Oily & Greasy

  I'm so frustrated, I don't know where to start. Gasoline heading to $6.00 per gallon. China drilling near our shores. Encouraging drilling in Brazil, while stifling the U.S. Nothing can be done? Are you kidding me? Sure speculators are driving prices through the roof. And yes, it is utterly ridiculous to subsidize the oil industry. But it is equally ridiculous to shut down the oil business in the U.S. That is exactly what is happening and it didn't start recently. We started moving refining out of the country years ago for environmental reasons. I'm still trying to figure out how it helps with 'global warming' when you move industries from a country with some regulation to countries with no regulation. It isn't just the petroleum industry, either. A lot of manufacturing jobs were moved out of the U.S. to remove pollution from our cities. I'm sure all those giant ships and all those jumbo jets are saving the planet. But, I digress.
  It's the gasoline prices that are aggravating me at the moment. The economy still stinks despite 'getting better' or 'improving'. People will continue to cut back on travel and on investment and expansion. Food prices will continue to rise as will the cost of virtually everything on the market. For the wealthy, a few thousand dollars a year in extra costs is hardly noticeable. It hurts everyone else. Our friends in Washington don't seem to care. Oddly, when gasoline hit $4.00 just a few years ago, there was outrage. Kinda quite out there at the moment. Hello, Mr. Schumer?
  Please don't tell me high gas prices are good for our future because it means greater investment in 'green' technology. Some of those technologies aren't so 'green' after all, and the one that holds the most promise gets very little attention. Hydrogen fuel cells.
 No. I beginning to think the only reason for high gasoline prices is wealth redistribution. More money for the Oil companies. More money for the politicians. More money to foreign countries. Thanks Washington! Heck of a job!