How's your gas?

"We have met the enemy, and he is us."

- Pogo

So, you think gasoline prices are high now? Well, they are, but they're just about the same price they were in June of 2006, when I wrote about the greedy oil companies. That's when oil company executives were busy defending their record profits. Sound familiar? How about April of 2006? They were high then, too. I'm seeing a trend.

WASHINGTON - Don't blame us, oil industry chiefs told a skeptical Congress. Top executives of the country's five biggest oil companies said Tuesday they know record fuel prices are hurting people, but they argued it's not their fault and their huge profits are in line with other industries.
Appearing before a House committee, the executives were pressed to explain why they should continue to get billions of dollars in tax breaks when they made $123 billion last year and motorists are paying record gasoline prices at the pump.
"On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said, aiming his remarks at the five executives sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a congressional hearing room.
"Our earnings, although high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long-term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements," said J.S. Simon, senior vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp., which made a record $40 billion last year.
"We depend on high earnings during the up cycle to sustain ... investment over the long term, including the down cycles," he continued.
The up cycle has been going on too long, suggested Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. "The anger level is rising significantly."

Ya gotta love those "up-cycles" don't ya? Meanwhile, consumers are griping over the very thing that they bought into over the last decade - the proliferation of the giant, gas-eating vehicle.

A co-worker told me that her last fill-up cost her $71.50. At $2.97 a gallon, that's a little over 24 gallons. That would be great if the SUV she was filling got high enough gas mileage so that the seventy-one bucks wasn't a weekly event, but we all know better.

There are few sights on the road sorrier than a single driver in a giant vehicle, clogging the road and creating financial hardship for themselves. A big empty space on the inside just being moved around for nothing. I wish they'd ask themselves how many times they really use the vehicle for its intended purpose. I think the answer would come back: Not nearly enough to justify 70 bucks a week in gasoline. Even the auto makers know they have us over a barrel.

A recent TV ad for one of those Range Rovers literally tells us that most of us will never use the technology that they build into the vehicle, but they do it for the select few who do. That's fine for the select few, but tell me how a guy driving to work every day on the highway needs an "off road package" or giant springs, shocks and tires that waste expensive gasoline.

Mostly, it's because people were sold these vehicles and told they were safer, when in fact, they're just bigger, which gives people the illusion of being safe. Chances are, almost all of us could get along just fine with a 4-door sensible compact car. If you find yourself "needing" a Range Rover, you might want to ask yourself why you're out driving in the first place.

And I didn't even mention the people who buy those 8-cylinder sports cars that require premium gasoline. Well, I just did. They're part of the problem, too and everything that I said about the SUV drivers applies to them as well.

We're neck-deep in this now, and there doesn't seem to be a solution other than complaining about stuff that we bought with our own money and free will. The oil companies are beating us, but we've also been busy beating ourselves.