Saturday Is For Art

I thought about posting my latest of the "Level Playing Field" pieces that I have been working on, but I am too tired. Besides, I would rather wait until I am finished before I post. This morning I will post a few of the "Level Playing Field" pieces I have done and call it a day.

I, like a lot of people, am glad to see the price of gasoline coming down. Over a year ago I wrote to friends of my concern that $4 a gallon gasoline would cause our domestic economy a great deal of trouble. Some would argue that the Bush Administration did the right thing to stay out of the problem by not selling oil from our government held petroleum reserves. I am not sure, given the other financial problems the country was facing, that making no attempt to enter the market and sell or making the threat to sell oil would not have been a better way to go. Long before the banks and their credit and investment problems entered the scene, the ever increasing price of gasoline was presenting a hardship in the form of a tax on most Americans. If the price of oil was going up because of international demand from China, India and the Middle East, where is that demand now? The Bush Administration, in my opinion, could have done more than sit on their hands when the price of gasoline started to shoot up, but that would have been counter to their political philosophy of letting the markets take care of themselves. We have seen what happens when markets are left to take care of themselves. Even the old central banker, Mr. Alan Greenspan, has seen and learned what happens when markets are left to take care of themselves. Government has a role to play and the federal government does play a role, it is just a matter of what kind of role they play and whose side do they play for.