While energy producers plan ever taller towers, Wall Street crumbles

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Have you heard the laughs coming from the gas pump every time you go to fill up? (That’s assuming, of course, there is gas to be had.)

Who’s laughing? Why the world’s oil suppliers. While Wall Street crumbles and our retirement plans disintegrate, the OPEC crowd and friends gleefully take 700 billion a year in greenbacks and build new economies.

Proof? On Monday, His Excellency Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of Dubai announced the Emirates would embark on the building of a mega-city project to be topped by the world’s newest tallest building. The current No. 1 tower is still being completed near where its successor is to be constructed.

Dubai, flush with energy cash and a banking/business structure that is turning it into the world’s new Wall Street, will surround the Nakheel Tower with 40 skyscrapers up to 90 stories in height. (Nakheel is Arabic for palms or palm trees; Nakheel is the firm that has built two series of islands resembling palm trees for development in the Arabian Gulf waters just off the Dubai coast.)

"Nakheel Harbour and Tower is located in the heart of ’new Dubai’, where we have focused on creating a true community, a location for living, working, relaxing and entertaining, for art and culture,” boasted the Sultan. "All of this is concentrated in one area.”

Meanwhile, Americans struggle to find ways to pay for gas at near-$4 a gallon. Even though the price of oil has plunged more than 40 percent to around $90 a barrel, gas prices have dropped about 40 cents. (Oh, by the way, we are being told there is no gouging. Other people beyond the raw energy suppliers are laughing at us, too.)

The surge in energy prices over the past couple of years has wrecked our economy. The mortgage mess has only made matters worse. But at the core of our current dilemma is the soaring size of our budgets that must go to pay for gas, natural gas and electricity.

And how many thousands of jobs have been cut as companies seek ways to deal with exploding energy costs to run their operations?

More people out of work means even less money in the economy – a domino effect that threatens to send the U.S. and world (other than some energy suppliers) into deep, deep recession.

Who can afford a new house or pay a higher-rate adjustable mortgage when it costs more to fill your gas tank than to take a family of four to dinner and a movie?

Until the United States begins to take serious steps to address the energy crisis – prices, domestic supply, conservation, alternatives and increased production – our heating, air conditioning and gas bills will continue to eat away at the heart of our economy from Main Street to Wall Street.

If gas were back at $2.50 a gallon, think about just how much money could be spent on new cars, new homes, new clothes, even basics like food?

I’m tired of being laughed at – and paying for other countries’ new towers of luxury. Aren’t you?