The PROBLEM is that it has been thirty five years since OPEC whacked us between the eyes, and told us that we were at the mercy of a bunch of evil tyrants who controlled enough of the world supply of oil that they could do anything they wanted. Thirty five years later we have done nothing to solve this problem, and we have made those evil tyrants exceedingly rich, powerful, and dangerous.

HIGH PRICED GASOLINE AND OIL IS THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION!

The price of gasoline and oil is finally high enough to get us to start doing what we have needed to do for thirty five years - dump the gas guzzling monster SUV and buy the most fuel efficient car we can find. Car pool to work, take public transportation, live closer to the work place, haul goods shorter distances, and convert the oil burning furnace to another fuel. We are finally getting the auto makers to get serious about designing vehicles that have better fuel efficiency or run on alternative energy sources. The price of gasoline is finally high enough to start making alternative fuels economically attractive and spur massive research and development to create the new technologies that will replace oil.

We didn't have to let it come to this. If high prices is what it takes to get us to get serious about solving the problem, we could have created high priced gasoline and oil gradually over the last thirty five years with add-on taxes, pushing the price of gasoline up to $6 or $8 or $10 a gallon, whatever it would take to force us to do the things we needed to do. It may be that a high price for a gallon of gasoline might just reflect the true cost, considering the cost of disruptions to our economy with each oil crisis, and the cost of a "War on Terror" against the rich and powerful enemies that we have created.. And if high prices were created by add-on taxes, the extra money would have gone back into our own pockets, and not to the evil tyrants. Actually, paying a tax on gas and oil instead of paying a tax on something else costs us nothing! Also, the fact is, that if we made gasoline twice the cost per gallon but you drove a car that used half as much per mile, your total outlay for gasoline would be the same.

Oil prices have spiked upwards several times over the last thirty five years and then tumbled back down, and may well do so again - In the past few days, the price of a barrel of oil has fallen by $20. And each time oil prices have fallen, we have promptly forgotten all about the oil problem - until the next, and higher, spike. This time, let's implement add-on taxes and get the prices high enough to actually SOLVE THE OIL PROBLEM!