A thought about high gas prices.

My company announced first quarter financials after the market closed on Wednesday. We declared operating earnings of $1.9 billion ($1.3 billion net earnings) on $14.4 billion in revenues. My assistant (a Fox News addict who's always challenging me on political issues) said to me something like, "That looks about the same or greater margins than the oil industry announced, so why are you griping about them?"

My reply was, nobody's forced to buy our product. Try getting along without oil and gas.

But it was a fair question.