The cartoons have not been so funny in the Monitor of late, but there is some wry “humor” in the Letters to the Editor. Reading politically-driven outlandish theories and “reasoning” about oil prices is entertaining, if not a bit concerning. The most recent is a claim that the high prices of oil are driven by the administration’s drive to impact climate change. Without, of course, citing any Executive Order, legislation, or court ruling in substantiation. Some of the verifiable causes of high oil prices are 1) Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia have taken a major world supplier off the market, especially in Europe. (The U.S. only gets 3% of its oil from Russia). 2) Logistics tangles caused by the pandemic (which created periodic commodity shortages across the board. Remember toilet paper?) 3) The refusal of OPEC to increase output to sustain or even increase profits.
Anyone who can remember the oil price spikes and gas lines in 1973 knows first-hand the impact of OPEC actions. Russia is a voting member. 4) Corporate decisions by the oil companies themselves to be slow to increase output, citing risk of glut-driven surpluses akin to the ones they faced at the outset of the pandemic should the war precipitously end, or the pandemic prove not to be over. We should be treating Letters to the Editor as pure opinion, even entertainment, (including this one!), providing stimulus to some thoughtful research into issues, using multiple sources to make personal decisions versus reading someone else’s interpretation/bias.
Jon Pearse
Concord