Review: A Call to Action
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 23, 2014
As a former truck driver, this book immediately captured my interest as I have seen the ridiculous prices of diesel fuel drive trucking companies and owner/operators out of business. When it got to the point where I was paying over a thousand dollars to fill the tanks on my truck which carried 220 gallons, I was thankful to be a company driver. In "Gas at $1.25 per Gallon", Bob Rice peels away the wool that Washington, D.C., Wall Street, and bankers have been pulling over our eyes for more than a decade.Mr. Rice does not bombard the reader with a long laundry list of so-called "qualifications" to write a book with such a lofty goal as defining a solution to quickly lowering gas prices. Rather, he allows his commonsensical approach to highlight his understanding of the problem which alleviates the need for him to boast about qualifications. His writing reveals an intelligent, concerned citizen who has spent countless hours of research to "qualify" himself. He proves his qualification with insight and perspicacity, not with empty claims.Rice aptly points out that gas prices remained largely unchanged between 1977 and 1999 before soaring to almost (and in some cases more than) five times that amount in the years since. He then provides straightforward and eye-opening answers to the simple question: "Why?"For years, the government and the media has fed the public with the notion that high crude oil prices are based on global supply and demand. According to this theory, oil markets sell their product all over the world at the price set in the international oil market. As an international commodity, oil is priced on an international basis...according to supply and demand. The media pundits would have us believe that demand increases as the world's economies recover from the recent slump, and powerful developing economies, like China, increase the demand even more. However, Rice calls this demand "artificial" and offers a compelling theory as to why he believes it is investment bankers and brokers in the crude oil futures or swaps markets that primarily determine the worldwide price of crude oil.While Rice certainly vilifies politicians, Congress, and investment bankers, he spreads the blame rather evenly and fairly in a time when partisan name-calling has become almost fashionable. This book contains its share of finger-pointing, but that aspect is overshadowed by the author's sincere desire to offer a solution...and that is precisely the point of this book.Whether Rice makes his case will be for the reader to decide, but this reader found his argument fascinating, well thought out, and angering. Mr. Rice seeks to do more than expose this ruse for what he believes it to be; he seeks a call to action. Moreover, he drafts a blueprint for how the average citizen can TAKE action. Bravo!