1 You don't have a clue about the petro-dollar-cycle, do you, Mr. Jones? The Arabs took $252 billion in 2005 for OPEC's oil and put back $311 billion by purchasing U.S. Treasury bills. It's one heck of a deal for this Administration. All the goodies, from nuclear subs to tax cuts to war in Mesopotamia, appear to be "free" to the taxpayer. It's all just put on the tab, the national debt, including the interest on it. The cash money needed to pay the government contractors is first collected from U.S. consumers via the hidden oil tax for which Mr. Bush takes no blame. Because of Mr. Bush's deficits, U.S. federal government interest payments for 2002 through 2011 will total about $2.4 trillion. That's interest payments only. If we had to pay only the debts Bill Clinton left us, the interest payout would have been just a fourth of that, $622 billion. Mr. Bush's interest payments themselves are on the tab as well, rolled into the national debt. Anyway, petro-dollars are "taxes" collected from consumers at the gas pump, sent to the Middle East, and then they flow back into the U.S. as government debt so that W. Bush has the cash to pay the incredible profit-making machine Erik Prince runs in North Carolina called BlackWaterUSA. Now do you see how higher gas prices are effectively a Bush Administration tax increase on Americans? Don't expect gas prices to fall very much while Bush continues to militate his way in the Middle East. After all, BlackWaterUSA doesn't accept government credit cards and there are an estimated 100,000 private mercenary soldiers serving as "coalition partners" in Iraq. Note: The expression "petro-dollar-cycle" was coined by Greg Palast at gregpalast.com

2 Did you miss the fact that gas prices went DOWN?

3 Check out http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_tt_usW.htm Average price of gas was $1.51/gallon when Bush took office and now it is $3.12/gallon. After the price doubles for the duration of the Iraq War you want to have a celebration parade because the price drops a nickel for the past one week? $2.4 trillion in debt interest payments alone and you want to celebrate a 5-cent blip in the price of gasoline? Well, I guess 5 is bigger than 2.4 ...

4 Wow. The concept of irony is lost on you, isn't it?

5 Well, uh, yeah, i guess so... i'm a techie nerd and not very good at reading between the lines. i thought you were being sarcastic, like me :-) so what are you really saying about gas prices and H.C. pandering?? do you have a different theory about the connection Greg Palast makes between gas prices and foreign ownership of U.S. debt? could our government continue its mind-boggling spending spree without foreign financing?

6 Okay, here was my point: Every time gas prices go up, the media, Democrats, and others with Bush Derangement Syndrome always yell and scream that it's Bush and the evil Republicans' fault that prices have risen. However, for some reason, when prices drop, they NEVER claim that it's Bush and the evil Republicans' fault. It seems that prices fall based on market pressure, but only rise when Bush demands them to. I was pointing out the usual hypocrisy of the left.

7 Thanks. Now i don't feel so dumb. I got the connection between blaming Bush when prices go up but no commentary when prices drop. But i jumped into my own theory on gas prices without acknowledging the point you were making. well, i didn't create the "petro-dollars cycle" theory; i just read it and it seems logical to me. i was hoping to get a take from somebody else if they see a flaw in the "petro-dollars cycle" theory (where cash is extracted from taxpayers at the gas pump and deposited into the U.S. treasury by Middle East royal families so the federal government has tons of cash money to SPEND _without_ raising taxes -- nice trick, huh?) i know the left has its usual biases and wonder if the "no new taxes" bias of the right blinds them from seeing other ways the government takes money from the governed to pay the bills for those who run the government (not necessarily our president and members of congress). i enjoy your wit and irony -- it's very refreshing to read someone making a political point without bitterness and disrespect for the other side. Greg Palast is an entertaining writer like you, too, except he's an investigative reporter for BBC, so i guess that makes him a "lefty".

8 Of course I have what I've been told is a "strange" view of the government. I believe that ANY time they get more money, that's a tax increase -- and I don't care what they call it or how they get the money! I'll read up on that "petro-dollar" and see what I can find, thanks for sending the link along.

9 I was just trying to find a connection between increased gas prices and increased government spending. Maybe it's not a direct cause & effect; maybe gas price increases are just an enabler that makes increased government spending possible. (After all, Eric Price demands cash on the barrel head, not T-bills, as payment for his private military forces.) Then again, it may be "innocent fraud" as described in John Kenneth Galbraith's 60-page 2004 book titled "The Economics of Innocent Fraud." Not every absurd reality is caused by deliberate, corrupt stealing from taxpayer; some can be explained by blind acceptance of "conventional wisdom" such as beauracracy exists only in government and never in corporate management and that "market forces" will always do right for everybody...

10 Of course realize that when government raises the taxes on gasoline (as Democrats are trying to do both in the NC Legislature and the US Congress), then they HAVE more money to spend, too!

11 Perhaps you are missing my point. The government HAS more money to spend WITHOUT raising taxes. The $250 billion cash money gasoline consumers send to OPEC royal families comes back into the hands of government when the royals buy $300 billion of U.S. T-bills. $300 billion is spent and Bush did not raise anyone's taxes. The question is -- where else is the government going to get that kind of money to spend?

12 Indeed they do -- but they continue to raise the taxes anyway! It is quite interesting that you point out how the cash is laundered through the Saudi families. It sure would explain why we're so friendly with that country and why Congress refuses to allow oil companies to build more refineries or drill for oil in America...

13

14 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Diovan_b5 Buy Diovan 70560

15 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Effexor XR_0 Buy Effexor XR 12503257256

16 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Fosamax_35 Buy Fosamax

17 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Lantus_85 Lantus kmx

18 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Nasonex_8 Buy Nasonex 9043422

19 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Lantus_85 Buy Lantus 949

20 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Acomplia_3a Buy Acomplia

21 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Rimonabant_44 Rimonabant 371

22 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Valium_1d Valium 805

23 http://showhype.com/profile/Buy_Norvasc_fc Buy Norvasc 4037

24 http://www.treemo.com/users/JohnPetterson/profile/ Adipex

25 http://www.treemo.com/users/QuentinThompson/profile/ Discount Viagra http://www.treemo.com/users/JohnPetterson/profile/ Adipex

26 and http://curezone.com/ig/i.asp?i=37562 viagra and

27 and http://curezone.com/ig/i.asp?i=37559 cialis and

28 and http://curezone.com/m/profile.asp?un=buyviagracheap buy viagra and