Dear Editor:

Bill Kennedy’s article, “We’re paying too much for gasoline” (LDN, June 17), presents more than enough substantiated data to arouse the public against the irresponsible manipulation in the oil futures stock market. The public should be made aware of manipulators and their intent. Are they friend or foe, or banks, or simply oil companies getting back on track for billions more in quarterly profits? In any case, how high can they go before reaching a price level capable of negating the gains being made in our economic recovery? Can we afford to start all over again at that point?

Kennedy is correct in stating that right now the United States is awash with surplus oil, with 100,000 barrels of oil being added to the surplus every day. “U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a ten-year low. Yet, manipulators have caused crude oil prices to climb more than 70 percent since mid-January.” Is supply-demand now irrelevant?

Gas, oil, and coal carry the ancient misnomer of “fossil” fuels. These hydrocarbon fuels were (and are still being) made in Earth’s interior in full accord with the laws of physics and chemistry via ongoing abiogenic processes, much in the same manner that created (and still creates) Earth’s oceans of water and its lands.

This well-substantiated knowledge has been known since the mid-1970s, and only now is slowly making progress in scientific and political circles in spite of the powerful opposition it faces daily. The blame rests squarely on shoulders of greed and advocates of the Big Bang myth.

Sincerely,

Alex A. Scarborough

LaGrange