by Ignacio Gutierrez

Created on: August 06, 2008

What is it about supply and demand that most people don't understand? Especially politicians such as Nancy Pelosi who are just "trying to save the planet" from neocons, big oil and other insipidly inspired boogey men in an attempt to sound like nothing gets by them? Is it really that difficult to do the math and realize that simply lifting the ban on offshore drilling has helped drop the price of oil? It has continued dropping since, and in cities throughout the country the price at the pump has dropped just the same.

It's tempting to label left leaning "intellectuals" as bone-headed morons who can't grasp what even high school teenagers understand from Economics 101. We're all in this together, and it doesn't help to look at our current energy woes as a partisan issue. But it's a bit frustrating when elected officials who should know better refuse to understand how futures markets operate and accuse speculators of driving up oil prices when in actuality congressional regulations are more to blame by limiting oil production on the very land politicians claim oil "barons" are simply sitting on.

However, let's start with supply and demand.

When there is a large demand for a good, and its supply is scarce, price goes up. But if said supply increases, price goes down. Simple right? Sure, it's not as provocatively profound as Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of Nancy Pelosi's favorite authors, which she simply raves about according to politico.com. But that irrefutable concept is much more relevant to the cost of living for millions of people. Particularly when it comes to increasing our domestic oil supply by drilling off our shores and in areas such as ANWAR and easing us off OPEC.

But she's just trying to save the planet. Sure, by fashioning herself as an author whose books barely crack the top 800 on Amazon.com. How about paying a little closer attention to the job she was actually voted into, which consequently is paid by our tax dollars? Not that it should matter considering her husband is well worth over $20 million. Perhaps if she took the time to read how our economy actually works instead, the price of oil would significantly drop further and ease the burden on transportation which affects the price of food too.

Yes, gas and food are actually related in more ways than one. But it's understandable this fact would go over someone's head while reading One Hundred Years of Solitude on their five week vacation while trying to save the planet.

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