A New Age of Perpetually High Oil/Gas Prices?

The price of oil spiked to a high of $75 on Friday, April 21, amidst much speculation about just how long the upward trend in the oil price will persist. Meanwhile, talk continues in the press of the inevitable rise in gasoline prices at the pump in the warm weather vacation season in the U.S.

The mainstream news media is floating yet another trial balloon before the American people, this one aimed at testing their collective response to idea of permanently high oil and gas prices. Should Americans react with the ambivalence that has become all to common in recent years, the oil oligopoly will have take this as an “all clear” sign and will press forward with their campaign to increase profits through raising the oil price.

“High oil prices could be here to stay” read the headline of a recent MSNBC news wire story. The sub headline to this news story asserted that the “Strong global economy continues to strain limits of production capacity.” Here is another instance of the financial press blaming an expansive economy for higher oil prices, which is just another way of saying that the average working man is to blame for high oil prices, not the oil companies. The booming economy of the late