She said she can’t bear to pay over $100 to fill up her car. So she goes to the gas station twice as often, but only pays half as much. Now, that’s what I call finding another way. I mean, who could blame her? Gas is going through the roof. Let me know what you are paying, or even if you have a car, or if you are one of those who are driving an electric vehicle. We’re going to be talking about this in the broadcast because I think there is something more going on than just the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, when I first came to South Florida in 2023, I was paying around $2.80 a gallon. And it was a shocker coming from California with the highest gas prices in the nation. I mean, I routinely paid well over $5 back in SoCal. And most of the high cost is from California’s gas tax. It’s also the highest in the nation, almost at $1 a gallon just for taxes. And there is a California law that automatically increases the gas tax prices every July. So if you’re in California, you have that to look forward to. These taxes are supposed to go toward repairing the roads, but California has among the worst roads in the country.

Now, we need to add in the effects of the Iran war. You know, I don’t believe what I see in the headlines. Who knows what the WFers are doing. That’s what I call them, World Economic Forum. The powers that shouldn’t be the New World Disorder. They might all be in on this together because they can then inflict their preconceived solution upon the public. But what we’re going to be looking at in this video is what is happening at the pumps? Why is it because of Iran? Is that the reason for the high gas prices, this war? Are station owners gouging customers? Or do the station owners have to pay more? Are oil companies the one raking in the profits? And then we’re going to look at the various gas prices from high to low.

But I really want to talk about what I think is going on, sort of the hidden agenda, what I think the nefarious reasons are going forward. Now, before we go any further, just a quick word from today’s sponsor over at noblegoldinvestments.com. When we hear stories like higher gas prices, higher food prices, more uncertainty, a lot of people start thinking seriously about how to preserve their buying power. And what your financial advisor probably won’t tell you is that by the time the news tells you to buy gold, it’s probably to wait. You’re probably waiting.

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Check it out over at noblegoldinvestments.com. Friends, gas prices are up. I know that I get irritated at the pump, and somehow we’re told it’s the mysterious market forces, it’s the latest foreign war, or maybe it’s just your imagination. So let’s take a look at AAA. This is where I got the information, and they are tying the latest jump in oil, moving above $100 a barrel, and they are pinning it to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. There’s no indication as to when it’s going to open or reopen. So basically, one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies move through that waterway.

So take a look. Well, we are going to take a look at some of the other causes of these high prices, but let’s take a look at the high prices. So California, no surprise, the top price in the United States. Hawaii is right behind it. And we can go right down this list. Oklahoma, which used to be, my understanding, the country’s largest producer of oil, and then Texas took over that mantle, but Oklahoma is at $3.70. That is even higher than what I have been paying in Florida. And I showed you a picture of what I paid recently, well over $100.

And when I first moved here, it was, my gosh, just under, it was like the high $2. And now it’s averaging around $450, where I am. So that is quite a jump. But check this out. California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Nevada. What do you notice about these states? These are all of the more liberal, well, left-leaning states, aren’t they? Certainly California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Nevada. I’m shocked at the price in Alaska. I thought that they had fewer, that they had lower prices than most of the other states. And as I say, California is just out of sight.

Now, there are four main reasons that we’re told that we have this pump price increase. And so the price of crude oil, how much does the actual oil cost to get it out of the ground? How much does it cost to refine it? How much does it cost to distribute and market it? And how much do we pay in taxes? So I found this from the U.S. Department of Energy. I thought that was interesting, showing here we’ve got the crude oil. The largest amount of the cost goes for that. Federal taxes on oil, state taxes on oil, the distribution and marketing and the refining costs and profits.

We’re told that the profits are the smallest margin, but who knows if we can even trust that? We’re told also, I got this from the convenience stores and their communities. I got information that says the net profit for gas station owners is usually only around five to 10 cents per gallon. So when the wholesale prices jump quickly, the retailers actually get squeezed because they already have to replace inventory at higher prices. Now, that doesn’t rule out that there could be isolated price gouging at individual stations. And of course, I know where I can go to get a lower price of gas, even just within a few miles of where I am.

And so you can also select where you want to purchase your gas if you want to save some money. But of course, I don’t drive out of my way because then I’m using more gas in an effort to try to get the lower price. I try to make it convenient. So let’s take a look here. ExxonMobil reported, let’s see, $28.8 billion in earnings in 2025. They are the massively the largest in the world. And then BP, British Petroleum, reported $7.5 billion. Shell over $3 billion. And these gasoline companies are definitely raking in the dough. However, the taxes are also what leads to the higher prices.

Federal gasoline tax is $0.18.4 per gallon. I showed you that California is the highest in the nation, and it is close to $1 per gallon. And there are also regional differences that come from the distance that has to be traveled in order to supply the gasoline, local competition, operating costs, special fuel requirements. And I want to actually leave all that behind. And I want to talk about the controversies. So let me just get to the punchline. And let me see if you would like to follow along with my logic, which might be a little outrageous and outlandish for some.

But think about it. Gas prices could get so high that it prevents people from traveling, right? I’m going to dive into that a little bit. So there’s kind of a whole cluster of issues here. So people are not going to be taking their extra little trips. They might not be visiting friends. They might not be doing their errands. And so it’s not just the high fuel price that stings, but their whole behavior starts to change. Think back into 2020 days when people were not traveling. They were not taking their road trips. They weren’t visiting family.

People were working from home. People are still working from home. And so that sort of mobility of just being out in the world, I think is intentionally squashed with higher gas prices. And that’s how I see it. The next step then, the way my mind works, is, all right, people are going to be complaining about the high cost of gasoline. So they’re going to be thinking more about electric vehicles. Let me know if you or someone you know drives what is called an EV. I’ve done videos on this channel in the past reminding people that there’s no such thing as a zero emissions vehicle because it requires gas and oil and coal and regular types of energy to create the electric vehicle.

So even though you’re not putting gasoline into your tank, the energy that you’re using to fill up or to charge that car is still created with what would be called traditional energy sources. But there are people who think, I don’t want to pay that amount of that cost at the gas pump. I’m going to look into an electric vehicle. And as you know, there are a lot of government programs, a lot of subsidies, a lot of cultural and societal incentives and pushes for people to go for their electric vehicles. And I always say, you have to think about it.

You probably want to have a gas powered car in addition to an EV, especially if there’s an emergency and you can’t charge your vehicle or the electric grid goes down or the cost of electricity goes sky high, especially with all of these new data centers. Or maybe you’re in a place like I am in South Florida or anywhere in the United States where you might have to evacuate, you are stuck in traffic, and then your electric vehicle literally runs out of gas, so to speak. It runs out of a charge.

So always think about having a backup if you are driving the electric vehicle, which also has a very limited range for driving. So they’re not exactly a very safe vehicle when you’re looking at the big picture. So the high gas prices pushing people into electric vehicles, and we know that they are very expensive. They’re slow to recharge, risky for long-distance travel or emergencies. They’re just expensive. You can’t really replace them. And then all of the costs that it takes to get the elements to make those cars that have to be mined and then where do all those batteries go to die when you can’t use them again? So there’s a lot of controversy around that, a lot of practical criticism.

Even for people who drive them, they realize that there are some downsides to that. So then the next step is, well, wait a minute, the EVs are not all that convenient. So you know what? Maybe I should just give up driving and I should live in a place where I have all of my conveniences right at hand, the 15-minute city. Now, friends, let me say from the get-go, you might love living in a city. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a community where you can have access to your daily needs, your groceries, whatever you need to do, your work, what you like to do for your spare time, absolutely, your parks, what have you.

That’s why a lot of people like living in cities. A lot of people like living outside of cities for the exact opposite reason because they want to be more on their own. They want to be more self-sufficient. But this push for the 15-minute walkable city where you should be walking or riding a bike or taking public transit, if that is where this endgame is going and there’s no other choice, that is where I draw the line. Of course, you’ve got places like Lahaina where they are planning their 15-minute city.

They had it in the works long before the fires, and we can see that same pattern happen again and again, even in Los Angeles, where many of you know, and you followed my coverage about what happened in Pacific Palisades and how they are rebuilding parts of Los Angeles and getting it ready for the Olympics, and they are focusing on these urban planning groups that are promoting the 15-minute cities. So I just wanted to see if my thinking holds any validity or if the high gas prices are just a cycle and they’ll ease up again like they have in the past, because back in 2022, we had some of the highest gas prices in California.

They might have even been higher than they are now. And of course, with everything going on, with the COVID, what did I call it, hogwash, back in the day, a lot of things went haywire back then. So basically, all of these things, we’ve got the soaring gas prices. We’ve got the drivers getting sort of forcefully nudged toward the electric vehicles. They have real limitations. And then these urban planners talking about, well, maybe we don’t need cars at all. We’ll just do better in our 15-minute outdoor prisons. I mean, our 15-minute neighborhoods with less dependence on cars.

Whenever you hear the words sustainability, resilience, build back better, of course, my radar goes off. And when the powers that shouldn’t be can control we the public from traveling, from driving, from going where we want to go, I just think that is something worth looking at. So whatever the case may be, gas is expensive. And the powers that shouldn’t be are telling us that your car is the problem. Your replacement car, the EV, is costly and inconvenient. And the solution is apparently that you should take your family of four on a bicycle to do all of your daily errands.

Oh, yes. And if you need to take your sick animal somewhere, just put them in a backpack. You see, friends, not everyone can benefit from walking or bicycling or using public transportation. So let’s wrap up here, friends. Let me know, what are the gas prices where you are? Do you use public transportation? Do you live in a place where you have easy access to everything you need? But the most important thing is that we have choice. We have freedom of choice. In fact, the most important thing is that we have freedom.

See more of The Healthy American Peggy Hall on their Public Channel and the MPN The Healthy American Peggy Hall channel.