Fascism should more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power
-Benito Mussolini
Estimated Prophet
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government."
-Thomas Jefferson
5.18.2004 Shameless
Could a spate of refinery mergers under the Bush Administration (reducing the number of refineries in America and allowing the top four a 67 percent share of the market on the west coast and control of 77 percent of the gasoline market on the east coast) worth 19.5 billion dollars be what is allowing our consumer gas prices to top two dollars a gallon?
As the article points out it may be easy enough for these energy concerns to lower gas prices by election time; they just need to refine more product- and being both major contributors to the Bush campaign as well as major beneficiaries I'm sure the can find it in their collective corporate hearts to do so. Record earnings for the first quarter ought to lessen the pain of lowering prices to ensure their benefactor's election. It seems counter-intuitive that if rising oil prices were the only reason for higher gas prices that oil company profits would skyrocket so.
