Governments like to believe they're in
charge of things but
they are fooling themselves most of the time. This is the age of
globe-girdling corporations and most of the time they do pretty much as
they
please, whether it is pricing, pollution, profit or monopolistic habits.
For about half
a century, the oil giants, for instance, controlled not only the
extraction and
refining of petroleum but also the prices by virtue of long-term
contracts that
gave them super-cheap oil, wh