What was the first thing you learned in that Econ 101 class that you were required to take in school?  My guess is that the professor explained "supply and demand."  My professor was a wonderful gentleman from Korea who explained it so beautifully: less candy, you pay more for candy.  He said something similar the next week:  less beer, you pay more for beer, and then the class couldn't stop laughing.  Candy or beer, but we got it!

Want to understand why you are paying more for gasoline?  Let's check what Katie Pavlich wrote this week:

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, heating costs for American families will increase by 54 percent this winter, making it the most expensive in over a decade. Given President Biden's statements on the 2020 campaign trail, where he launched a war on domestic energy production, this was entirely predictable. 

"The Biden campaign made a clear and unequivocal campaign promise to end fossil fuel leasing on public land," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune told The Washington Post shortly after Election Day.

Just hours after his inauguration, President Biden walked into the Oval Office and issued an executive order stopping construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. One week later, he followed through on promises made to halt new oil and gas leasing on federal land. The White House justified the moves as crucial to combating climate change. Currently, the administration is considering the shutdown of the L5 pipeline that runs from Canada to Michigan, which would further limit energy transport and supply.  

This is completely consistent with what I heard from an economist who said on the radio that we are producing a million barrels less now than we were under the previous administration.  President Trump understood that cheap energy is essential to middle-class prosperity.  Families are crushed when they have to pay $3.20 a gallon versus $2.20 in January.  It messes up the budget, as a financial planner once told me.

Don't get mad at the pump or the oil companies.  Get mad at bad policies made in the Oval Office.  Or as my old Korean professor would probably say: no drilling — pay more for gas!

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).

Images: BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

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