People complain about gas prices almost daily. In many places in the U.S. gas prices have already topped $4.00 a gallon, and there’s speculation it could continue to rise. I don’t like high gas prices either – who does, right? However, what many of us fail to realize that there’s nothing politically wrong with high gas. No one is making you buy gas. Sure, you might need it for transportation, but you have other options such as walking, riding a bike, taking the bus, carpooling, or even investing in a more fuel efficient vehicle. You can simply use your transportation less so you’re not spending so much money on gasoline.

However, that’s despite the point. The point has nothing to do with your dependence on oil; again, that’s your choice. What we must realize is that it’s the free market at work. Mostly, it’s simply supply and demand. The primary reason that gas is so high is because, like all things, gas is finite; we have a limited supply of it, yet we have a growing demand. The growing demand is a result of increased usage by the average citizen, as well as the increased use of gasoline to fuel vehicles in foreign nations such as India and China.

Demand and supply are not the sole factors in determining the price of gasoline; admittedly, other factors come into play. These things can include things such as inflation, current political events, the state of the economy, and world events. That being said, the limited supply and the growing demand are the primary factors that cause gasoline to cost so much, followed by inflation.

We simply have two options: we increase the supply or we decrease the demand. We can increase the supply by investing in finding new oil and in drilling for domestic oil in our own country in places like Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, we can decrease the demand by using it less ourselves and by using and discovering new alternative fuels.

Essentially, high gas prices are the free market at work; and that, my friends, is a good thing. The free market in our capitalistic system is key to economic success. Many people have proposed laws on gasoline to decrease the cost. Price caps, for example, have been suggested by some politicians as a means to decrease the cost of gasoline by limiting the price that oil companies can charge for their fuel. Aside from the obvious destruction of liberties by telling a company what they can sell their product for, this would only intensify the problem by creating gas shortages. With a price cap, gasoline would become artificially low. Gas stations would daily run out of gas because they don’t have enough to sell at the artificially low price set by the government. Others have suggested that we increase the taxes on oil corporations for their windfall profits. There are three main problems with increasing the taxes on large oil companies. Firstly, it hurts the free market. Secondly, oil corporations aren’t making a massive profit. Any “windfall profit” should be there’s regardless, because they are the ones who invested, risked, researched, and drilled to produce the oil in the first place. Thirdly, it will only increase the price of oil because the oil companies will simply raise what they’re charging to make up for the increased federal tax on their profits.

As Americans we must live to deal with high fuel prices. The solution to these high prices is not placing restrictions and price caps, but is rather to deal with the free market. We can either decrease the demand by using less (which, in all honesty, isn’t very likely) or we can live with the free market. And trust me, the free market is better than the alternative. Supply and demand is how our system should work, and supply and demand is primarily the cause of increased prices. Of course, this is in addtion to rising inflation. Increasing taxes, capping prices, and complaining aren’t the solution. Until we start using domestic oil and/or create alternative fuels, high gas prices are here to stay.