Bursting the oil bubble - Making a buck off $5 gas

By now, readers of this column should know I'm from Boston. I've also lived in New York and San Francisco in recent years, but never more than a short walk or subway ride from work. So I never needed to own a car. Also, I was the 5th of 6 kids in a working-class household, so I never needed to worry about being given a car. When I got older there was a brief period when I thought I wanted a car to impress the ladies, but I wasted so much time and money in pursuit of (or for the mistake of) parking that it wasn't worth it. I did just as well with my natural charm, rugged good looks, and a cab. Then I came to Los Angeles where the car is king and everywhere is 20 minutes from everywhere else, depending on traffic. There is no subway, only the freeway, but it is far from free since it costs five bucks per gallon to get on.

I gave up public transportation when I became an Angeleno (not like I had a choice), and my love/hate relationship with my city has developed at almost the exact same pace as my love/hate relationship with my car. This isn't like the good old days when I worried mainly about the parking tickets I'd get after I arrived somewhere. This is a brave new world where any trip is preceded by a series of calculations including miles per gallon, tire pressure, traffic flow, estimated idle time, and (most importantly) whether or not I could find a suitable alternative in Santa Monica. All because of $5 gasoline. I know it’s not there yet, but it's over $4.50, the next stop is $5, and there is no end in sight. I put $10 worth of gas into my car and instead of moving, the gas gauge looks at me like I pulled the pump out prematurely and says, “is that all you’ve got?” It makes me feel inadequate and it causes me to pine for the days when ten dollars used to get me a quarter-tank. You know, way back in 2007.

When the price of oil and the price of gasoline both double over the course of about a year, my natural inclination is to wonder why. Some say it’s a classic supply-and-demand issue. They’re wrong. There hasn’t been enough of a drop in supply or a jump in demand over the last year to explain these prices. The spike can’t be blamed on the political climates in Venezuela, Nigeria, or Iran; and don’t let anyone tell you it’s the Saudis’ fault, either. The Saudis are investing almost $100 billion to increase their daily output by about 25%. Compare that to American oil companies (who spent their record profits buying back stock to boost per-share income, not investing in new sources of energy) and you’ll see that like any good drug dealer, the Saudis don’t want their favorite addict and best customer to get serious about alternative sources of energy. They’re happy to sell us more oil. At $140 per barrel, why wouldn’t they be?

The problem, as best I can tell, is Wall Street. Once again, speculation by investors looking to make a fast buck has gotten out of control and has led to some people having to spend almost 15% of their income on fuel costs. The same way investors looking to capitalize on the internet gave us the tech bubble and investors looking to capitalize on real estate gave us the housing bubble, investors looking to capitalize on energy have given us the oil bubble and the disgusting mental image that goes along with it. But unlike the tech bubble and the housing bubble, you don’t have to have money in the stock market or own a home for this one to hurt you. If you use a vehicle to get to work or use a vehicle to do your work, this bubble is taking money directly out of your pocket. And since just about everything you see, touch, or come in contact with came to you on a truck, the increased cost to fuel those trucks is passed on to you at the point of sale and (wait for it) also comes directly out of your pocket. Don’t you just love deregulation?

I still walk to work every day, but I’ve dusted off the ride-bumming skills that served me so well through high school. My car sits in its spot, waiting to be called up for active duty. I don't drive it, despite the hundreds of dollars I pay every month to own it, because no matter how much money I put in the tank, the gas gauge only moves enough to mock me.

So long, Hillary - Good riddance to the Clinton's

I’ve had an independent streak my whole life. My first election was in 1980. I went to the polling place with my father and voted for Independent candidate John Anderson, then we went to Brigham’s for Lime Rickeys. Nobody looked at me funny, despite the fact that I was in elementary school at the time.

In my first real election, I voted for Bill Clinton. I was sure President Bush’s “New World Order” was going to get me drafted so I ignored the rumors about Clinton’s “appetites,” though I shouldn’t have (the stories of skirt-chasing foreshadowed him showing little Bubba to Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office). I voted for him again in ‘96, but remained a registered Independent. The Democratic party just isn’t big enough for me and a President who doesn’t have the common sense to know that an intern who would show him her thong is too crazy to be anywhere near the White House.

Thankfully, their 16-year lease on the party is up and the Clinton brand is as dead as Arthur Andersen Accounting. This election will not be a referendum on Bill Clinton despite he and his wife’s best efforts. They figured there was enough brand loyalty inside the Democratic party to allow her to coast to victory, but don’t get it twisted - most of her supporters were voting for the “Clinton” in her name, not the “Hillary.” They either forgot or blocked out the fact that the Lewinsky episode made the Clinton name so toxic that Al Gore couldn’t say it out loud during the 2000 campaign.

Hillary’s gone back to the bottom of the totem pole in the Senate where she belongs as a carpetbagging second-term junior Senator. But unlike what she did when her husband publicly disgraced their family in front of the entire world, I’m not giving her a pass for the way she ran her campaign – or her authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

She never considered the possibility that she wouldn’t be the Democratic nominee and she had no post-February 5th strategy because she assumed the race would be over by then. She thought Democrats all over the country were sitting around waiting for their chance to vote for her, and she would ride a wave of wins from Iowa to the convention. Imagine her surprise when she not only didn’t win Iowa, but came in an embarrassing third place. She must have been desperate when Barack opened up a ten-point lead in New Hampshire days later. It was supposed to be her “firewall” state, but it took the water of her own tears (and $5 million of her own dollars) for her to squeak out a 7,600-vote win.

She had to know that if Bill Richardson had dropped out of the race before New Hampshire instead of after, Barack would have gotten enough votes to finish her off. If she didn’t know it then, she had to know it after he won 23-of-34 contests in February; because there she was on February 21st “absolutely honored” to be on stage with our next President.

Then something changed. She thought a win in Ohio would revive her campaign, so she decided to get tough and throw everything but the “kitchen sink” at him. She leaked pictures of him in African garb to Drudge and wouldn’t unequivocally say he wasn’t a Muslim on “60 Minutes.” She praised John McCain’s experience and compared Barack’s to George W. Bush’s. She angrily said “shame on you, Barack Obama” over a healthcare mailer, though in five years she never found the toughness to make the same statement to the President over Iraq. And it almost worked.

She won the battle of Ohio, but lost the war for public opinion. By May, the media was saying out loud what she’s known since January: Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. She was forgiven for breaking the first rule of primary politics (don’t give the other side anything to use in the general election) and the only question was what is it going to take for her to get out and endorse him? When she said, “I will be making no decisions tonight,” in her non-concession speech last Tuesday, that was the last straw. It took the entire New York delegation and a secret meeting with Barack at Dianne Feinstein’s house to get one simple message through her thick skull: THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU!

She’s gone now, thank God, and the story has a happy ending for everyone. When her Senate career is over in 2012, she can retire to Chappaqua with hundreds of millions of dollars to keep her company. Bill can get back on Ron Burkle’s jet and fly off into the sunset with Gina Gershon or Eleanor Mondale, and with the party firmly in the hands of President Barack Obama, I can finally register as a Democrat. If only there was a Brigham’s in Santa Monica, I’d celebrate with a Lime Rickey.

Celtic pride runs deep - The new Big Three

The NBA Finals start tomorrow with the Lakers facing my beloved Celtics. I know that ever since the Lakers started four future Hall of Famers and still lost to the Detroit Pistons in 2004, the Finals are a touchy subject in this town. It was after that loss team owner Dr. Jerry Buss decided to give the franchise to Kobe Bryant and since then, the Lakers have consistently had their season ended by better teams. Sorry to break it to you, Lakers fans, but this year won’t be any different. You may have the best player in the league, the Celtics have the best team. And despite what Kobe and Jerry Buss think, basketball is a team sport and it takes more than one great player to win a championship.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I’m a card-carrying member of the Kobe Hater’s Club. I have been since he was a 17-year-old high school senior and announced before the 1996 NBA draft that he would only play for the Lakers. It was like having a teenager tell his parents he would only get a driver’s license if he could take his road test in a Porsche.

Kobe’s been trying to hijack the franchise ever since. After that Finals loss in 2004, he forced the organization to choose between himself and Shaq O’Neal, the most dominant force in the NBA at the time and the reason (along with coach Phil Jackson) the Lakers won three straight championships between 2000 and 2002. That caused Jackson to realize that his girlfriend’s dad, Dr. Buss, was pounding the Kobe-flavored Kool-Aid, and retire to his spread in Montana for a year (that season, the Lakers missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade). It would take $10 million per year for Buss to get him back on the court with the star player Jackson once called “uncoachable.” With no veteran free agents willing to play with him and no proven coach willing to work with him, it was a “Kobe Tax” Dr. Buss had to pay if he ever wanted to see the post-season again. The Lakers made the playoffs each of the next two years, losing in the first round to the Phoenix Suns and their superior team play both times. As a Celtics fan and member of the KHC, I loved it.

That led to yet another Kobe hijacking of the franchise last summer. Not happy with the power to name his own coach and his teammates, he wanted the power to hire his General Manager. Specifically, he wanted to be traded if Jerry West wasn’t brought back and put in charge of personnel (maybe he realized it was a mistake to run Shaq out of town). To his credit, Dr. Buss finally said, “it’s my team, kid, not yours,” and stuck by GM Mitch Kupchack. It’s a move that has worked out until now. Despite the fact that the Lakers started this season with only two guys who have hit big shots in big games (Kobe and Derek Fisher), they somehow finished with the best record in the Western Conference. In the playoffs, Kobe’s individual brilliance was enough to beat the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz (two teams with one great player between them), but it took a little help from the refs to get past the reigning champion San Antonio Spurs. I can’t blame the NBA for wanting a Lakers/Celtics Finals and as a member of the KHC, I can’t wait to watch Kobe leave the court in defeat at the same time my Celtics return to glory. It will almost make up for the hell that was my Super Bowl week; a subject that is too painful to talk about, much less write about.

I hope it will make Lakers fans feel better to know that the guys who will be breaking their hearts in these Finals are truly great players and even better people. Boston’s three superstars, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett are every bit as fun to watch as the Lakers’ lone star, but with a healthy dose of gratitude and without Kobe’s annoying sense of entitlement (I told you I’m a hater).

Allen is no stranger to Hollywood, having starred opposite Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” and is such a nice guy that he’s impossible to root against even as he rains perfect dagger-in-the-heart jump shots on whichever eastern European player is trying to guard him. Garnett will mumble motivational obscenities to himself while dominating Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom under the basket. He doesn’t care about his $26 million per year salary, he’s still upset with himself if he doesn’t play every possession perfectly. The real star, though, is Pierce. Drafted by Boston ten years ago, he was literally on his deathbed before the 2000 season, having been stabbed eleven times in the face, neck, and back in a nightclub. He still started every game that season. Like Kobe, he can score from anywhere and defend anyone. Unlike Kobe, he went to college where he learned to be a great teammate and share the ball. Unlike Kobe, he has played his entire career against defenses designed to stop him. And, as a graduate of Inglewood High, he might be the only person happier than me when the Celtics (once again) BEAT L.A.!