Fellow enthusiasts and SUV salesmen fear not: gasoline will be cheap again within a year or two. The price will return to the $1.00 – $1.50 range, just like it was back in December of ‘02. How could this be? Start with this: if high gas prices were solely and inexorably linked to the price of oil, why are there still enough cheap plastic toys to keep your local Dollar Store in business? Why have disposable diapers, polyester pillows, Tupperware, hula hoops, toy dump trucks and other petroleum-based products not jumped to three times the price, too? Because they’re not subject to the same political and economic pressures affecting gasoline.

Fellow enthusiasts and SUV salesmen fear not: gasoline will be cheap again within a year or two. The price will return to the $1.00 – $1.50 range, just like it was back in December of '02. How could this be? Start with this: if high gas prices were solely and inexorably linked to the price of oil, why are there still enough cheap plastic toys to keep your local Dollar Store in business? Why have disposable diapers, polyester pillows, Tupperware, hula hoops, toy dump trucks and other petroleum-based products not jumped to three times the price, too? Because they're not subject to the same political and economic pressures affecting gasoline.

When voters elect the latest gladhander to their municipal and state governments, the chemical makeup of the gas down at their local pump is not usually high on their list of priorities. BUT if you're an agricultural activist who wants to sell corn to the government to produce Ethanol, or an environmentalist who believes you possess the magic formula for reducing baby-killing smog in western cities, well, that's a different story. These groups are extremely effective at lobbying government at the state and local level to create a 'boutique' gasoline formula to further their cause. As a result, Missouri gas isn't good enough to burn in California, whose gas cannot legally be sold in New York City or parts of Arizona.

Every time there is an oil crisis, four things happen. First, citizens are criticized for their wasteful ways. Second, they are exhorted to conserve our precious, finite resources. Third, alternative fuels take center stage and receive a major cash injection. And fourth, the oil industry finds new ways to find, pump, and refine the liquid gold. Crisis over, everyone goes back to business. Makes sense to me.

It never ceases to amaze me how little Americans learn from history–- or hysteria. History lessons do not draw an audience, though. No media outlet is going to predict life returning to normal when they can release The Day After Tomorrow. By the time the oil crisis is over, some new apocalypse will be taking shape; most people will not even recognize that they were duped into thinking the world is running out of oil.