General Motors this week denied allegations that they tried to bribe a commentator into saying something positive about their employee buyout plan. The commentator, Robert B. Reich from the American Public Media radio program Marketplace, claimed that GM, through a PR agency, contacted him and offered up some cash as a sign of respect, if he were to say something nice about the buyout plan.

At least they didn't ask him to say something nice about the recent gas price increases. The automotive world kicked off Earth Day celebrations with gas prices that zoomed past $3 and touched the $4 mark in many metro areas. According to the Automobile Club of Southern California, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach region is now over $3.00. That’s 11.5 cents higher than last week, 33 cents higher than last month, and 41 cents higher than last year. And there’s no end in sight. Several factors have collided to set up a piggy-bank breaking summer at the pump. There’s the drop in U.S. gasoline inventories, a shortage of refining capacity, and new regulations calling for cleaner-burning fuels – not to mention those thin-as-ice profit margins oil companies are struggling to maintain. Why, they’re only making billions of dollars a quarter – and we expect them to live off of that? Silly us.