Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply."

Oh crap.

Let's start with the facts.  The "crack spread", or the difference between a barrel of oil and what gasoline sells for from that oil, is at all-time narrows.  What causes this?  Simple - refiners know that if they try to get their traditional margin people will buy less and they lose.  So they're narrowing their margins!

What does this means to you?  It means you're paying less for gasoline right now than you should be on historical measures, compared to the price of oil.

Now do you really think that government can do this job at a lower margin?  Pull the other kids.  Government does this and the price of gasoline will probably go up by $1/gallon!

Now there is a "black swan"!

Let me be clear - opening the continental shelf to offshore drilling will not immediately solve our energy problems.  Standing alone, it makes only a temporary dent in the problem.  As I have pointed out before in Musings, we have to put forward and prosecute a full solution to this problem, because whether oil is biotic (as most scientists think) or aboitic (as some believe) the fact remains that we're drawing it out of the earth at a rate which guarantees depletion.  This doesn't mean that "we're going to run out!" but it does mean that the cheap, easy oil has been extracted and the average cost of extracting a barrel from the ground is only going to go higher over time.  Since energy is an absolute requirement to grow and maintain GDP, we better get this sorted out or we are headed for some severe pain.

You want worse?  FHA is (again) trying to kill "down payment assistance".  This needed to die years ago but it keeps on going like the damn Energizer Bunny, and there are "non profits" who have a metric ton of business coming off this lobbying like crazy to keep it.

Absolutely nothing, by the way, has changed a bit with regards to Fannie and Freddie underlying this entire market.  If anything its getting worse, as The Senate appears hellbent on passing their $300 billion "let's bail everyone out" bill.

Mark my words - somehow all this crap will end up guaranteed by the taxpayer.  All of it.  It will blow up and it will result in at least a trillion worth of damage to the Public Balance Sheet.

Huntsman Chemical's deal appears to be blowing up:

"June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc., a unit of Apollo Management LP, sued to cancel its $10.6 billion acquisition of Huntsman Corp. because banks probably won't provide debt financing. Huntsman stock plunged.

Huntsman's net debt has increased and its earnings were lower than expected since the companies agreed to merge in July, Columbus, Ohio-based Hexion said today in a statement.