Recently, the GOOD website printed up GOOD Sheet #4, a nice graph of where the money given to gas stations goes. (GOOD defies description, but it's pretty good. Check it out.) Hard-copies of the sheet are available at Starbucks, but interested viewers can find an online copy here.

It's worth checking out: in a clear, easy-to-read manner, GOOD shows how the profit on gas is distributed and outlines the major factors that drive price. What it doesn't cover, however, is the ways that oil-producing companies actually use this money. Unfortunately, this is also the most important aspect of the oil market.

Oil is, perhaps, the most effective tool for wealth consolidation in the history of the world. Whether through technological innovation, conflict, or the luck of the draw, certain areas and people have ended up with large amounts of crude petroleum at their disposal.

It's interesting to think about how cities compete for tourists. Apart from spending billions of dollars on advertising, fighting to host World's Fairs and the Olympics, and desperately organizing major events, almost every aspect of a city's infrastructure could be seen as part of a bid for the tourist buck. Police? Handy for keeping the tourists safe. Public transportation? Offers a cheap way for the tourists to get around. Sports teams? Keeps the tourists happy while they're here and gives them handy souvenirs to take home!

I thought about this recently when I read about the town of Zheleznovodsk, Russia. Home to the Mashuk-Akva Term spa, the town seems to have long been casting about for a sense of identity. On the one hand, it is noted for the healing powers of its mineral springs; then again, so are many other towns in the Caucasus Mountains region, where it is located. Not long ago, it hit on the idea of using the iconic enema, the delivery system for many of its healing mineral treatments, as a sign of its civic pride. The first step was posters that stated "Let's beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas!" The signs hung in the local spa and garnered a fair bit of attention.

Buoyed by the success of their enema poster campaign, the spa commissioned a sculpture. Costing $42,000, Mashuk-Akva's enema statue shows an 800-pound bronze bulb-style enema being carried by three Botticelli-esque angels. While the sculptor admits to a certain irony in her finished work, the director of the spa considers it to be an utterly non-ironic symbol of the region. It remains to be seen if Zheleznovodsk's new sculpture will become a cultural icon or will end up being a washout. Regardless, the next time I take a trip, I'm going to give a long, hard look at Russia, the land of the golden enema!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. The more he thinks about it, the more he's impressed with Zheleznovodsk. Come to think of it, maybe New York needs an enema!

Reuters is reporting that the 24th richest man in the world is planning on spending $150 million starting a magazine, web site and TV station called -- get ready -- Snob.

Snob has slightly a different meaning in Russia. They think of a snob as someone who has made a lot of money in life and is entitled to brag about it if they want. In America, of course, we see a snob as someone who looks down on others who aren't as rich or as classy, and thus, the rest of us tend to look down on snobs. At any rate, Andrei Shmarov, one of the billionaire creating Snob, told Reuters, "It's for people who are successful and those who want to be successful."

The web site will be out in June, the magazine in July, and it will focus on lifestyle, business and travel articles. The cable channel will follow shortly after that.