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Don Larsen also taught me another lesson, “The Law of Supply and Demand,” when years later I tried to buy his 1956 baseball card from local shops that controlled the trade in memorabilia. Larsen’s card along with those of other stars of the day, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Willie Mays, and Sandy Koufax had originally cost pennies but now, because of a perceived scarcity were selling for upwards of a hundred dollars a piece. “The Law of Supply and Demand” is very simple: Limited supply plus high demand equals a high price. Unable to afford the price, I left those cards for someone else to buy.

Flash forward to the “ebay era.” If you go online and check out the prices of baseball cards you will find that you can buy a complete collection of thousands of classic cards, boxed and sorted, for under ten bucks. What happened? ebay created a world wide universal marketplace that is easily accessible to anyone and everyone with products to sell. While demand may have stayed the same, the supply of baseball cards increased geometrically and prices collapsed.

If you want to understand the latest in the LNG debate and the seemingly endless rise in gasoline prices, it helps to be a baseball fan.

Technology and trade have transformed the world into a single market place. The underlying price of a barrel of oil is essentially the same in California as it is in Tokyo, Beijing or London. The only real difference to consumers is the amount of taxes added to gasoline by the time it reaches the pump. In America we pay the lowest amount of tax of any industrialized nation in the world. While other nations use taxation to shape a social policy that discourage individuals from consuming gas, our relatively low price encourages consumption and has resulted in our addiction to once cheap fuel. For better or worse the very fabric of our society is married to the presumption of low cost energy.

But divorce is painful and the Law of Supply and Demand never changes. Our ever increasing consumption of energy in all forms puts a constant pressure on unpredictable supplies. Think about the countries that supply oil for the global market… Iran, Iraq, Chad, Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya, Kuwait. None are exactly bastions of stability. Then look at the countries whose growth rates and steady modernization demand ever increasing energy supplies, China, India, Korea and the former subject states of the old Soviet Union. If demand goes up without increasing supplies or developing alternatives, price hikes follow.

The steady rise in the cost of energy threatens the health and welfare of every one of us, consumers and businesses alike. The more we pay for fuel, the less we have for food, clothing, medical care, education.

And then, think about where those gas dollars go… Out of the US into the hands of the Saudis, the Iranians, the Gulf States, Venezuela… And when money goes, so do jobs, technological growth and our standard of living. Ever wonder where Dubai got the money to even try to buy control of our ports? We gave it to them… And every time the price of gas goes up, we give them even more money to come back and buy up America.

The only way to end this cycle is to break our dependence - our addiction - to foreign oil and economic subservience to the countries that control it.

This is not an easy task – ask any junkie, twelve-stepper or politician. The path to change and freedom, however, is a multi-faceted tool kit. We need to use them all: solar, hydro-electric, nuclear, increased conservation, hybrids, bio-fuels. The list goes on and on but the list by necessity includes LNG – the same fuel every one of us now uses to heat our homes, cook our food and generate electricity.

Two years ago the Board of VCEDA voted for all of these reasons to support the development of a local LNG terminal provided it met all regulatory, safety and environmental guidelines. Our position has not changed.

Although we can try to pitch a perfect game solution to our growing energy crisis, we know perfection is rarely achieved. In the mean time, we need to act before the damage from inaction brings economic ruin to every household and business in the region.

In the months ahead VCEDA will be going through a number of changes designed to strengthen our ability to advocate for the policies, legislation and programs that can stimulate business and our economy, which together can form the foundation necessary for a vibrant quality of life in Ventura County.

By expanding our Board of Directors from thirty up to a new maximum of fifty and increasing dues beginning in July, we will be able to better serve the needs of our members.

At our next Business Outlook Conference in October, “Dodging Katrina and Homeland Insecurity: Integrated Disaster Planning, Relief and Recovery for Businesses,” we will take on the perhaps the greatest of all planning challenges, that of preparing for, responding to and recovering from catastrophic events.

Not only we will have speakers and panels comprised of some of the most brilliant minds in the areas of disaster planning and recovery, we will also have an audience in the room of some 300 of the top business and political leaders in the county. That’s a lot of brainpower… And it’s our long term goal to try to harness that power and those resources to help establish Ventura County as one of the leading national centers for disaster planning.

Mark your calendars for October 13th. As always, we hope to see you there.