The oil crisis

is demonstrating something to me, something I suspect I knew anyway.

We are living in a country full of incredibly uneductated, ignorant people. Unfortunately, too many of them have media outlets to spread their ignorance.

I know next to nothing about economics. In that sense, I too am uneducated. I do know, however, the basics of supply and demand. When the demand is high, prices go up. This is not the fault of the supplier. The supplier charges what the market will allow. That's the basic formulation of our economic system.

When the government has restricted by red tape the ability to build new refineries; when the environmental lobby has prevented the development of nuclear power and prevented additional oil exploration; when the government taxes the life out of gasoline and insists on overregulating the types of fuel that can be produced; what do you do?

Blame the oil companies, naturally.

I'm sorry to bring this up, and I don't know a ton about it, but if people want to know why gas costs so much, you're looking in the wrong direction. Blame the government regulation that has put us in this spot. Blame Wall Street speculation on the future of the oil industry. But please stop accusing the administration of cronyism in this. If there's no economic reason for the prices, then go ahead and blame gouging. If simple economics can explain it, you're barking up the wrong tree.

More proof of the failures of our educational system, combined with the willful ignorance of the media.