The Horse Speaks!

So, the government finally decided to address the gas issues we've all been struggling with. What did they say?

" Don't worry, there's not crisis. There is plenty of gas for everyone"

Okaaaay. Too late for me to believe them but the problem isn't there.

You see, the government is still not EXPLAINING why we started the year without gasoline. Oh, wait, that's not exactly true!

They also said it was all the Gas Distributor's fault.

What else is new?

And then they said it was because DEMAND had risen, particularly with the great number of motorcycles using up the gas lately.

Am I forgetting something?

...

Nope, I think that's it. Of course, nobody in this country, least of all the government, believes in Public Relations so I'm not surprised it took them all this time to even acknowledge that there was, not a crisis (see above), but at least public concern about energy and fuel in the first place!

But, back to the PR denial issue. The other reason I don't believe them is that a different, and, frankly, likely version of what is going on already out.

Last Saturday, an anonymous caller, claiming to work in the fuel industry, outlined for popular radio host/economist Kesner Pharel, what was going on backstage. Listen to him here. It starts at 58:50 of the recording.

(I have a copy saved in Real Player. Need to figure out how to podcast it)

For those who can't click through or in case the podcast is no longer available by the time you read this, here's what he said.

- First, we buy fuel exclusively from Hurricane Hugo's company. Meaning we are completely at his mercy. For the next 25 years, to boot. He apparently fired a lot of workers so if he can't sell us gas, we don't get gas.

- Second, the big tanker that usually brings the different fuels allegedly damaged the physical port and the owners are asking Texaco for one million USD. So Texaco doesn't have a contract with the government anymore and has stopped delivering. Shell took over but, not only do they not have a signed contract, they are using a smaller tanker to bring all the different fuels.

Bottom line: we're getting too little gas at irregular intervals.

Needless to say that neither the government nor the Gas Distributors has confirmed or denied these allegations (Boy, do I sound like a reporter/lawyer or what???)

This man didn't give his name so no way to know if this is true or not. But I like that he ended his call by saying that he spoke "words of truth". The above is soo simple, it might just be true!

The government would rather we believe that the gas distributors are delinquent and don't order gas regularly enough. Worse still, I heard on the news today that Hurricane Hugo wants us to pay cash whenever the barrel of crude falls under $50 US on the world market.

So while the big guys are [still] playing the blame game, people keep getting nasty surprises at the gas stations. Some aren't selling anything at all. My ride home from work stopped at two, one near the office, one near my house and they were both officially closed. Others have either regular or super but not both. Rumor has it that Diesel is about to dip into the red any day now.

According to the caller on the radio show, the tanker should come next Monday or Tuesday, instead of yesterday, the 27th. Meaning we're going to have another slooow week-end.

You know what pisses me off? That this same government has found FIVE MILLION DOLLARS US to contribute to the [half-way mythical] partial legislatives we're suppose to have mid-april. The international community will put up the other TWELVE MILLION needed to organize the vote.

Can't you tell how in synch we are? A real meeting of the minds.

Not.