What the @#$%????

Crude oil today: $66.80 (U.S.) a barrel
Price of regular grade gasoline in southern Ontario today (confirmed): anywhere from 95.9 cents/litre to $2.25/litre

Record high price of crude: $70.85 (U.S.) a barrel, post-Katrina
Price of gas then: $1.34.9 at its highest point

The lineups at the pumps here in Waterloo have been something to behold. The price across the lot from my grocery store stood at $1.03.7 all day, prompting a rush of apocalyptic proportions. This morning, the radio reported a price of $2.25 in Stratford and $179.9 in London.

I will confess myself to be an ignoramus when it comes to the economy. Stock markets are beyond my comprehenstion: to me, they seem to be the place where shady, X-Files type world dominators gamble with imaginary wealth. The recent fluctuations of gasoline defeat my mind entirely.

Can you imagine the price ANY other product jumping up and down like gasoline does? "Well, sir, the milk was 99 cents a liter yesterday. But we're concerned about the milk supply next week, so we're charging $8.00 for a gallon jug now. Yes, that's still the milk delivered yesterday, at yesterday's cost. I'm sorry, sir...if you don't like it, you're free to go to any other grocery store and pay...the same price. If you're willing to drive an hour out of your way, you might still find a stubborn holdout selling milk at yesterday's prices. "

Wasn't the gas you frantically pumped into your tank today produced six or eight months ago at costs of, oh, I don't know, 40 cents a liter or so? Plus a bevy of taxes, of course. Wasn't that gas delivered last week, when retails were in the mid-nineties? How is it that oil companies are allowed to justify charging any more than that?

The high price of oil is supposed to be good for us. That's what we've been told, over and over again, so it must be true, right? The government rakes in millions of dollars every time the price rises. I haven't seen our government do anything useful with all that money, have you? I suppose the people who own stocks in oil companies have something to offset the shock at the pumps, but I'm resolutely middle class and I can't afford the price of admission to that little game.

I'd love to know just how much involvement Big Oil has in our government. Obviously they have a fair bit, because commission after commission has found no evidence of collusion when any five-year-old can spot it from the curb. Pierre Pettigrew had the colossal gall to suggest that cutting gas taxes would simply shift the wealth to the oil companies, through some unexplained and unexplainable mechanism. You can trust Pettigrew to say such a thing. After all, he's a Liberal, and as such he knows where the wealth belongs: in the pockets of the government.

I remain convinced, though, no matter what excuses come bubbling up out of the oilpatch, that we are running out of oil--which sort of makes the whole thing moot. I don't think you'll hear anyone oily admit that for another five or ten years: I hope to Christ it won't be too late when they do. But I bet next year's Katrina and Rita will drive the price of gas even higher, say, to $3.00 a liter.

The end result of spiralling oil prices, I predict, will be a total paradigm shift in the Canadian economy. You'll see local economies rather than national or multinational ones. That, ultimately, will be a good thing, fostering a sense of community that is largely lacking in today's society.

In the meantime, my best advice is to buy a bike. Or a transit pass: public transit is a great deal right now, since their fuel costs are hugely subsidized. Buy something, anyway, because sooner or later you won't have a choice.