View From Lodi CA: The Sunday Night Drive Remembered

When I was a

young boy growing up in

Los Angeles, one of the summer`s major events was
the Sunday night after dinner family drive along the
Pacific Ocean via

Highway1 to watch the sunset.

My

mother and

father, my two sisters and I all piled into

the Oldsmobile. Our route varied but one thing
remained the same. Before returning home, we stopped at
the wonderful

Will Wright`s Ice Cream parlor.

For a host of reasons, few
Southlanders today indulge in the family drive.

For one because of traffic,
driving—or inching along until you mercifully reach your
destination— isn`t much fun.

Second, families don`t eat meals
together anymore.

Third, the

Baskin-Robbins chain knocked Will Wright`s out of
business decades ago.

And fourth and most importantly
with gas prices at their record levels, who can afford
such a frivolous use of fuel?

Pump prices are America`s number
one topic. At the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend,
I filled up for $3.93. Yesterday, ten days later, I paid
$4.33.

Every passing day, retail gasoline
prices reach new record levels.

What`s going on? Who can we
believe? When will it end?

Speaking from the perspective of
someone who over the course of his professional career
has worked for three Fortune 100 companies, and has in
the process built up a healthy skepticism for corporate
trickery, even I am amazed at the skillfulness with
which

Big Oil deflects responsibility.

For months Americans have been told
that the soaring price of oil is the result of the Iraq
War, market speculation, a

weak dollar, insurgent attacks on Nigerian oil
facilities, Norwegian labor problems or the current
favorite excuse, high demand in China and other emerging
nations.

Shell Oil`s president John
Hofmeister repeated the mantra for the umpteenth time
during last month`s obligatory Congressional hearings
when he said: “As repetitive and uninteresting as it
may sound, the fundamental laws of supply and demand are
at work.” [The
Same Old Song on High Gas Prices, By David M.
Herszenhorn, New York Times, May 23, 2008]

Oil
companies know they can count on their friends in high
places, the White House, to continue to stick it to the
American people.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave Big Oil an
assist when he declared that the culprit is indeed
supply and demand. [Paulson:
Oil/Demand, Supply Cause for Price Rise,
Reuters, Emily Kaiser, Joanne Morrison, May 22,
2008]

Oil
executives are united in their opinions on what is
not needed: nationalization, any new tax on
corporate profits which, they claim, would put American
companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease
oil supply, a temporary suspension of the federal

gas tax which would, they allege, increase demand
and only raise prices more and lawsuits against

OPEC nations that would do nothing to lower prices.

The one
question that the oil executives refuse to answer
honestly, preferring instead to surround their already
couched responses with smoke and mirrors, is if are they
guilty of profiteering.

Of the three
major companies I worked for, two were major financial
institutions that were forever focused on their
corporate clients` “net profit“.

And Exxon
Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil, Chevron and BP, the
five largest U.S. oil companies, registered an
eye-popping 2008 first quarter aggregate $36 billion net
profit.

“Net“—that
means after meeting all the expenses for dousing the
ever-present refinery fires, reinvesting in gas and oil
field exploration and all the other sundry causes given
for retail price increases.

Oil
executives may not want to reply to the charges of price
gouging.

But I will.
Without any question, the multimillionaires who manage
big oil have raked us over the coals. No end is in
sight.

By the way,
let me offer a closing note on the evening sunset drive.

A couple of
years ago, to my great pleasure, I resumed the practice.
And after a

critical 2007 illness forced me to take a year off,
I took it up again this summer, gas prices be damned.

What I
learned while I was sick is much more important than
paying more for your gasoline: you never know how many
sunsets you may have left to appreciate.

Joe Guzzardi [email
him], an instructor in English
at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly
column since 1988. It currently appears in the

Lodi News-Sentinel.