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I agree that the average person doesn't quite grasp the economics of high gas prices, but they have been conditioned by decades of how the "fat cats" of industry have screwed the average guy. Liberals portray "big oil" as if was 1900 and J. D. Rockefeller and a handful of his cronies personaly run "big oil".

When I explain this to my economics students I simply ask who owns "big oil"? As large stock corporations the oil companies are "owned" by pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, state and local governments and even little old ladies in tennis shoes. Many of my older students admitted to having 401k plans that invested in oil stocks hence they are part of "big oil". Remember too that corporate profits are already taxed twice. First they are taxed with a Federal corporate income tax at about 35% and then when dividends are distributed to stockholders we in turn pay taxes on our capital gains.