I love watermelon! It has to be a good one for me to love it. It has to be sweet. I had my first melon today. It was from the USA. It was sweet and crisp. A really good first watermelon. The problem was that it was $1.00 more than the first melon last year. The reason is obvious. Those melon trucks are paying twice as much for fuel than they were last year. This is affecting prices of all our goods, for trucks are primary shippers of food across the country.
This all brings me to another "hot" subject. Oil! Saudi Arabia showed their true colors this week in laughing in our faces when asked for more production. They love having this kind of economic control over the United States. Announced this week is that Iraq ( who we "defeated" in a couple of wars) has their oil production back to 2.4 million barrels a day. The Iraqi government is receiving a 15 billion dollar windfall to help in oil refinery production. Oil companies like Shell (Dutch owned) are lining up to bid on drilling for Iraqi oil. Add to this the U.S. Military is giving 100 million dollars a month to Iraqi businesses, adding 42,000 jobs to their economy, We are most definitely a good country to lose to in a war. Germany's economy surpasses ours, Japan is booming. Italy (well they are still Italy) . I am driving a Korean car! Our own oil production is at a fifty-year low. Maybe the solution would be to declare war on ourselves. End it quickly and send the relief. Just kidding. I am, however, deeply puzzled as to why some of those 2.4 million barrels aren't unloading at our refineries. The watermelon really was good. I seem to have a bad taste in my mouth. I don't think it was the melon.
