I am watching the news and the collective hand-ringing over $4.00/gallon gasoline. Candy Crowley of CNN asked John Hofmeister, former president Shell Oil, how high with gasoline price go? He answered with a combination of market forces and advocated that U.S. citizens should demand their politicians do more to increase domestic oil production. Later on the same show, Donald Trump stated that we should tell OPEC what to charge us for gasoline. Try that with your neighborhood gas station.
The truth is gasoline and the oil it comes from is a limited resource. All the oil that we will ever use was created hundreds of millions of years ago. The conditions were very different for today’s climate. Probably a much hotter climate.
As a limited resource gasoline will get more expensive as we use it up. Any attempt to control the price will bring many unintended consequences. The U.S. has enjoyed cheap gasoline because we are a large producer, but we have become an even larger consumer!
The price we pay for gasoline does not reflect the real cost of a gallon. The U.S. consumes more that it produces, so we must import oil. So our government has gone to foreign producers and made deals, invaded, and fought wars to keep oil cheap for us. This added cost is not added to gasoline costs.
Letting the price rise will cause alternatives to be developed, conservation will be increased without large market boom and bust cycles.
Gasoline will get more expensive. The price of gasoline will go up. All the way to the top! Get over it!