Why The Financial Crisis is Good For You

I am vindicated.

I have been saying this for the past month and finally it's out in the news.

(I haven't mentioned it on here, which regrettably restrains the extent to which I can properly gloat. I should spend more time posting to my own blog, rather than other people's.)

A month ago, when gas prices started to drop, National Public Radio (NPR), one of the few sources of substantial news in America, ran a startling story. They had on a talking head who explained that:

Gas prices were dropping because people were driving less.

--An outright lie.

Maybe people are driving a little less; but I don't know anyone who's driving $4.00 to $2.40 less.

"But, Mr. Clench," I hear you cry, "what else could it be?"

Simple: Gas prices fell for the same reason that housing prices fell. For the same reason: The rich folk who have been buying petroleum and hanging onto it until the price goes up a bit, to sell at a profit -- day-traders; speculators -- panicked. And they sold, and they sold, and they kept selling.

Gas is now selling for under $2.00 a gallon. It was last at $2.00 a gallon fifteen years ago or so, going off memory -- ergo, for the last 15 years, everything you and I have been paying above $2.00 a gallon has been going directly into the pockets of rich people, rewarding them for driving up the price of gasoline in a bidding war against themselves.

As I say, I've been saying that for the past month. And, I've been saying that it's a big problem that NPR is propagandizing the matter -- is lying to us about the kind of society we live in.

Well, now it's out. They've actually started talking about gas prices being due to speculation. I guess it was just too apparent.

Why do we tolerate this? Well, because working people in America have been taught to hate themselves. To work for a living is low-class; we need to pretend we're in the top .05% of the population that makes it's living off price-gouging and vote accordingly. That's called, perversely, the free market: the free market is untethering gas prices from the actual market price, so it's no longer governed by real production costs and real demand.

These are the people who are screaming for a bail-out. These are the people who claim to be holding the economy hostage. Give them billions of dollars to reinstate the status quo and pay them the money they lost in the last round of speculation, when the Ponzi-scheme of bidding up what we pay at the pump finally failed.

And before anybody accuses me of being anti-business, I want to make clear: I'm pro-business. But rich people effectively levying a private tax that doubles the prices of our necessities -- that's not business. That's something else entirely.

-FreeClench