Topic: V for Vendetta

Laying the blame for high gas prices

By David W. Shelton | May 23, 2008 |

Memorial Day weekend has long held significance for people everywhere: high school graduation, the end of the school year, holiday travel, and high gasoline prices. In 2008, while graduating seniors look toward their future, the rest of us are looking at those gas pumps. As I write this article, the national gas price was at a mind-blowing $3.83 per gallon. Clarksville pumps were as high as $3.80.

We Clarksvillians do love to gripe about how our city government is being run, and we love pointing fingers even more. But where do we point our fingers in blame for these stratospheric gasoline prices?

The first place many of us often look is to those evil oil companies. After all, ExxonMobil netted a profit of $40 Billion (yeah, that’s billion - with a ‘B’) in the first quarter of 2008. Those “evil moguls” just keep sticking it to us, don’t they? Well, of course they do.

“Big Oil” has long since been the bad guys in our current political atmosphere, and they’re often painted as fat-greedy pigs who have their flunkies in governmental power. Oh, we all know the line. “Bush and Cheney are in cahoots with Big Oil, so we’ll get higher prices, blah, blah, blah.”

Before I go any further, I think it’s appropriate for me to point out that I’m usually a little more progressive (read: liberal) than most of my neighbors. So it might come as a bit of surprise that I might have some great amount of disdain for the entire “Big Evil Oil” party line. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Opinion, Politics | No Comments