Here's an idea

Running will resume shortly.  Finals coming up, no time to think about anything other than stats…  more later.

 

But meanwhile, I’ve got a novel idea…

Rather than bitching and moaning about rising gas prices and coming up with the uber-ignorant idea of a “windfall tax” on a company that’s simply doing what a company should do, and doing it exceptionally well (unless you’re willing to offer a “shortfall refund” for when they fall on their faces), why not buy stock in an oil company or two?

It’s not ridiculously expensive—just a couple of tanks of gas, really.  Or you can take that big, fat bribe, er, rebate you’re getting from your Uncle and buy up some Exxon or Shell shares.  That way, every time you pump gas you can think to yourself “Hooray!  More money for those fat cat owners of the world’s most successful company among whom I am included in their number!!”  They pay dividends each quarter, so that’ll help offset some of the cost of gas, plus as the value goes up you can just sit back and count all that money you’re going to have rolling in.  Then maybe you’d have a clue about risk/return on investment and you wouldn’t be so excited when idiot politicians talk about penalizing good companies for doing well.

 

Oh, and sell your gas-guzzling road hog Suburban Assault Vehicle, morons.  If you have a problem with putting $100 in your tank every week, howabout stop putting $100 in your tank every week…  I don’t think I’ve put $100 in my tank all month, but then again, I wasn’t so short sighted to believe that gas was going to stay at historically low levels forever, home prices would always increase 20% each year, and the stock market would always return 15% every year.

 

Things aren’t so bad.  Sure, they’re not great, but it’s not like we didn’t make this bed with overspending, over extending credit, and underpreparing for when rain does, inevitably, fall.  America, while you’re lying in this bed you made, maybe think about changing some habits, working toward building wealth instead of pissing away everything you bring in, and making sensible use of resources.

 

But who am I kidding…  we’ll pull the sheets up over our head and wait for things to “get better”, then we’ll go back out to Sears and melt that plastic like there’s no tomorrow!!  Viva en esta momenta!!  Muerta manana!!