"The real reason gas and oil prices are so high..."
Cartels, collusion, Oligopoly. OPEC produces 40% of the world's oil and 60% of the oil traded internationally (Source: Microeconomics 16th edition).
"It is clear that the OPEC cartel has sufficent market power to hold the price of oil substantially above its marginal cost of production," (McConnell 231).
McConnell, Brue. Microeconomics 16th edition.
Bush just called for a Congressional investigation into whether or not oil companies in America are engaged in price gouging.
So we have OPEC artifically driving up the price of oil (or at least the power to) and then companies selling gas may be setting the prices even higher.
Oil supply is an Oglipistic market, although gasoline sales in America are not, with a Herfindahl Index of about 650 (Source:
http://www.dallasfed.org/research/efr/2000/efr0003b.pdf). That makes the analysis a bit harder than relying on the assumptions of open markets, which we don't have.