further to “AA-” from “AA,” citing its opinion that quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve would hurt the U.S. economy and the country’s credit quality.

Young people might say, “So what?” But when they go to buy a car or get a loan they’ll discover that the better one’s credit rating the easier it is to get a loan and the less interest they’ll likely pay. A lower credit rating for the country means we’ll have fewer options for loans to pay off that whopping national debt. What happens when China wants us to pay up?

CNS News: Backlog Processing Vets Disability Claims Skyrockets.

The backlog of veterans’ disability claims has jumped by 179 percent during President Barack Obama’s first term in office, reaching 883,949 outstanding claims, according to Veterans Administration (VA) statistics.

Our veterans put their lives on the line so the rest of us can sleep in safety. Shouldn’t they be getting priority care instead of being met with more government bureaucracy?

Not a Vet? Do you know someone college age?

ASU: Tuition Nearly Doubles in 4 Years.

President Obama promised to make college more affordable. Tuition for a new undergrad student at Arizona State University was $5409 in 2008. Students entering fall of 2012 are paying $9208.

There’s more…the price of coffee, peanut butter, your McDonald’s Happy Meal (oh, but according to this administration you shouldn’t be eating those…)

So. Are you better off???? If you’re not, you’d better get out there and vote.

Just in time for the Labor Day holiday.

Before Hurricane Isaac came along, gasoline costs were at an almost four month high.  The nationwide average rose to $3.75 a gallon on Aug. 26.  “We expect the national average price of gasoline for Labor Day this year to be the highest ever for the holiday,” said Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA.  Drivers could be paying $4 a gallon by the end of September.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-28/gasoline-rising-to-holiday-record-as-storm-surge-pressures-obama.html

Oct. 3 is the date of the first presidential debate.

The timing could not be better for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney or worse for the White House and its hopes for re-election.

By any measure, the administration should be on the defensive over escalating gasoline costs and the hardship higher pump prices will cause average American families.  The White House has been consistently hostile towards traditional fuel industries, and has persistently sought to curtail exploration, development and production capacity since 2009.

The current administration has actively sought to discourage drilling on federal land.  Since the 2010 BP gulf oil spill it has gone out of its way to stifle offshore exploration.  The EPA has made it a regular course of business to impose costly regulations on the development of oil, natural gas and coal.

The White House has wasted hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing non-competitive technologies.  Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturer, received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, then filed bankruptcy and fired 1,100 workers.  There are many other such examples.

The predictable White House solution will be to release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  This will be a typical response from the current administration:  Divest precious national resources in hopes of achieving the desired political result without solving the real problem or offering a viable solution.

Instead of effectively stimulating the American economy by assisting exploration, development and production of cheap, efficient energy, the White House is obsessed with squandering national treasure on inefficient, uncompetitive energy options that are incapable of surviving without a government backstop.

Odds are that the White House will blame it all on Hurricane Isaac…or on George W. Bush.

http://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/white-house-to-blame-for-high-gas-prices/

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On February 25th, 2012, I posted the following short article here on CDN:

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It seems that Americans are enraged – yet again (sarcasm intended) – with the price of gasoline.

Is this outrage justified?

Not when you take a few things into consideration.

#1 – Gas prices are at the levels they were in the late spring/early summer of 2008. (Graph 1)

#2 – Inflation has spiked tremendously since the same time in 2008 – when gas prices went even higher.  Thus the reason that gas prices dipped in 2008, and have climbed since then in conjunction with the inflation rates. (Graph 2)

#3 - Oil is currently trading about 34% lower than its all time nominal high set in July of 2008 (Graph 3)

#4 - Declining retail inventories will (and have?) help setup the perfect storm for massive price inflation across the board (Graph 4)

Again, Is this outrage justified?  No, because the American people are outraged at the wrong people.  Rather than being outraged at the oil companies and oil producers, the outrage needs to be on those who control the money supply – The Federal Reserve.

Instead of President Obama talking about releasing oil from the US Reserves, he should be talking about – and pressuring Congress for – the need for monetary reform in the United States.

…given the data, that’s where I believe the outrage should be pointed.

—

Upon posting this article, I was called a “Idiot Socialist” for not blaming President Obama and the Democrats in Congress for the high gas prices.  But a mere four days after I posted my article, Ben Swann, anchor at WXIX-TV in Cincinatti, aired the following “Reality Check” on gas prices:

http://youtu.be/Cdd4selSYE0

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And now the Washington Times has done the research that many fail to do, and proved both Ben Swann and myself to be correct:

FOX19.com-Cincinnati News, Weather

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WAKE UP PEOPLE!  Partisan Politics will never fix the problems this nation faces.  Only common sense, and the willingness to listen to those who try to tell you the truth.  You don’t have to like what we say, but listen, and fact-check.

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Today oil fell below $80.00 per barrel and diesel fuel is now well below $4.00 in most places.

Given my economic theory of diesel, there is an approximate three month lag between the price of fuel and its effect on manufacturers and shippers. That being said, the economy should hit bottom about the first of September. Manufacturing and hiring should begin to pick up again then.

Mitt Romney has pledged to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline as well as open up production of oil and gas leases already issued. By the economic theory of diesel, policies which would sustain lower fuel prices would do more to improve our national financial situation than anything else. If we continue the current policies which cause the current porpoising of oil prices, our economy will continue to stutter.

The price of fuel is rapidly approaching what Malcolm Gladwell would call the “tipping point”. Diesel fuel hit a peak of $4.72 per gallon in July of 2008. That took a huge toll on the American economy. Housing bubble notwithstanding, the high price of diesel contributed to the economic crash of 2008.

Consider that everything you buy is on at least two trucks before it gets to the store where you purchase it. Not only that, but all of the raw materials used to make whatever you buy are shipped to the manufacturer by truck. Every nickel rise in the cost of diesel fuel adds one penny to the cost of each and every mile of truckload freight. That might not sound like much, but when you think about the number of miles freight is carried in our country, and how many times something is on a truck before it gets into your hands, it is easy to see the extra cost add up. If you watch the price of milk in the grocery store, you will see very quickly that it mirrors closely the cost of diesel fuel at the pump.

What happened in 2008 was that available freight dropped off quickly as diesel fuel approached $5.00 per gallon. With profit margins already slim, companies were forced to pass these added costs on to the consumer. As consumer prices rose to cover transportation costs, customer purchasing dropped. Companies shipped less freight. This caused a temporary excess in available trucks, which put downward pressure on freight rates. Despite the high cost of fuel, carriers were forced to take less for their loads, or park some trucks. This balanced out at the cost of small trucking companies being forced out of business, and drivers losing their jobs; about 200,000 of them by early 2009.

At a time when the nation’s economy is slowly crawling out of a disaster, rising fuel prices pose the most serious threat to our recovery. In 2007 tractor-trailer trucks carried freight a record 184.2 billion miles. By 2009 that figure had dropped to 167.8 billion miles.

Diesel fuel hit its low point of $2.09 per gallon in March of 2009, and we entered a slow recovery. Freight has been steadily increasing since, and trucking companies began hiring again in 2009. By late 2011 hiring was in full steam, and companies are continuing to hire drivers. If fuel rates are sustained at current levels, or if they continue to rise, the same squeeze will happen again, and relatively quickly. The closer diesel fuel gets to $5.00 per gallon, the closer we get to another recession. We have now reached the tipping point for fuel prices, which seems to be about $4.50 per gallon. If we sustain these prices for very long we will see the recently encouraging economic numbers do a rapid about face and the 8.3% unemployment number the President is so proud of will begin to rise.

The Obama administration announced an agreement with Great Lakes states on off-shore wind projects….and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the  governors of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania to  streamline reviews of potential off-shore wind projects. (emphasis added)

 As in the Solyndra green energy scam that saw half a billion tax dollars funneled to Obama campaign bundlers and big donors, one can only guess which of Obama’s Democrat-crony-capitalists are standing in the windmill line to scam the taxpayers out of a few billion more tax dollars in exchange for big campaign donations. So far it’s pretty hush-hush, as can be seen by the fact that as of right now, these so-called soon to be expedited wind mill projects that Obama is bragging about…..do not currently exist!

However, when asked how much faster permits could get approved, White  House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy  Sutley said, “There currently aren’t any projects seeking approval…”

This is a sign of a president who knows he can not run on his miserable failure of a record during his first term in office, so he turns to making announcements about speeding up reviews that do not exist. Of course there will be plenty of Obama donors lining up to rake in the cash while defrauding the American people through these green energy scams.. eventually. Meanwhile, American oil and gas production and permitting has been stopped dead in it’s tracks under Obama’s regime, including blocking the Keystone XL pipeline that would deliver hundreds of thousands of oil to U.S refineries the minute it was allowed to go online.

This is a man ( Barack Hussein Obama) who the people now see saying one thing in fluffy campaign speeches.. while doing just the opposite behind their backs.  Barack Obama just does not understand that when Americans can’t go on vacation because of $4.00 a gallon gasoline this summer, and seeing him stop U.S oil production while giving away billions of dollars to his campaign donors for failed green energy scams… they will say enough is enough and give him the boot in the November elections. He is in for a very harsh lesson in reality this November.

President Obama would love the American people to believe we are producing more oil in the United States awhile giving oil companies taxpayer money. The president wants to invest more money on “wind-power and solar power, and bio-fuels, investments in fuel efficient cars and trucks, and energy efficient homes and building’s that’s the future”(Obama speech 3/29/2012). There was a recent study which proved that global warming is not the result of mankind. Evidence was found in a rare mineral that records global temperatures warming was global and NOT limited to Europe which throws doubt on orthodoxies around ‘global warming.’ (Ted Thornhill: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120512/Global-warming-Earth-heated-medieval-times-human-CO2-emissions.html#ixzz1qWYrjVX5), so why are we spending astronomical amounts of money, we DON’T have on these things? That is one of many questions you should be asking.

The president wants congress to strip oil companies of some of the tax breaks they currently receive while pushing his own failed green energy bills. He said, “I think its curious that some folks in congress were the first to belittle investments in new sources for energy are the ones that are fighting the hardest to maintain these giveaways for the oil companies. That is the only way to break the cycle of high gas prices that happened year, after year, after year. As the economy is growing the only time you start seeing lower gas prices is when the economy is doing badly. We can’t just drill our way out of this problem as I said, “Oil production here in the United States is doing very well.” And its been doing well even as gas prices are going up. The reason is: we are using 20 percent of the worlds oil but we only have 2 percent of the worlds known oil reserves. That means we could drill every drop of the American Oil tomorrow, but we would still have to buy oil from other countries to make up the difference. We would still have to rely on other countries to meet our energy needs.” (Obama Speech 3/29/2012). He wants to continue to invest in wind-power and so on all those things that now have a proven record of being unsuccessful, by manipulating the American public. Green energy has cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the years, there is literally no record of success, and yet money continues to be spent.

According to Eric Bolling (Fox Business Network) Congress is not giving oil companies a penny, they are allowing them to keep more of their profits. “So, if that is taken away your raising taxes on oil companies.” It is not as the president tried to portray. What we are doing is taking tax payer money to subsidize green energy companies that our president outlined in the sum of more then 100 billion dollars.

With the onset of rising prices, the jobless rate at an all time high, and with a government bankrupting this country it is time to engage, do research, and wake up to the realities of what is going on in this country. When you have people running this country who can look you in the eye, and lie, it is time to make a change and get involved. Do you really think we are drilling and producing oil to our capacity? Do you really think this government is helping you by taking control of health care, banking, auto, education, and so on? Every aspect of your life is being infiltrated by government including your children and what they see, learn, eat, as well as the morals and values they are being taught. Just this one short speech by the president, regarding the oil industry, was deceptive – do you really think that is all that he lies about?

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/216057-schumer-saudi-arabis-plan-to-increae-oil-output-will-lower-gas-prices

This ill-advised strategy was clearly politically driven. While the idea of higher gasoline prices, and the accompanying increase in the price of gas dependent goods and services is consistently rejected by average Americans, this is a blatantly partisan call for a short-term fix. This temporary, non-solution, suggested in order to perpetuate the false narrative that America’s economy is improving thanks to “progressive” policy decisions does absolutely nothing to reduce America’s dependency on foreign oil. Quite to the contrary, it exacerbates it.

On March 15, 2012 Reuters reported that during British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent trip to the U.S. the current White House occupant proposed releasing emergency oil reserves as a way to reduce world oil prices.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/uk-obama-energy-spr-idUKBRE82E00U20120315

Were the White House to make such a decision, it would be yet another desperate attempt to lower gas prices by whatever means possible. Tapping into the emergency oil reserves is a bad idea. Those reserves are there for use during a pressing national emergency. Tapping in to them every time there’s an increase in the price of a barrel of oil is both gross mismanagement and a misguided misapplication of the stockpile. Not only will the reserves need to be replenished with what might well turn out to be more expensive oil, tapping into them now does nothing to address the long-term problem.

“progressives” continue to grasp at short-term straws frantically trying to make themselves look good in the eyes of low information, sound bite voters. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to win the 2012 election, even if decisions made to make themselves look good in the short term are not sound long term solutions. As radical “progressive” political strategist and leftist hero Saul Alinsky dictated: the ends justify the means.

In the interest of national security and job creation, the United States should put Americans back to work delivering American energy to Americans. This is the best way for America to become energy independent while boosting the economy. Trying to force “green energy” on America’s economy overnight will only contribute to the collapse of that economy. Evidence: Spain’s troubled financial situation and extremely high unemployment.

America doesn’t need a broken economy. America doesn’t need short-term price fixes driven by partisan political decisions. America needs and deserves sound, long term solutions that will result in energy independence.

Drill here. Drill now.

http://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/grasping-at-energy-straws/

When comparing the statistics above with those of today after Democrats took over both houses of Congress in ’07, held the Senate in the ’10 elections and the Hope n Change White House of the past 3 1/2 years, the average citizens of other nations must be wondering just what were Americans thinking during the 2006 and 2008 elections?  As the saying goes, numbers do not lie, and Americans made monstrous uninformed voting decisions in ’06 and ’08 and now future generations of Americans will pay the price for these irresponsible actions for decades to come.

 Not only can the consequences of voting for the undefined Hope and Change Liberal’s  “fundamental transformation of America” be measured in [massive new debt] dollars and cents, it must also be measured in the [sure-to-come] loss of American freedom to a big debt-spending, all too powerful nanny-state plutocracy-in-the-making. (also known as the fake Democratic party of 2012.) The current all-powerful Liberal plutocracy must tax the workers more and steal a bigger chunk of American’s wealth to feed the nanny-state monstrosity of big government vote-buying through welfare-style handouts. (always done at the expense of the working man.) The following are the true numbers to consider when thinking about voting for four more years of the Obama/Liberal nanny-state destruction of America  in 2012:

TOTAL DEBT end of 2006 – $8.5 trillion (sourced above)  Total debt as of Jan. 2012 - $15.23 trillion dollars.  U.S. debt now equals 100% of the U.S. economy today. In comaprison to other advanced economies, only Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Portugal have debts larger than their economies. Four of those countries are also at the root of the current European debt crisis.  Add to that the projected 2012 deficit of another trillion-plus dollars, and America has went from $8.5T in total debt to approx. $17T dollars since 2007. That statistic represents the doubling of all the national debt accrued in America’s history… in just six years of Liberal-Democratic rule.

Gasoline cost Americans $2.20 a gallon in Nov. 2006. (and $1.86 a gal when Obama was sworn in) Today, under Barack Obama’s often-stated {back in ’07, ’08 on the campaign trail] skyrocketing energy prices, Americans are being crushed under the weight of paying $3.80 (national average) for a gallon of gasoline to try to get back and forth to work.  That means the average working American using 20 gallons of gas to get back and forth to work, now pays an extra $32.00 a week. Add that to the increased cost of groceries and other necessary items due to high fuel prices driving up transportation costs, and middle class America is in a world of hurt when it comes to trying to stretch the paycheck today. For many, this will also mean no summer vacation for the family, which happens to be a longstanding tradition in America.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.4% in late 2006. Today it is at 8.3%, and has been over 8%  under Barack Obama’s hope and change years in the White House. Should the Bureau of Labor’s numbers-crunchers decide to inject the truth of how many Americans have been taken out of the workforce, (and don’t exist according to them) the effective unemployment rate in America today is actually approaching 15%.

The price of food is also skyrocketing since Liberals took over Congress in 2007, further crushing middle class Americans. As a matter of fact, the price of groceries from 2007 – 2010  increased by an astounding 58%!  Add to that the 4.8% increase in 2011 and the projected additional 3% increase for this year and we have seen the price of groceries increase by a whopping, 65.8% since just 2007, under Liberal [fake]Democrats and the Hope and Change Community Organizer-in-Chief, Barack Obama since 2007. Of course, big daddy government has a solution for skyrocketing food prices: They will just take more money from the working class taxpayers to hand out more food stamps to buy Democratic votes, as in this reported whopping 70% increase in people receiving food stamps in America since….2007. With facts like these is it any wonder folks refer to Barack Obama and his Liberal operatives in Congress as the Food Stamp President and his Liberal food stamp party of big government nanny-state creators?

Clinton and today’s fake Democrat’s role in causing the housing crisis. Millions of hard working Americans have lost billions of dollars in home equity savings due to the depreciated value of their homes caused by the housing and mortgage crisis. A home bought for $330k in 2007 is now worth about $260k today. Most Americans are actually misinformed about the cause of the housing mortgage crisis.  The actual cause started back in the 90′s, when Congress required government-sponsored enterprises to purchase CRA loans as part of their affordable housing mandate. As these goals increased over time, the GSEs were forced to seek out even riskier loans to purchase. Then, in 1995, the Department of Housing and Urban Development permitted Fannie and Freddie to purchase subprime securities. Then it steamrolled out of control starting  when Republicans were calling for an end to Fannie and Freddie’s “everyone deserves a home, regardless of ability to pay” programs, yet Democrats in Congress let the madness continue unabated. President Clinton was a big part of enabling the housing crisis. With the stroke of his pen, Bill Clinton loosened housing rules  by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. Liberal Democrats went from “everyone deserves a trophy. regardless of accomplishments”  straight to “everyone deserves a house, regardless of ability to actually pay for said house.” Bottom line is that Bill Clinton could have prevented the housing crisis train wreck by vetoing that bill. Without it Fannie and Freddie could not have put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in home loans to folks who simply could not afford to buy a house.

In summary, middle-class Americans have experienced high unemployment, skyrocketing energy prices, along with budget-busting cost increases of everyday necessities such as food, clothing and transportation since 2007. We have also effectively doubled our national debt since Democrats took over Congress in 2007 and Obama  started implementing his hope and change fundamental transformation of America in 2009. Also of note is that President Obama recently took time out from his 24/7 reelection propaganda-spewing campaign ( funded by the taxpayers) to throw a multi-million dollar dinner party for the great and the good, which also just happened to include… 50 Obama reelection campaign bundlers. ( which is technically illegal) While many Americans struggle to put food on the table today, the elitists gathered in the White House to sip champagne and dine on extravagant menu items, all the while rubbing American’s noses in it with minute by minute television coverage.

Middle class Americans are currently suffering through a 4-year stagnant economy, high inflation ( with more coming) and record amounts of irresponsible new debt to be added to the backs of future Americans. There were about 20 million unemployed or underemployed Americans as of May 2011, and the jobs added during the last 8 months have not averaged enough to keep up with population growth, let alone expand the work force.

Do Americans really want four more years of Obama-nomics, which are rooted in the denial of the above facts?  More importantly can Americans afford four more years of Obama’s fundamental transformation of America? Ask the people of Greece how that irresponsible big government debt-spending works out. Simply put, ”American austerity measures are coming, and hell is coming with them.” Which way will Americans vote in November?

On February 25th, I posted an article titled  ”Gas Prices: Why Your Outrage Is Misplaced” (found here: http://t-j.cc/ykuhsa), Where I said:

#1 – Gas prices are at the levels they were in the late spring/early summer of 2008. (Graph 1)

#2 – Inflation has spiked tremendously since the same time in 2008 – when gas prices went even higher.  Thus the reason that gas prices dipped in 2008, and have climbed since then in conjunction with the inflation rates. (Graph 2)

#3 - Oil is currently trading about 34% lower than its all time nominal high set in July of 2008 (Graph 3)

#4 - Declining retail inventories will (and have?) help setup the perfect storm for massive price inflation across the board (Graph 4)

Again, Is this outrage justified?  No, because the American people are outraged at the wrong people.  Rather than being outraged at the oil companies and oil producers, the outrage needs to be on those who control the money supply – The Federal Reserve.

Instead of President Obama talking about releasing oil from the US Reserves, he should be talking about – and pressuring Congress for – the need for monetary reform in the United States.

This seemed to arm the Insult Cannon – which was aimed squarely at me.

Why, you ask?  Because I did not blame Barack Obama for high gas prices.  Instead I  blamed the high cost of fuelon the REAL cause for it: inflation and the devaluation of the US Dollar.  Apparently, because I highlighted this truth, I am “an idiot”, as well as “a socialist”, and more inappropriate terms.

Then I guess there are two other names to add to the list of “idiot” and “socialist”: Senator Rand Paul and WXIX Fox 19 anchor Ben Swann.  These two went on television after my article was written to say exactly what I had said.  Hmm….

Here is Ben Swann’s “Reality Check” from February 29th:

http://t-j.cc/xI38O9 (embed code failed, sorry!)

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And here is Senator Paul on FoxNews Channel from February 28th:

If telling the truth is makes me an “Idiot Socialist”, and being ignorant of the facts makes one a “Smart Capitalist Patriot” … Then this country is in far worse shape than I thought.

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“Why are we seeing such a resistance to production of oil and gas? I believe Secretary Chu may have let the cat out of the bag when he said they really want to eliminate oil and gas as an energy source, and the price is not important to them… What that means is, we can see higher and higher prices, and the average consumers in Alabama and all over the country will pay more. They will pay the price for this social engineering strategy that we’re seeing in this administration. It is just plain as day.”

NOTE: To view Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s comments admitting that the Administration’s goal is not to lower the price of gasoline, please click here.

Is this outrage justified?

Not when you take a few things into consideration.

#1 – Gas prices are at the levels they were in the late spring/early summer of 2008. (Graph 1)

#2 – Inflation has spiked tremendously since the same time in 2008 – when gas prices went even higher.  Thus the reason that gas prices dipped in 2008, and have climbed since then in conjunction with the inflation rates. (Graph 2)

#3 - Oil is currently trading about 34% lower than its all time nominal high set in July of 2008 (Graph 3)

#4 - Declining retail inventories will (and have?) help setup the perfect storm for massive price inflation across the board (Graph 4)

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Again, Is this outrage justified?  No, because the American people are outraged at the wrong people.  Rather than being outraged at the oil companies and oil producers, the outrage needs to be on those who control the money supply – The Federal Reserve.

Instead of President Obama talking about releasing oil from the US Reserves, he should be talking about – and pressuring Congress for – the need for monetary reform in the United States.

…given the data, that’s where I believe the outrage should be pointed.

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