Gas Is Really Costing Us About $15 a Gallon

Mark Engler — AlterNet  

This might be an opportune time to make a disclosure:  I am a BP shareholder.  Admittedly, I’ve never attended the company’s annual meeting, and if I did, i would have very little weight to throw around.  I own two shares of BP stock. I received my stake in the company as a Christmas gift in 1989, when I was 14 years old. The previous June, I had taken a “summer enrichment” course in the Des Moines public schools, designed as an introduction to the world of business. The teacher gave each of us in the class a modest hypothetical budget to invest in the stock market.

Earnest young capitalists, we made our picks and then followed the quotes in the morning paper. I invested heavily in Amoco and finished the summer feeling that my portfolio had done quite well. As a result, my younger brother decided that I should receive a real piece of the enterprise that was once John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. He conspired with my mom to get me an Amoco share for the holidays.