Econimics Nobel prize winners will tell you that gouging is the right thing to do (say like during Katrina). It means that the people who need supplies will have suppliers working to get them to them when it's timely. It also helps prevent hoarding and abuse of people who say "I'll just buy all the extras" so that the next dude in line has NOTHING to buy and one person walks away with far too much to use. Gas is really no different. In a sense, we are stuck with gas because it's been so damn cheap compared to anything else. If they price it beyond the Everyman to pay for comfortably, then their demand falls as does price. What I'm hoping for is that they screw up horribly and price themselves out of a market. Hard to do? Sure. Currently changing our policies and views toward alternative fuels? You betcha.

We have a short attention span. As soon as the Oil Cartel embargos were a thing of the past and gas was plentiful, cheap, and always in the pipeline, everyone went back happily humming along in their vehicles and let fuel mileage regulations go lax with nary a whimper.

Hopefully today, the populace is more educated, more capable of making their anger heard, and has more wisdom. I'm not certain of any of those things, but the Internet is a powerful force. If gas were 6 bucks tomorrow, would you go hoard it? Would you start looking for alternative transport? Curtail extracurricular activities? Probably. The only bad thing about this is that the States have almost no public transport facilities outside of major metro areas (and sometimes not even there). And I NEVER EVER like to be made to rely on a government supported and subsidized method of travel. It puts far too much power in the hands of government and we are already in a bad state with that concern.

I say let the oil companies get rich. It breeds the right kind of anger, indignation, and willingness to smack down those who would abuse the average joe and not think of our futures with their crap environmental policies and petrodollar economics.

And in case anyone missed it, they ran this years fuel competition:
http://news.com.com/2300-11389_3-6074867-1.html?part=rss&tag=6074867&subj=news
Most are concept/impracticle designs, but not all. And it's sponsored by Shell. Gotta love it. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />