by Chris Messner

Created on: June 30, 2008

The skyrocketing prices for crude oil and gasoline are grabbing most of the headlines these days. Newsreaders prattle on about whose fault it is and what can be done about it. You've heard the saying: "Talk is cheap". It's never been more true or more relevant.

So whose fault is it, anyway? Well, everyone (yes, even you and me) is partly to blame, but let's start at the top, shall we? Sit back and enjoy merely the latest in the long, long series of spectacular federal government failures. Look, folks, Uncle Sam saw this coming, decades ago, and what did he do? He mandated the underwhelming 55-mile-per-hour speed limit.

In 1973, I sat in my car waiting in line to buy gasoline when I found a station that had some. The world didn't end then, and this latest petroleum crisis won't bring civilization down today, either. Motorists are still doing plenty of discretionary driving, going places they don't need to go to do things they don't need to do. But, the early 70s was when the phone rang, off the hook, and nobody answered.

Oh, sure, some things changed back then, almost immediately, in response to the realization that Middle East oil and those who control it could alter Western life drastically, if they so chose. Cars got smaller and lighter, but more economical. The 8-cylinder engine disappeared. Tiny Japanese cars made fuel efficiency a reality.

But it's what didn't happen then that's causing today's suffering. Yes, right then, back in the 70s, is when Uncle Sam should have started working seriously on developing alternative sources of vehicle fuels. Brazil is a shining example of how to achieve energy independence, easily meeting its motor fuel demand by making ethanol from sugar cane (which it grows on a very small percentage of its arable land) and thumbing its nose at the world's oil tyrants.

The Brazil example has to make you wonder. Watch American newscasts or issues analysis shows, and you'll hear over and over how great America is, how we're the world's only remaining superpower, blah, blah, blah. If that's true, then why is Brazil eons ahead of us in energy independence? Just because someone says something over and over and over doesn't make it true.

After the first oil scare here in America, we got used to paying more for gasoline and things pretty much returned to normal. In the late 70s, Jimmy Carter proudly took credit for prodding fuel peddlers to develop and market the 90/10 gasoline/ethanol blend. Yes, we've been using it in America for 30 years.

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