Let’s face it, most average people do not have the intellectual capacity to really comptemplate the micro and macro-economic forces involved in the issue of the oil industry.
Moreover, the intellectual conservative concepts also tend to be tossed around more readily by those with advanced degrees rather than just high-school diplomas.
Conservative ideology is not about what is in it for me today, but rather what is best for my country and my family in the long-term.
Since most people are naturally me-oriented, the very fact that the poorest American states tend to vote for the more conservative party is due to a innate and gut-understanding that the short-term meism that the left can provide comes at a very high long-term price. That is what “is wrong with Kansas” to quote a book about the subject. It is also perhaps what makes America fundamentally different from other rich industrial countries.
When confronted, however, with the profits of oil companies and high-prices at the pump, this process breaks down a bit. Why do the rich guys get richer while my life gets harder is the question that needs to be answered.
Frankly, I believe Americans would accept higher gas prices if it were couched as part of their contribution in the WOT. But contributing the the profits of Big Oil is something you will not explain away to an average American because macro-economic theory is not one of those things easily explained to someone’s gut.
What is so difficult to understand that oil companies DO NOT set the price of a gallon of gas.... Now more pointedly who in the global economy benefits first with the sale of source point of oil.
Further how much does government from local to the federal profit off a gallon of gas? What exactly do governments do to earn this profit and do they fulfill their promise for what they claim that tax is suppose to do?
How about equating the 'oil' bubble, to the housing bubble wherein it was 'speculators' on all levels that ballooned housing cost to the point of popping. Look who controls the point sources of oil.... around this globe.... everybody is drilling except for our liberal Congress who have made 'oil' in the US their holy sights.
People are frustrated. My family shells out anywhere from 2-300.00 per week for gas, it’s ridiculous and it is cutting into all other aspects of our spending. My food costs have gone up as well and it seems to be rising weekly.
However I know it’s the government that has put me in this situation. Just like you said, taxes, lack of refineries and lack of drilling our own oil. Look at this stupid ethanol bs, wait till that hits the fan. We haven’t built a refinery in 30 years. 30 years of technology, imagine how efficient and clean they would be. But NO, we’ll just keep chuggin along with our antiquated system. All the while the government and the media will be screaming at the top of their lungs it the oil companies ripping us off, riling us up. If the truth was screamed as loud as this nonsense many of those elitists in our government would be out of a job next election. Keeping us stupid is what keeps them in power.
Well, quite frankly, it's because the rich guys hold a firm vision in their minds that they are going to get richer in the future while the poor guys constantly think about negative outcomes and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But no politician ever got elected by telling the public that. ;)