“Oil price rises to all-time high,” shouts the BBC banner and below it this:

Oil prices have climbed to a record high of $78.71 a barrel amid worries about whether oil supplies can meet global demand.

It is time for amateurs to take stock of this situation because who the hell trusts the oil industry? And who the hell trusts governments to tell us the truth any more?

When Bush invaded Iraq he did so with a promise that oil prices would come down: ‘as the Iraqis build up their production capacity, prices will drop.’ The reviled Wolfowitz is still occasionally visited on the screen telling us that increased Iraqi oil production would pay for its reconstruction — after the horrific shock and awe of US bombing.

Not quite, not quite by a long shot. Not only have oil prices rocketed ever since the start of that illegal war, but Iraq production capacity to deal with an increasingly world demand for an increasingly shorter supply … has dropped to lower than pre-Saddam levels.

Add to that the fact that the US military is the largest user of oil in the world and you get some sense of how totally screwed up this situation is. In fact, a case can be made that the US is using every drop of oil coming out of Iraq … in its military occupation of Iraq.

And then there are the oil companies, those monstrous behemoths answerable to no one but their stockholders which is nothing less than a license to rape and pillage at will.

And are they deliberately squeezing off supply to foster greater profits? The evidence seems to overwhelmingly say ‘yes:’ US oil hasn’t built a new oil refinery in the US since the 70’s; recent reports say that the current infrastructure at US refineries is seriously dilapidated and in immediate need of over-haul.

What is going on here? US oil has enjoyed unprecedented profits and received billions in federal subsidies and has even written Dick Cheney’s national energy policy. And it can’t keep its refineries, those remaining, in working order? What’s behind this? Why are the oil companies not investing in their own hardware? What are they doing with their profits? Is exploration really soaking up the treasure chests? Don’t think so.

And what about increasing demand? With reasonable intelligence, an oxymoron I know, the US should have foreseen the economic rise of China and India and the impact that would have on world-wide oil demand and prices.

I mean, if oil fires the economic engine in the West, might it not in the Developing world, too? And if so, a scarce resources gets even scarcer, doesn’t it? And doesn’t that scarcity becomes even more scarce when you bomb-out one of the world’s largest oil-supplying countries?

Why wasn’t all this predictable? There can only be one reasonable answer to this — outside of calling all leaders stupid: it was predictable. It has always been inevitable that the headlines would blare: “Oil price rises to all-time high,” as they have with increasing regularity.

But here’s the more interesting question: if all this was predictable, why wasn’t more effort put into to developing  alternative energy supplies? Wouldn’t that be an obvious and foreseeable necessity?

Can we be so stupid as to be caught with our energy pants down while all the time adding to global warming with the ever-increasing burning of fossil fuels?

No, we can’t. We simply can’t be that stupid. Something else is at play here, but what is it? I don’t know, but then, I’m naively honest.