Oil: An amateur analysis

With gas hitting $4 a gallon I thought I would break this blog's recent silence and tackle this complicated subject.

Here is what I know about why gas prices are so high, it has something to do with foreign demand, tumult in the Middle East, inefficient refining, oil company greed, political ineptitude, ethanol, electric cars, hummers (with those cool spinning rims), global warming, polar bears having a place to hang out, and ethanol (which as I understand it is making fuel out of green beans).

The fuel crisis is far too complex for my little pea brain to understand or discuss even quasi-intelligently. However, I was talking with someone about gas prices and he was giving me the "more drilling, less regulation" line of argument.

I responded with this analogy, and I think it works:

"You know, the often used metaphor of America's addiction to oil I think is perhaps a little tired, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. So based on your argument, if you knew someone who was addicted to crack, who had spent all their money on crack, gotten into mounds of debt, been in jail, risked their health, lost their house, and lost their family, your solution would be something like 'but his problems would be solved if we could just find a way to get him more crack.'"