As usual, when you leave the office, all hell breaks loose. I really didn’t leave the office but I did go out of town for a few days. I spent some time with the family. While I was gone, Andre Agassi loses and Tiger wins, again. The US Olympic team again proves that putting a bunch of superstars together may not be the best way to play international basketball. The war in Iraq drags on. The Bush administration continues to throw sticks at Iran. The Iranian government throws stones back at us. UN peacekeepers move into southern Lebanon with no real hope of being able to keep the peace.
As I traveled to Texas, the amount of holiday traffic was remarkably light. Planes that were normally packed, were relatively empty. It will be interesting to find out what the final numbers were of the Americans that traveled over the Labor Day holiday but I suspect the amount of traveling once decreased over years past.
On another note, what is up with the gas prices? We were told that gas prices were getting ready to continue to climb above $3.50 a gallon. But yet, in recent days, the price of gas has decreased significantly. Why? The British petroleum pipeline is still broken in Alaska. There is still instability in the Middle East. No new refineries have been built in United States. These were all given his reasons for increasing gas prices. If anything, the rhetoric between the United States and Iran has increased. Thus threatening a major world supplier of oil. Maybe, all of the reasons that we’ve been given for the increase in price of oil has been a smokescreen. The real reason may be something incredibly simple – greed. I don’t know, I’m just guessing.
