Don’t worry about six-dollar-a-gallon gas. The president can sign an executive order demanding pumps be rebranded to deliver the juice in half-gallon increments. Swift, decisive action! A 50 percent drop in price! But since that would be swift and decisive, the president will probably stick with his original plan — a Task Force will look into the matter. This is slightly less efficacious than sending Jed Clampett out to shoot at some food and stumble across a pond of bubblin’ crude. (Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.) The Task Force will labor for weeks, investigating the strange and inscrutable forces at work here, breaking into subcommittees: Okay, you guys work on “supply,” you guys work on “demand,” and we’ll get back together next week to see if there’s any connection.
Why is gas high? Asian demand. Middle East instability — the Libyan conflict, at press time, has not been solved by the introduction of two Predators, nor have Qaddafi fighters melted away in terror upon hearing that Italian military advisers will assist the rebels. (You will want a loose fit in the sleeves of your uniforms, here, so that when you throw your arms up in surrender, there is not the chafing.) There’s the seasonal shift to summer-blend gas, mandated by one of those Clean Air Acts intended to make exhaust-pipe discharge indistinguishable from the breeze across an alpine meadow, and there’s the impact of an enervated, watered-down dollar. Real-world problems. Naturally, the president suspects speculators and other forms of warlocks who use their dark, alchemic powers to turn money into more money.
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