ORIGINAL: redhead522
It's just a simple model of supply and demand, not the politicians. America's energy consumption is extremely high, and now other countries, mainly China, are increasing their energy consumption. Couple this with the fact that most of the world's oil reserviors are starting to receed. Even Saudia Arabia, which promised to always have enoughoil, as long as we paid for it, is seeing most of their major wells receed. Case in point, the world is running out of oil, and it's not being resupplied. Quite frankly, it's somewhat to blame on America's standard of living. Even though we complain about gas prices, it hasn't changedmost people's driving habits. I'm a college student andhave friendswho complain about gas prices and then drive to class, when it's only a mile away. At one point oil wasn't even an option, now it's a necessity.
What we are experiencing here is our failure in this country (and in many other industrialized nations) to "cross the technological discontinuity" of oil product - fueled internal combustion engines. We have to do something like Brazil has done byusing totally renewable sources of fuel and stop using petroleum products for fuel entirely!
This of course means that the government is going to eventually have to force the oil industry to use a large portion of their windfall profits to develop and market such fuels, as they will not do so willingly!!
As the head EXXON turkey said yesterday, "I don't give a damn how much the people have to pay for gas, as long as I can make as much profit as possible......"
During WWII, the Germans developed "ersatz benzene" fuels that were pretty satisfactory, and the American guerillas in the Philippines powered their vehicles with alcohol they distilledfrom bamboo shoots! Not only did it work in their jeeps, but you could drink it too!