‘Oil Prices, Companies’ Merger

Re “Crude Oil and Gas Prices Hit Historic Lows,” Dec. 1: How can you publish, “Adjusted for inflation, oil and gasoline prices are now at their cheapest levels”? What a bunch of oil industry propaganda! Gas still costs $1.25 a gallon. Do I get to “adjust” my checkbook for inflation when I pay the gas card bill? Stop trying to make me feel good about oil companies gouging us at the pumps. If you have not heard, there has been little or no inflation for the past five or six years (according to the holy keeper of the stats, our federal government) and the price of a barrel of oil is falling like a rock, due to a massive glut. Yet the price of a gallon of gas is still over $1.20, which is the price it was last year when crude was going for $23 a barrel. It seems the price of gas never comes down as fast as it goes up.

TOM NEFCY

Calabasas

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In disparaging the Mobil-Exxon merger, Alexander Cockburn (Commentary, Dec. 2) warns that the resulting concentration of economic power will defeat market forces, which have dropped the price of oil to a historic low.

It appears that Cockburn, forever an advocate of Bolshevism, has opened the collectivist fist to shake Adam Smith’s “hidden hand.”

J.A. LOWE

Alta Loma

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Re “Exxon, Mobil Reportedly Talk Mega-Merger,” Nov. 26:

The U.S. federal government announced a friendly takeover of all local governments today. Responding to critics, the Feds stated that the new merger would be a boon to all citizens, offering more services, lower taxes and a more “personal” form of governing. Resistance by rural citizens was essentially quashed as predawn raids by the National Guard and armed forces effected a cleanup of what the president termed “anti-patriots.”

In an unrelated story, the Vatican announced a bold plan to “unite all Christians under one ‘blessed umbrella.’ ”

FREDERICK CLEVELAND

Hollywood