Pump Rage? Get Even by Buying ExxonMobil

Editor's Note: Jon D. Markman writes a weekly column for CNBC on MSN Money that is republished here on TheStreet.com.

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With gas prices at record highs, I'm sure you've got a few choice words to say about the greedy you-know-whats who run the big oil companies.

But I've got an alternative solution, and I don't mean ethanol: Don't get mad. Get even.

There's no point in getting mad at the oil companies, despite their record profits. They aren't gouging you, and the higher prices aren't their fault.

The blame lies a lot farther upstream. It lies with Congress. It lies with corn farmers. It lies with the Chinese. It lies in Europe. And, I'm sorry to say, it mostly lies with you.

Unless you are a vegetarian city dweller who walks to work, has never let a plastic fork touch your lips and has never bought a cheap Asian-made cell phone, then you need to shoulder some of the responsibility for our consumerist culture's absolutely extraordinary demand for crude oil and its refined byproducts.

Forget the guilt, though, and focus on the solution. There's a way to make rising gas prices work for you. And it's a simple matter of choosing the right ally, which might well be an entity you currently consider the enemy: ExxonMobilXOM.

The Crude Truth

Impossible? Well, hear me out before you click away from this column. Because despite what you may have heard, there really is a shortage of refined oil products in the world marketplace today, and we are never, ever going back to the good old days of absolute abundance when we didn't need to share. Nor should we.