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Except that most people don't go through multiple gallons of milk a week. It's a bad analogy.

It's a REALLY bad analogy. You can have the milk producer can graze in your backyard and all you got to do is squeeze in the right spot, chill and drink.

For oil, you gotta go halfway 'round the world, dig a hole 10,000 feet deep, pump out the crude, ship it to some godforsaken place where they'll still let you run a refinery, boil it until part of it turns to gasoline, truck it to a station where you pour it into a tank in the ground, and then pay somebody to stand around and guard it til you show up to pump some into your car and pay for it. Gasoline oughta be costin' us $50 a gallon!

One bad analogy on top of another.

The oil companies manage to keep their profit margins up, as well they should, so it's silly to say that gas 'should' cost fifty bucks a gallon. The problem with the price of fuel is that it does affect people. You or I may not feel it directly. We may not care and denigrate those whom it does affect by telling them to lay off the beer, etc. That is until the fuel prices start inflating the prices of everything else. Already the fuel surcharges in transportation are starting to make up a large chunk of the transportation costs. It will be passed down to you and me.

And, of course, the real problem is the government. Through direct taxation the price of fuel is a third higher than it could be. Through regulation, we are unable to provide our own fuel and rely on nations who definitely don't have the best interests of the U.S. at heart. We have to hope they will continue to sell to us because of their need for our money. And, we shoot ourselves in the feet by mandating all sorts of formulations that put a strain on production at the few refineries that we allow to exist.