In summary Gov. Gavin Newsom’s crusade against the oil industry over gas prices missed the larger point that the cost of nearly everything in California is very high. Why California is what it is – a state with an immense economy but equally immense socioeconomic divisions – is the topic of perpetual academic, media and political debates. There is one factor, both a cause and an effect, that cannot be debated: California is an enormously expensive place in which to live and work. And if anything, the relatively high inflation that has plagued the national economy in recent years has exacerbated the angst that Californians were already feeling as they…