Thanks Hugo!

Thanks Hugo!

That Hugo…what a guy! He is hoping to get OPEC to cut production to prop up prices for oil. Fortunately, Hugo is stupid as a rock about economics. He can’t see that the recent spike in oil prices has now reduced demand broadly on two fronts. One is consumption of everything has been reduced because things cost more as a result of higher energy prices and people are forced to buy less. They pull back often leading to a recession with closing businesses which causes even more reduction in fuel consumption. Secondly, millions of people like me already took the opportunity during the last spike to get more fuel efficient. My Ford 150 is almost always parked and my diesel I bought second hand for $1,500 gets twice the mileage of the truck! That’s from now on no matter what the price of fuel. So every week now I’m using half the fuel that I used to just like millions of others around the world. My landlord took the opportunity to get us an energy efficient washer/dryer. Now we use less electric too. Adding to Hugo’s snakebite has been the warm eastern weather this year further reducing demand in this oil-burner region. Remember, there’s no money in holding oil. That actually costs money. The only time you can make money is by selling it at market. There’s no money in giving it away to Castro either. The Caracas Rainman doesn’t understand that either.

Tomás Estrada-Palma