When a country relies solely on confidence in faith in it's currency for it to maintain it's value, as has happened here since the we went of the gold standard under Nixon, ANOTHER Republican I'm sorry to say, and it spends and prints more money than ever in history (taking into account inflation mind you), that currency is destined to lose value.

The price of gas (and everything else for that matter), which we have for years held to a minimum, has risen through the roof. And while everyone keeps saying that China, India and other emerging countries are to blame, combined with the speculators, I believe it has more to do with how the world views our currency.

Imagine if you will the value of the dollar vs. the Euro since President Bush took office. When he first entered the White House, it cost Europeans 1.21 worth of Euros to buy a US dollar. Today it costs them .69 cents to buy a US dollar. The dollar has lost about .52 cents in world trade dollars.

That's quite a bit of buying power that the US Dollar has lost during his tenure.

So with the Bush's policy of One World and with international trade getting all the breaks combined with our losing our ability to compete because of his other policies which have caused factories and companies to flee our borders for other, cheaper labor, and less taxes, we're SOL.

Add to that with Bush's "compassionate conservatism" by attempting but failing to appease the Democrats with his unbelievable spending spree and buying influence, oh baby, we're REALLY SOL.

While the oil companies are being blamed by politicians and the gullible public for getting record profits, they don't take into account that the cost per barrel of oil for those same oil companies has shot through the roof due to Bush's policies and the sinking dollar. The same barrel of oil which until he took office which was around 28 bucks each now costs over 140 dollars per.

With our currency worth about 1/2 of what it did when Bush took the helm, a gallon of gas which cost about 1.50 when Bush took over now would cost about 2.90 by the shrinking dollar alone. Add to that the emerging countries and the speculators, and you get the rest of the cost.

So if the dollar HADN'T shrunk the emerging countries and speculators would make the price around 2.80 a gallon.

And it has hit here with of a vengeance. And this I fear is just the beginning. When the Democrats take over it WILL get worse.