Gasoline Prices, Energy and Rich Guys

The price of gasoline has gone through the roof again. We paid $2.89/gallon on Broadway today, for the mid-grade stuff. Pundits are looking at inflation indicators...because when gasoline goes up so dramatically, so does the price of everything else - from produce to computers, and clothing to furniture. This is a bad thing for all of us, except for perhaps Lee Raymond, the Exxon Chairman who will be retiring with a $400 million dollar parachute. Even Vice President Dick Cheney waltzed out of energy firm, Halliburton with a $20 million dollar retirement deal.

With energy prices the way they are, it's more than a little funny that two of the Commonwealth's richest guys, Senator Ted Kennedy and Governor Mitt Romney, are opposed to the wind turbines on the Cape. The Massachusetts Maritime Academy just installed them and officials there are calling them a "money machine." Money machine? That sounds like a good thing! We'd put one in the backyard if it would fit...