A soaring oil price that’s breaking all records is hardly news these days, but what’s news to me today is the reason behind the latest rise : that the rescue work after China’s earthquake may tighten the demand on diesel. I started hurling verbal abuse at whoever said those words as soon as I heard them. From a purely economical point of view, the rescue effort will be stretched out over a rather long period of time, and surely it’s not going to strain the global supply of diesel or other petroleum products in an instant. It disgusts me that someone is profiteering from such a massive humanitarian catastrophe, when we should be caring about the welfare of the survivors as the first and foremost priority. How different is it from, let’s say, a scum who is lifting the price of food or other vital supplies in the disaster zone? Another recent development has been bugging me for some time, namely the skyrocketing prices of foodstuffs. I was particularly disturbed when I first read about th