Generalizations?

I did no more of that then you just did - for I have never advocated that even the slightest regulation of oil would cause an economic death knell. First off we have to seperate OPEC from American oil companies. OPEC may be unregulated but Exxon, Standard Oil, and the BP that operates within the US, they are all regulated. In California there is a seven blend proccess before you are able to bring it to market (even though 30% of their smog is said to some from China!). How much do you think that costs the consumer? And that is another angle you "big oil is gauging us" conspiracy theorists - and it IS a theory unless you have imperical evidence & making lots of money ain't evidence - don't ever bother bringing up: government taxes on corporations. One thing is for sure, corporations do not actually "pay" taxes. They build them into the price of their commodity and the consumer pays it. If you knocked off the gas tax you'd save $0.50 a gallon the same day. Every American oil CEO could give up his entire salary for the year & it wouldn't come close to that reduction. Not to mention, we haven't built a single refinery in 30 years. That's a HUGE part of the problem, built into the price - we can't convert the crude into feul fast enough. Let me see, less supply, more demand, economics 101, the price goes up. We don't drill in ANWAR at all or off the coast of California as much as we should, and although the Chinese and Fidel's little brother can make deals all day long to drill off the coast of Florida, the most powerful nation on earth is hamstrung by tree hugging dolphin fornicating enviromentalists whom have forced their junk science occult of man-made global warming on the rest of us! and although ANWAR by itself won't solve all our energy needs, not by any stretch, you combine these efforts together (drilling in several rich locations, more refineries and more nuclear plants) and 6 mos later you look up and the price of gas has dropped as significantly as it's going up now.

And therein lies my beef with Democrats/leftists who bitch about the cost of gasoline - they immediately blame the private sector that enables its flow RATHER then the government and enviromentalists whom DISABLE its flow via taxes and refinery/drilling regulation at every turn. Don't you dare talk to me about the cost being too high due to private sector gauging when you have professional gaugers in government and the"green" movement doing there damned level best to ensure that gasoline is as expensive and hard to provide as possible! Gore, their pope, even admitted that their movment would be made much easier if they could just get the price of gas up to 6 or 7 dollars a gallon - it was in his book! But no, it's not the government taxation or Algorian religion of global warming whom has a hand in the high price, it's capitalists at Exxon says he. And by the way, I can demonstrate their impact on high prices in about ten minutes, as opposed to your "accusations" of gauguing by US oil execs. So next time you spend $80 to fill up, rather then cursing Exxon Mobile under your breath, take your verbal damnation to culprits much more guilty of causing high prices - government and those three-toed sloth worshipping, phony science preaching, enviromentalists.

And while we're at it lets be honest at what you're driving towards Titus - your repition of the phrase "essential" commodity is really masking what you think ought to happen. Federalization of the oil industry. You want the feds to march in like Chavez and snap up the industry under the banner of "essential" to the economic lifeblood of the US. And I don't care if you only want to do it with that indistry while you leave tobbacco et al alone - it is still Marxism.