Gasoline--The new gold standard!

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The price of a gallon of gas(regular unleaded) has just now touched the $3.90 mark in the town where I live. This, to a man who first got his license to drive when gasoline was still leaded and cost an average of 20 cents per gallon(that's right .20, twenty centavos or however you want to say it, just plain cheap!)is really mind boggling! I watched the steady progression of the price of gasoline throught the '70s and '80s with the "shortages" and the lines at gas stations with a skeptical view because I believed First; there was no gas shortage and Second; we would have plenty of gas when the oil companies and gas producers got what they wanted which were the Alaskan pipeline and most if not all independant gas stations out of business. They accomplished both and when they did, VIOLA! No more gas shortage! Gasoline prices stagnated in the late '70s through the '80s and this is where the oil companies and energy companies learned the art of stimulating prices through the speculations market! They were conservative with their new ability through the '90s allowing the oil prices to flow in an ever upward trend but never at an extreme rate. Then comes 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq and an ever increasingly unpopular president to lay the blame on and in the mid 2000's the oil companies pulled out all of the stops and this is what we have today! On the legal books the oil companies can say that only a few percentage points accounts for their oil profits but if you look at other investments that are tied to oil and gas commodities there have been some obscene profits taken by them! I have gone the long route to say this; Oil and it's derrivitives (gas, diesel, natural gas, and everything made depending on petroleum products)are a waining resource. Even if we drill and pump the continental shelf, reserves here in America and the entire wilderness of Alaska, eventually we are going to run out if the world lasts that long! Whenever something, anything, has a finite supply then the prices will continue to go up because the more we use the closer we come to running out! I'm not giving the oil companies a free pass but I also see where they are coming from. If we as a WORLD not just America don't seek out other sources of energy, we may just be back to the horse and buggy in the next milennium! I might point out to everyone, Europe has been paying way more than $4 per gallon for decades!