Coulter Thinks Gas Price Hikes and Tuition Increases Same

Imagine my surprise, as a conscientious consumer advocate, to be quoted, in an Ann Coulter column about the high price of gasoline. Had the oil company's greed cut through even Coulter's questionable consciousness?

Turns out, she was just pokin some good ole right wing fun at a CNN interview I did on the fact crude oil prices were dropping, but pump prices skyrocketing. Coulter believes "EVERY sentient, literate adult knows that the current spike in gas prices is 90 percent due to forces completely beyond the control of Congress, the White House or even Big Oil itself." So she decided to take my gas gouging quotes and use them against higher education for its tuition increases.

I might be just as angry at academia if there was a college professor in the United States that made $400 million last year like the CEO of Exxon. The game with gasoline supply manipulation is the price at the pump climbs way higher than crude oil prices or other production costs. I'm certain there are a few sentient, literate adult Americans with me on this one. It's simple math. The only way Exxon can report greater profits than any corporation in the history of the world is if the price charged is so much higher than the cost of producing the gasoline. Well, that's certainly within the control of Big Oil, and of the GOP government-- which lets Big Oil short the market to drive up the price. Chevron acknowledged in its recent profit report huge increases in its profit margins at its factory, the refinery.

Oil companies cheat by limiting refined supply in order to drive up gas prices, rather than compete by making more gasoline. They do it because they can, kind of like Enron, as a few US Senators noted recently. Then again if Ken Lay walks I'm pretty certain Coulter will soon revisit Enron's troubles and call them mere P.R. problems.