Oil and Politicians

As gasoline consumers, we have been fed the myth that any time the price of gasoline goes up, it is due to unrest in the Middle East. This has made us believe that countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq are our biggest exporters of oil. However in reality Canada is United State’s largest oil exporter. Countries in the Middle East do not even provide close to half our oil import. They provide merely over twenty percent. However our politicians are quick to blame the Middle East for any increase in prices.
There never seems to be any “real” investigation in the raised gasoline prices. At the end of last year ExxonMobil, a leading oil company posted quarterly profits of over ten billion dollars, a record high. Needless to say this was at the same time, when we had the prices as high as they had ever been. Nonetheless, this did not seem to spark any debate over whether or not the oil companies are price gauging. A brief hearing was held in congress with some of the major oil companies. However it did not seem to answer any questions regarding the price gauging issue, due partly to the fact that the oil company executives were not put under-oath.
It seems quite peculiar that as the mid-term elections neared, gasoline prices seem to go down. However, as soon as they ended so did the low prices. Is it wrong to assume that our politicians and oil company executives are working together? It does not seem as though anyone’s answering these questions.