Why Are Gas Prices So High?

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America imports around 70% of its oil. Brazil imports 0% of its oil. President Obama just promised to loan Brazil money to become even more self sufficient as well as promised to be their best customer. Yet won't allow our country to develope its own oil reserves. Obama has done this on purpose, make no mistake: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/import_brazils_oil_policy_not.html Columnist Victor Davis Hanson explains: "Apparently the common denominator here is a deductive view that high energy prices will force Americans to emulate European centrally planned and state-run transportation. That conclusion is not wild conspiracy theory, but simply the logical manifestation of many of the Obama administration's earlier campaign promises." Obama's not the first American president to hinder America's quest for self sufficiency. But during his presidency gas has doubled in price. The silence of the press on this is amazing. No one questions the motives of this man? He cites enviornmental concerns to halt developement of our reserves. But the supposed concern for our environment is actually making things worse. If pipelines instead of ships had moved our oil from the fields to the refineries, our shores may not have been covered in oil. Yet, concern for the environment is what put all that oil in those ships. No one mentions that the countries we import from care little for human rights, so perhaps we hope they will care about the enviroment when they drill for their oil? Wouldn't it be easier to oversee the environmental impact if WE were doing the drilling? The oil rig explosion couldn't have happened at a better time for Obama's campaign against domestic oil production. It makes me, and others wonder. If George Soros didn't stand to make billions from his investment in offshore drilling in Brazil, perhaps I wouldn't wonder so much. Let's take a look at ethanol, the government's pet project to become more energy self sufficient. Ethanol as an alternative actually costs more and pollutes more, it takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol. Yet the government continues to subsidize the production of ethanol. Why not spend all that money on developing a more viable way to becomes energy self sufficient? Because of the lobbying efforts of special interests groups, that is why. BigAgra and GreenPeace have a lot of money to throw around Washington. It seems that blaming the oil industry is easier than thinking this through. Of course, big business has become the villian in our quest for socialism. It has become a crime to be rich. Especially if you become rich providing an essential service that people cannot do without. Like gasoline. But are they really at fault for high prices? Demand for oil has been increasing worldwide mostly because of the growth of China's and India's industries. Obama's anti drilling policies have driven down production of domestic crude. Government taxes on every level of production also are a big factor. Taxes raise the price per gallon more than oil company profits so who really should we be angry at for high prices? Oil companies have made record profits because the demand has risen. Their profit margin is around 9 cents per dollar charged at the pump. So they make about 9¢ in profit for every dollar of revenue. That's lower than the 13¢ average of companies in the S&P 500 index. Last but not least, Obama's promise to Brazil to buy their (American subsidized) oil is a crime when our country needs jobs to save a failing economy. Not to mention the money that could be saved if we didn't have to buy our oil from other countries. Not to mention the strategic boost of not being dependent on Arab or Brazilian oil and having to placate the dictators to get it. What do you think?