Who’s to blame for $4 gas

One word:

Greed.

Opportunism created a monster, and the rest of us are held hostage. Lots of excuses are being used, such as political failures, “supply and demand”, etc.

The real culprit is runaway greed and anyone who knows human nature knows this.

No more snow jobs, please.

When I first purchased my truck in 1999, gas was 80 cents per gallon. Now gas is $4 per gallon. While I agree that demand has increased over the last 10 years, I can’t swallow the suggestion that this alone is accounting for the 500% increase. I believe that the huge profits are being invested into research for the new forms of energy that we are being told about. We know that we will not be able to burn fossil fuels forever, but if consumers will be paying the bills for research (and we know that we will), why not just tell us that instead of blaming high demand for the rising prices?

All of these points make it a little more clear why it costs me and my family so much at the pump. The big oil companies are taking advantage of the situation a little, but they are in the business to make money. I think fear is the biggest reason for the most recent rise. People are afraid that the prices will go even higher so they actually use more gas. They fill up so they can be thankful they have a full take when the big jumps happen. What they are doing is lowering the supply and essentially raising the prices on themselves. The price increases were a little much though, I think there has been a lot of price gouging especially in the south and Ike was a convenient excuse.

A combination of green versus traditional should be our immediate goal. Down the road, dependance on oil will fade. Right now, many alternatives are flooding the market. These alternatives, along with changing our lifestyles, will work itself out. There must be patience.
It will not happen over night.
A nice alternative I have found is http://www.emotionebikes.com/

Democrats blocking us from drilling and making more refineries from pressure by the tree huggers are going to make this country collapse. I understand all the problems that pertain to this, but if there is no bridge until we become more green, this country will collapse like Russia. Good job Democraps! We need to block our borders (more people, more demand), have the govt create laws from shelving environmentally friendly technology by big business and concentrate all efforts on becoming less oil dependant.

when you go to the gas pump put up a sticker that tell how much you senators and reps are worht to oil and gas put it next to the final price, its an election year take control

everyone needs to say home for a day!then gas will be cheaper

The problem lies with unregulated oil companies. Every day we hear a new excuse concerning the price of oil(one “expert” has partially blamed fog in the Gulf of Mexico for the most recent spike).

The truth is that the companies know just how profitable the energy industry has become. Since nearly all of our congressmen are bought off by oil companies, there is never a voice to come in and say, “Hey, this has gone far enough.”

The answer to this huge problem is alternative, affordable energy(such as hydrogen). Since people in our government are making so much money off the oil industry today, there is no push to go away from oil.

We put a man on the moon in less than a decade, because our government supported and invested in the project. Why can’t we take this step as well? Let’s strive for the betterment of humanity, not the betterment of a bank account.

Greed, pure and simple

I will be first to admit that I don’t know all the details of what makes the gas price, but to hear the Big Oil company say they are doing everything they can isn’t accurate one bit. Ever notice how fast gas price increase when the price of oil increase but how slow it comes back down when the price of oil drops? If the market and price of oil is going to dictate how much we pay at the pump, then at least keep change in price consistent.

The biggest ripoff to the american people. Greedy companies, cupply and demand, whatever you call it, its still a ripoff to us all.

Has the thought that we are under the perfect terrrorist attack ever crossed our government’s minds?
What better way to ensure the demise of the United States than with oil?

This is very easy to explain. You don’t have to be a scientist to know that oil is a natural resource. And natural resources, well run out. Scientist have predicted that oil will run out in about 30-40 years at the rate the world uses it. Why else would America need so much “reserve”. Clear and simple they are tring to get all their money’s worth before the “precious” runs out. Just my 2 Cents.

Gas prices are so high because countries like India and China are bursting onto the economic scene demanding more fuel. You have to remember these countries have populations in the billions. So with the rising demand and stagnant supply, we have high prices. Very simple principals of economics.

Our very own government should be allowing the private oil companies to drill in our own hemisphere so we can become more self-sufficient in the long term. The longer Democrats in Congress restrict us in this regard, the more we as consumers will suffer both at the pump and at the grocery stores and beyond.

Interesting however the real culprit is inflation. Compare oil to any other commodity, when everything goes up its called inflation. You can still buy the same number of gallons of gas, or barrels of oil with Gold and Silver coinage. yep by printing more and more money the dollars in your pocket are worth less.

Don’t worry people…as soon as we take over Iraq, we’ll have plenty of oil and way cheaper gas. Most likely the planet will be half dead by then due to global warming but hey…look on the brightside, at least you’ll be paying 75 cent a gallon gas again! Heeeey!

Your story totally missed the economic situation in the US. Oil is traded globally in US dollars so when the dollar weakens the price skyrockets. This is, in part, more fallout from the mortgage crises.

Congress’ Drilling ban enough said thank you EPA and tree huggers for that one

When the US Congress bows at the altar of extremist environmentalism which consistently blocks production of our own resources the rise in the price of energy is inevitable. The next time you fill up… thank an environmentalist and a spineless congressman.

Two words: Peak Oil.

Google it, or check out these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
http://energybulletin.net/primer.php

There is not an infinite supply of the stuff, and we have past the peak of extraction (which the oil companies like to call ‘production’). Expect prices to continue to rise….

$11 billion (billion with a “b”) profit in one quarter. That’s profit, over and above the expenses of running a company. That money has to be coming from somewhere.

The increase in the price of a barrel of oil is due to the weak dollar, speculators, demand outstripping supply, the war (choking supply at the moment – it peaked in early 90s for the same reason). What I want to focus on is the demand/supply equation because all the other factors are not long team reasons (will last decades).

There is continued upward pressure on the price of oil because we have reached peak production. Right now demand is just met by supply and we are not discovering oil to meet our thirst for it. Don’t take my word for it even the oil industry guys are saying it. We are at or very near PEAK OIL.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/wef/article3248484.ece

What does this all mean? Well the price of a barrel of oil and hence gas at the pump will only go up. $4 for gas is going to look real good 5 – 10 years from now. I expect we will be at $10 before the end of 2010.

I think some have mentioned that drilling in ANWR would fix the problem. Well the US uses more than 20 million barrels of oil per day and its demand is increasing at 3%. And the rest of the world uses over 85 million barrels of oil per day. If we opened up ANWR and got the oil that the oil companies claim is there (20 billion barrels), thats 3 years of oil – and thats if all of it goes to the US which would not be the case, some would go abroad to meet growing demand. Note I’m not saying don’t drill, just that it just makes a dent in a much larger problem.

Don’t blame Bush. He is a FAILED oilman. If he had set out to favor the oil companies, Exxon would have a loss, not a profit.

I think it’s easy to see what the Bush Administration closed sessions on energy, a few years back, consisted of regarding the oil companies and Bush cronies. This is the energy policy they came up with during those closed meetings – stick it to the American public while you can, I (Bush) only have a few months left in office!!!

My GOD so many of your are either grossly uneducated, or your class envy is so thick you can’t see the glaring errors of your arguments.

Folks, the US economy is founded upon capitalism. What does that mean? Supply and demand sets price, and those who are smarter, faster and stronger have the opportunity to thrive. It also means that the FREE MARKET is the best way to fuel innovation. You know, that innovation that you all keep screaming about…the one for alternative energy.
Easily half of the comments are touting communism. “Not fair!” “We should ALL have EVERYTHING (or all have the SAME things)!” “Greed is making my life miserable!”

Do you listen to yourselves? Do you think if you put your money and efforts on the line to run a company, you wouldn’t try to maximize profits? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do…for your shareholders…which many of you ARE.
Can’t afford gas? Oil prices high? Don’t buy so much of it. Have to get around? Should have planned for it years ago when you bought your car. Or did you think cheap gas was guaranteed? I guess home prices can ONLY go up, and fuel can only go down. Jesus…read a book on economics and quit expecting the government to protect your laziness and stupidity

The bottom line is greed has something to do with it. The problem here in the USA is that there has been no pressure or incentive for looking for alternative energy sources. Big oil is called “Big” for a reason. Do you think they want to see a decrease in usage? Until we finally wake up in this country and start changing things ourselves, this will never stop. Remember what happened to the Big Three car makers. They got comfortable and thought the American people would keep buying their cars no matter how bad they were. Now look at where they are now. Struggling to stay competitive in a GLOBAL market. Europe is at least ten years ahead of us on alternative energy. Do you see them crying about the price of oil? They are laughing at us. We need to make sure we stay as the Greatest Country in the world by becoming the leaders in alternative energy. I still believe in the spirit of this country. The creativity and ingenuity that has made this country what it has been before and could be agian.

I believe that the oil companies are using some of their massive profits to invest in the oil commodities market to drive the speculation up and to bring pressure to bear on congress and the U.S. to open up ANWAR.

Quite frankly, what did we expect? Put an oil-man in the White House, and this is precisely what happens. Sure, ‘W’ is mouthing all the right words, and seems sympathetic. But in January, 2009, he’ll be laughing – all the way to the bank – about how thoroughly he was able to dupe all of America.

*shrug* You voted for him.

Lies, lies, lies – all of it, lies. The demand around the globe has not gone up 100% in just a few years. The REAL reason is refining companies are testing to see how much they can make everybody pay. There is no supply / demand issue happening here. How do you explain 40 billion dollar annual profits for the last two years? Gas price goes up – profits go up. It is a simple equation. the numbers don’t lie.

And it is frustrating in the west (Colorado) where there is not good public transportation infrastructure (except for San Fran, Seattle, Portland) to just give up driving to work. I have to take my son 1.5 miles to daycare and from there 13 miles to work, so not crazy distances, but it would take 2 hours and 3 buses to get that distance with Denver’s bus system, and I’d get to the daycare after it closed in the evening. Now we see the problems with mid-size cities growing after the advent of the car.

Well, Americans need to learn how gas prices are across the world. Here we get Gas for discounted price and people think its cheap. Everyone here is dependent on Car or SUV to commute. This infrastructure doesnt support public transportation. People are just wasting lot of gas driving short distances and stuck in traffic. People need to depend on public transportation rather than car. Automatically the gas prices will go down. People who are lazy to use public transportation are to be blamed.

The Group most @ blame-Our Congress buckling to special interests-think Sierra Club-Endangered Rats-Lizards- they want to force us off oil-and they’re proving it-still can’t drill in ANWAR-and off east and west coasts. Rich liberals flying around in private jets-trying to save the environment-so we can all drive a moped-see Al Gore- Next-surging gloabal demand & geopolitical issues-the War & psychos like Chavez & Iranian leader- Satan

Some of the problem is due to the falling US Dollar. Oil around the world is traded in US Dollars. As the dollar drops in value, it means other countries can now purchases more oil for the dollars. Causing more demand and decreasing supply which causes prices to increase. The other problem is that environmentalists our constantly standing in the way of allowing us to drill for our own oil, in our own country. The polar bears being added to the endangered species list is a perfect example of this. The polar bear population has actually increased by 5x since the 1970’s. But it now disallows us to drill in any area that would disturb the habitat of the polar bears.

We the consumer are to blame! No where else in the world do consumers demand such oversized and thirsty vehicles, or large homes that need heating and cooling. Similar goes for luxury goods etc. Even the weathiest nations like Monaco and Switzerland control themselves in consuming natural resources.

Fuel tax is expensive, yes, but it does not constitute even half of the $4 a gallon we see today. In addition, the tax has increase 0.1 cents when gas prices in the past year have increased by almost a dollar.

Furthermore, there is not a tax put on fuel used for non-transportation purposes. In other words, the oil used to heat homes in the north (that is currently OVER $4 a gallon) is not subject to the tax.

Those of you who believe high gas prices are caused by high taxation, how do you explain these facts?

US refiners are exporting diesel, and turning more capacity formerly used for domestic gasoline to diesel production. In this way domestic gasoline prices are being globalized.

$4 gas can be looked at in a positive light. The country is finally ready to look for alternatives. Quit writing about digging for more oil within the US. Companies need more incentives, which probably should have been established 10 years ago to produce clean energy (wind, solar, hydrogen etc.) Think of the money currently being wasted in Iraq that could go towards research and development. There is no reason affordable electric shouldnt be available at a reasonable price. We can only blame ourselves and government for not looking into the future. I wish I’d never have to purchase a drop of gasoline again. The environment would be alot cleaner and I would be spending my hard earned money so someone in the middle east can life in a palace. utilize renewable resources and we can cut our ties with the middle east and south america. clean energy research and development could also create US jobs. I hope gas goes up to 10 a gallon, i might be broke in the short term but hopefully it will be a wake up call which can strengthen our pathetically declining country in the future.

We here in North America have never paid the true cost of oil. Our so called “leaders” knew all of this thirty years ago but decided ignorance, greed and brainwashing would solve the problem.

The real underwriters of our insanely unsustainable lifestyles are the severely impovrished peoples of third world dictatorships with whom we are so, so willing to do business.

We have no leaders.

I think that conserving energy will absolutely help the issues at hand, but we all need to remember that not every area in the US has public transportation. Its present in major cities like Boston, for example but not everywhere else. I live in a well developed area and we don’t have any type of public transportation to other cities. Believe me, if I could get on a bus to get to and from work to save on fuel, I would gladly do it.

Blame it on the Wall Street Speculators. They pumped up and then dumped the price of homes. Now they left the suckers to suck it up. Now they are waiting for suckers to jump into the oil commedities market so they can bail out.

Let’s see. The US has 5% of the world’s population, 3% of the world’s proven reserves of petroleum, and we utilize 25% of the world’s oil production.

Seems pretty straight forward to me.

The enemy is in the mirror.

How about we lay off blaming the environmentalist. If it were not for them, you would probably not have air to breath right now.
What good is the oil if we don’t have a planet that can support life?
But then warming is a lie, isn’t it?
Find alternatives to oil, before it does us all in.

Wake up

The “greedy oil execs” arguement doesn’t fly. Oil companies make about 8 cents a gallon. They are making record profits because of consumption, not overpricing. The Government who does nothing in the drilling or production process makes around 70 cents a gallon.

We need to start drilling in our own country. Forget the leftist freaks that tell us to use corn or other food supllies. Al gore flies around in his private jet preaching to us about gas use. Come on, this country needs to wake up and start rejecting the environMENTAL nuts before we really hit a recession.

The handwriting was on the wall in the early 70’s. Our inept government did little to nothing to address this issue.

It’s because they can. Also, I agree with Valeri about letting the tree huggers and environmentalists stand in the way of what is underneath us. Why don’t we have the guts to just shove them out of the way and get what our citizens need? President Bush has already tried to get Saudi Arabia to pump up production; they laughed in his face and said “NO!!” Of course, he waits until he is almost out of office to do it; he didn’t have to rush to do it because he’s never going to have to decide between food and gas.

Why is it the a French, Citroen 2-L turbo diesel returns 45-55 MPG ? Yet they do not sell this car in USA!!!!!!

Curtis Billing….. From Jolly old England

Food for thought

You can’t blame Big Oil for this. They spend BILLIONS on research and development. You THINK with the pressure of Environmentalist that they are just going to laugh at them and ignore them? No. They want to be ahead of the times and be the first to develop alternative energies. I mean, c’mon…If Chevron or EXXON Mobil came up with a solution to big oil..can you imagine how much money they will be raking in. AND! Big Oil’s C.E.O’s, etc, the top tier money makers…account for 1% of the companies income. Do some research. Big oil’s profits all go to their workers and research,I.E. university grants. Yeah, good portion goes to politicians, but that’ll never change for any other company. And plus, a large amount of American Big Oil have American workers. We get rid of Big Oil, we’ll get rid of more jobs.

Blame Detroit, American’s short memories, and lack of leadership on energy conservation for the past 35 years. Years after sitting in gas lines in the 70’s, Detroit keeps building bigger gas hogs and naive Americans keep on buying them. Europe has been paying higher prices than us for years and you don’t see the SUV’s over there. They drive SMART cars. I’m afraid the party is over.

Many have already stated GREED and I have to agree. If BIG oil Co. won’t limit their profits on their own, then the Gov. needs to CAP fuel prices and they need to do it now.

Weak political “leadership” has not mandated auto manufacturers produce autos for e-85; have not supported sugar-cane ethanol production (only the high priced corn), have NOT supported synthetic diesel from coal, nor mandated e-85 pumps in gas stations. Time to roll them all out!!

World Oil Production has peaked.

Google “Peak Oil,” then go to Images.

We have already burned up most of the earth’s oil.

The world’s not running out of oil yet, but we sure are not going to be able to produce at the levels needed to meet worldwide demand.

Oil prices are going nowhere but UP.

The enviromentalist will not allow us to drill for oil, build refineries, or build nuclear plants. These enviromentalists (i.e. anti- capitolists)need to be silenced. Our way of life is at risk

We just need to be less dependent on oil and more dependent on renewable resources. There is no simple or easy answer to making this happen, though. Our government needs to get this straightened out and deal with this more seriously. Also, it would help if people quit buying the SUV’s and using so much gas!! People are complaining about the price, yet I do not see any decrease in SUV’s on the roads.

The answer to this energy “crisis” is fairly simple. Build more refining capacity (there is enough oil supply), use nuclear for electric generation (electric generation accounts for about 40% of the natural gas used in this country), invest in eco-friendly coal solutions (we are sitting on 200 yr. supply)and invest in profitable alternative solutions. This will break the back of OPEC.

Come on people why do we blame the big SUV’S and pickup trucks? They have nothing to do with none on this. Look back in the 70s and 80s cars were lucky to get 15 mpg so whats the differance between now and then. I get so tired of people blaming vehicles for this.Iam suprized that no one has started on NASCAR and drag racing on all the fuel they use up just to race. You people need to stop blaming vehicles cause its the easest thing to do and start blaming our goverment.

The other thing is eviromentalist they complain about oil usage and fuel burning vehicles but have no problem getting in there fuel hogging jet plane to go to there next protest.

Its all about money making and this is how the middle east is getting back at us for the war.

Doesn’t anybody remember the ‘closed door’ Energy meetings that Cheney put on at the beginning of the Bush Administration’s hostile takeover of our Government? The meetings that the public and Environmentalists weren’t allowed to sit in on? What did you think they were discussing in there, the price of tea in China?

Greed….nothing but greed!!!!! Yes slow down to 55 mph yourself. Don’t wait on the government to post signs on roads and interstates. Get rid of the big SUV’s and use your heads. How many people really need a Hummer to go to the grocery store? Lets get back to basic ideas. In other words use your head and do what YOU can do to benefit your life and your country.

I need a truck for my home, work, and transportation. My wife needs a vehicle that will carry 7 people for our children and their friends. We work in opposite directions- both 20 minutes away from our home built on family land. If I wanted to get rid of my truck, I couldn’t afford to because its value has fallen so much. New, fuel efficent vehicles are out of my price range. Who is to blame? Adminstration for not stepping up and taking care of the problem. Priorities. All it would take to lower prices would be the building of a new government owned refinery. Drill in our own country- carefully and effectively. If they can rip down trees and destroy an ecosystem to build a highway, shopping center, and parking lot, they can surely do it to build an oil rig. What is the difference? Honestly, I see the 1970’s all over again. Panic, overreaction, price gouging (yes, inflated profits, overpriced fuel efficient vehicles, and gas prices raising daily is price gouging). Someone needs to take action instead of sitting around talking about it. Who is that going to be? Who will take command?

Have you looked at the amount of oil available in ANWAR? It’s enough to provide us oil for about 2-3 years. That’s it. Then you’ve wasted all the money building that infrastructure for a supply that no longer exists. Invest that money in wind and solar power…stuff that we won’t ever run out of.

I agree somewhat with JA of St Paul. How can oil companies be allowed to achieve record profits while the average american can’t afford to purchase fuel to get back and forth to work. Then there are the truckers that are going out of business because of deisel fuel cost at over $1000 per fill-up and these are the people that transport the majority of our nation’s goods. As a concerned American I plan to plan my trips effectively, ride my motorcycle and anything else I can to reduce my consumption of gasoline. I only wish we had access to more mass-transit in our nation than we do.

Another case of corporate criminals playing games with peoples lives. I fear that the prices better ease before we see rioting in the streets.

How many refineries are being built now with the fantastic big oil profits?
There is no incentive for big oil to build new refineries as long as the consumer keeps buying and a weak president does not use the pulpit.
Is oil really a commodity or a necessity. The free market is broken as far as oil goes. Is it time to regulate?

The Saudies and Opec see just how much money they can make,it,s like a salary why would you want to do anything to lower your paycheck?
When they crashed the towers they wanted to disrupt our economy,well guess what,they have done a great job of making that happen.The housing industry, job layoff,s,gas prices looks like they have done a good job to me.They will now take the profits from our over priced gas, come over to our country and buy up all our real estate that everyone is losing and then they will own us as well.

Re:
“You can’t just point the finger at speculators,” Michael Haigh, head of U.S. commodities research at the investment bank Société Générale, recently told CNNMoney.com “Fundamentally, the markets are where they are supposed to be.” The speculators are elated about their parasitic wealth, but it is true that they are not the only reason for high prices. Try these:
1. Lack of coherent energy program – alternatives fuels, low refining capacity, refusal to mandate meaningful fuel efficiency standards – in the name of “free enterprise”
2. Diminishing oil reserves and greater demand by countries like China and India (lack of energy efficiency in those countries, as well)
3. Obscene corporate profits
4. Failure to conserve (e.g., how much energy does does advertising consume?)
5. Failure to mandate a nationally coordinated public transportation system
6. Failure to ship goods by rail instead of by truck (to say nothing about fuel consumption, highway damage, etc.)
… among others
Oil, like other natural resources is a resource belonging to the people in a democratic society. Having enough clean energy, viable transportation systems, and a clean environment are expectations of such a society. However, only the people can bring these things about. The can start by demanding and working towards:
1. Nationalization of what belongs to the people (e.g., look at Pemex in Mexico.)- oil, minerals, forests …
2. National institutionalization of national services, such as health care, education, transportation, and other critical elements of the National infrastructure.

It is no one’s right (in fact it is unethical) to profit from the misery/unfortunate circumstances of others. Is it not ironic that those touting democracy as a political process are so afraid of their government so as not to have it administer in the peoples’ name resources and services so vital to human life? Perhaps, the failure to participate in the political process makes this so. Yet, to further help ensure abuse of power, the more creative can establish independent institutions (such as outside auditing) as checks and balances in government administration.

The will to to take back control of your resources and services from the hands of the greedheads is there, but only if you are willing to be participants in the democratic society that you would like to claim exists in the U.S. Let us have a REAL crosscurrent of ideas and subsequent debate in the U.S.

There can’t possibly be justification for the recent increases in oil prices. Besides all the undiscovered oil in Alaska, etc…we could never use all the oil supplies up before we are all driving around in electric cars anyways! And as for drilling in Alaska, there are less people in all of Alaska than in the crowded city I live in. No one’s saying destroy alaska, but they can move a few bears can’t they?

Our country needs to make refining and drilling on our own turf a priority-It isn’t just 4.00 gas. Everything in this country moves buy big Rig or Rail-Diesel is now 5.00 a gal and trks consume some 100-200 gallons a day. That increases the price of everything from food to the socks on your Grandchilds feet.. We must repair our own economy and and using our own resources will go a long way to doing that.

Estimates of reserves in ANWAR are between 4.3 and 11 billion bbl with a mean value of 7.7 billion bbl (for comparison, Ghawar, the largest superfield in the world contained about 120 billion bbl in estimated reserves ca. 1970). This could supply 5% of the current US consumption rate (not counting future growth) for approximately 12 years, not counting the 5-10 years it would take to ramp to capacity production. Drilling in ANWAR will NOT solve this or any other looming oil crisis in the near future. The era of cheap fuel has ended. Deal with it! Drive less! Stop buying ridiculous vehicles!

the government (aka the taxpayers) provide huge tax credits to the oil companies, yet they do not put that into developing new refineries. eliminate the tax credits. institute a windfall profits tax. use that money to fund alternative energy.

Commodity speculators have driven the price to unreasonable levels, and Wall Street will not allow huge losses for their largest investors. When the dollar makes its recovery, the last in will lose big, but it will not be the biggest investors.

To those people that mentioned that the price of gas here in the US can be compared to the price in Europe – Please, think about it before saying it. Do you compare the price of water there too? I don’t think you can compare -

WE NEED TO DEVELOP PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM.

Oh yeah, one other thing. All you people talk about getting alternative fuel vehicles and other things, that is all great and good, but we can’t switch over if no one can 1. Afford to buy them, 2. Due to the horrible market, get financing for them or 3. What do we do with all these gas running vehicles?

There are numerous and myriad reasons for the price of oil and subsequently gas and home heating oil not the least of whch are: Democrats, who prefer to blame Bush for everythig from hang nails to nose bleeds, blame him for the problem with oil prices when Democrats really just need to look right at their own party and try to explain why they refuse to open oil fields available to the US; speculators being permitted to inflate the price of oil with no boundaries (similar to what they have done with gold); oil consumption in emerging countries like India and China where the need for oil has increased substantially – the US bears the burden of those increases by having to pay the higher prices related to demand soaring in other countries, just to name a few.

It is greed. Some people don’t even have the money to make ends meet and others are getting filthy rich. There is a bubble and it will burst one day. All of the car companies are working on alternatives and will soon come up with something. The oil people are cutting their own throat.

Plain and simple greed is the bottom line for $4 gas. The financial markets have a vested interest in driving all commodity prices. Our own, I use the term loosely, government is contributing by continuing to push down the value of the dollar on world markets in order to increase the economic divide. Their hypocritical protestations not withstanding, it is naive to believe that these institutions will allow their portfolios to fall to their true values without exhausting all the tools at their disposal. Lastly, it is our cowardly populace that continues to accept the half-truths and outright lies that make this deplorable situation unlikely to change in the near term future.

Simple. We have not developed domestic supplies.

All you have to do is look at the price of gasoline in Oil producing nations vs Oil consuming nations.

We have a domestic supply from ANWR, Gulf atlantic and west coast and coal liquification. Which would move our nation from an Oil Consuming to an oil producing nation.

3 things drive prices, Supply/Demand and cost to produce.

The ratio of these three set prices from Peanut butter to gasoline.

I think there are too many factors at play to point the finger at any one person. Between greed, demand, and government inaction, I think we are in for very, very dark times ahead.

Yet what are we to do? I live in Southern California, with public transporation at its worst. It would take me 1 hour 45 minutes to go 7 miles! And the streets are not bike friendly. All the people in their Mercedes, BMW’s and Porsche’s use the bike lane as their personal passing lane because they are much to important to do the speed limit like the rest of us. So what are we to do but drive?

Everyone in the “Pipeline” is getting rich. This is a market bubble and will burst like all get rich strategies that involve other people’s futures, Savings and Loans and high yield bonds of the 80’s and recently the ARMs, Interest only, and Jumbo mortgages that were handed out like condoms at a music festival these past 5 years…

The answer is simple – GREEDY oil executives. Anyone who doesn’t think they are responsible for the current fuel prices needs to consider a couple of things. First, we aren’t paying $127 a barrel for oil. That is a speculative future cost yet the oil execs jack the price up in anticipation of what it is assumed will be the market price. The actual market price for a barrel of oil is considerably less. Second, if gasoline demand is exceeding supply where are the people standing in lines? In the 70’s, there was the oil embargo and there were lines because gas was in such short supply. All this hype about shortages is simply a marketing ploy to get gasoline prices up. The answer, plain and simple, is greed, greed, greed. Our elected leaders are wrong, wrong, wrong for having not already acted to stabilize this industry. This is an election year. Contact your elected representatives frequently, often, as many times as it takes. One of the reasons this hasn’t changed yet is because ‘we the people’ aren’t screaming loud enough – YET!

This article was very one sided. Not a mention was made about record profits posted by oil companies.
Little bias don’t you think?

From what I understand we are using the same amount of oil we used in 1980 (18 Million barrels) because of new technology. The problem comes with supply and the capacity to refine it. We need to drill and build more refineries, I cannot understand why congress has not allowed drilling in a state that is twice the size of Texas and has a population 623,000 smaller than the city of El Paso,TX. Why does Saudi Arabia have 45 cent gas…I think you know. LETS DRILL!!!

Ok, I agree. There are at least major reasons that have been contributed to the high price of gasoline. 1) not enough supply, 2)speculators. What I don’t understand is, that for all the screaming the public is doing, we are allowing ourselves to be held hostage by envirnomental wackos who won’t let us build more refineries, and drill our own oil. There is enough proven reserves in North America to totally wipe out the control by OPEC. There is also the choice of controlling the amount of investment a speculator can do on a futures, like they do on other commodities, ie. $500,000.

Why we don’t build our own refineries also, I’ll never understand. The problem is not the “profits”. And the liberal wanting to tax the profits, who do you think is going to end up paying that too?

I’m not sure the exact economic reason for the high gas prices, but I do know that it is really frustrating when you hear on CNN that oil companies are posting record high profits. Why isn’t someone stepping back and saying, “There is a problem here and our system is flawed.”? I’m not a huge fan of government intervention in business, but this business affects so many people and I feel is causing a crisis amongest the average American. The question I want answered is how much worse it it going to get before it gets better?

Does anyone realize that the OPEC countries must be laughing at us on a daily basis, knowing that we’re sitting on billions of barrels of our own oil but refuse to drill for it?

All the while, we’re paying them $130/barrel. I mean… they must be incredulous. But of course, they’re not going to increase production.

Too many of our citizens and members of Congress have been fooled by these so-called environmentalists, who are making fools out of all of us — the kind of fool that is soon parted with his/her money.

Oil companies will have more incentive to build new refineries if tbhey see that we’re willing to extend our oil-based economy farther into the forseeable future.

On the other hand, we need to further position ourselves for the inevitable end of oil by investing NOW in alternative fuels.

Let’s get real … right now OPEC is LAUGHING at us while taking an ever-growing portion of our paychecks directly from our pockets.

Drill for our own oil NOW !!!

This state of high gas & oil prices is not going to wane any time soon. What people do not seem to understand is that oil is a traded commodity. Which mean it doesn’t matter which country it comes from, its trade globally so the price is the price whether is drilled in the US or abroad. With the emergence of China and India into the global economy, demand for oil will only continue to rise no matter how much is pumped out of the ground.

Secondly, until we as a nation decide to start using alternative means of power, such nuclear, hydro, solar and wind, we will be enslaved to all oil producing nations and companies. We have been told by the envrio-nazis that nuclear power is bad and that hydro is harmful to wildlife, but the French and other European countries have been using those sources for years without incident. Its time to rethink our power policies in this nation.

My feeling is, if we could develop the nuclear bomb in 18 months to end WWII, and put a man on the moon in 7 years, we can acheive anything. We just need to create some political will through increased preasure from votes.

PLEASE…if everyone in the us would quit buying gas just for one day the oil companys would lose a lot of money. just like we are loseing every time we buy the 4.00 gas why don’t we set a day to stomp out gas?just don’t buy it.i challenge everone that reads this to a national day called no gas

We, the American public, are the ones most to blame for “high” prices. We think that having a car and fuel is our right, but they are LUXURIES. We have been paying less for fuel than the rest of the industrialized world…MUCH less. In fact, even at $4 per gallon, we are still paying less than Japan, Australia and most of Europe. These countries have been paying more that $4/Gallon for YEARS!!! Regulating oil companies is not the answer. There are dozens of examples of regulation back firing (see Californias’ electric companies). Taxing oil companies is also not really the answer, since they will only pass those costs on to the consumers. Oil will only get harder and more expensive to find and refine, so the only real way to make prices drop is to A)lower demand significantly, or B) become a major producer of crude oil: either tap our resources in ANWR or invade another oil-rich nation.

oil is a non renewable resource. oil has likely hit it’s peak by now or perhaps years ago and is now on the decline in the earth. the world meanwhile continues to demand more oil from our earth than ever before. between the US and their inability to try to ween off oil, and the increase of demand from booming nations with massive amount of humanitarian growth and over population like china and india… ok, yeah, im rambling, supply and demand.

The world sees Americans are getting stimulous checks for $600 – $1200 and the Saudis are saying, “stimulate us too!”

There are two factors that have not been mentioned:
OPEC – the price of oil is controlled by a cartel, and it is much higher than the prices of most other forms of energy (solar costs more than oil).
The Fed – whenever interest rates go so low, speculators can also borrow on the cheap, fueling bubbles (tech stocks, housing, and now commodities), creating the bubble economy that we now have.

We really need to work on reducing the demand side of the equation: lighter vehicles with smaller engines, less miles driven, switching to fuels other than oil (ethanol, biodiesel, and other s) and population reduction (eventually). All of these things will help our quality of life. The planet is not getting any bigger, so there are some limits, and we may be close to them already.

These morons whining about the lack of higher fuel efficiency standards might want to notice what’s actually outside the window of their hybrids. CONSTRUCTION AND COMMERCIAL TRANSPORT REQUIRES BIG, GAS GUZZLING VEHICLES. Even if the passenger SUVS disappear the need for large vehicles will remain as it always has. There is no such thing nor will there EVER be as a “fuel-efficient” 1 ton pickup not to mention the big rigs. CAFE standards apply to the entire fleet of vehicles for a car manufacturer. The high MPG vehicles OFFSET the gas guzzlers.

Fuel efficiency, driving less, etc. will not bring prices down unless you care to convince China and India to go along with you. We need as we’ve needed for decades, domestic exploration and production off all US coasts AND ANWR. This ups supply while also sending the signal to OPEC, Russia, Canada, etc. that we actually intend to change the equation rather than the nonsensical talk of “reducing demand”- this is a global problem that cannot be solved by simply a reduction in US demand.

Thanks liberals, your tree hugging federal regulations have worked out real well for the avg, hard working, tax paying Joe. The country runs on oil and until that changes (20 yrs, 30yrs?) it will continue to run on OIL. We need to get it NOW.

Once Pluto was de-planetized, gas prices shot up. It’s all about Pluto.

I am a supplier to the Oil and Gas industry and while the profits being taken are quite large, it is equally important to watch and see how the companies use their profits.

The system did not recieve the reinvestment it needed during the late 80’s and early 90’s and as a result is rusting away. This will lead to even more shortages – just think about the number of pipeline leaks and oil refinery fires you have heard about in the news over the past 6 months.

Prepare yourself for higher gas prices, fuel in Europe has been twice as expensive as our fuel for quite some time. Conserve, encourage more public transit and wait for the economy to adjust. The hard facts are that some people will be able to drive large V8 powered vehicles – the have the wealth to aford it. Many of us will need to look to the European model of smaller engines which saves gas. This will do little to lower the price of gas, but it may help slow the pace of the increases.

This article was horrible. It glossed over reasons why oil prices rise (speculator greed) and makes reference to refining capacity while neglecting to mention that we SHUT DOWN refineries in the 90s. Why build more when big oil can use less equipment to make the same amount of gasoline? More profit for them.

This is a strategic interest very important to the US. Why leave this unregulated?

You’ve failed to include the Federal Rerserve’s unfailing devotion to staving off unemployment. Inflationary spending combined with a deflated currency has left the dollar impotent.

Greed it to blame. The taste of of larger profits is to good. Our government does play a amajor roll with the state of our economy. Anytime our president states, ‘ did not know (or hear of) gas prices persisting to $4 a gallon” there is a major problem in our society.

Typical, not one mention of the tree huggers and environmentalist standing in the way of new exploration. The greatest nation and minds in the world, and no new nuclear power plants have been built in 30 years, no ANWAR oil, no new Gulf of Mexico oil except from Mexico’s shores. We have allowed the economy to fail because of the possibility of a few Elk in Anwar being affected. Let’s hear the straight facts instead of all that baloney in the article.

Oil companies post record profits every month — need i say more.

Oil prices and ultimately the price of a gallon of gasoline in America is a non-issue.

Why?

If people really cared about the price, they would cut back on driving. I see nothing but single occupants in SUVs… And I am one of them.

I drive a brand new Hummer. Do you really think people that pay well over $50K for an SUV are concerned at all how much gasoline costs? Absolutely not.

So far, I can get a $100,000 tax credit for my SUVs each and every year. The Senate still can’t get their act together to close the loophole. As long as I am able, I’ll drive luxurious, large, and comfortable SUVs for my growing family. I’ll also write it all off because I’m not an idiot and I will certainly take every tax credit and advantage available.

You want to enact change? Then stop talking about it and DO IT. Otherwise, remember to get out of my way.

Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration (F=MA)

Your small car will kill you.

oil is the lifeblood of our nation, it affects every aspect of life, thus it gives way to the idea of power and control. we’ve left our citizen power in the hands of the U.S. govt elite who in turn have their pockets filled by lobbyists. OPEC would rather sell fewer barrels at a high price than a lot of barrels at a low price. Wake up America, it’s time to get oil independence.

There are several issues…but the U.S. Consumer need not look beyond the mirror to identify one significant contributing factor. As long as demand stays up and people are willing to pay $4 and more a gallon for gas…there is no reason for those profiting from continueing to raise prices. When the people have had enough, you will see more mass-public transportation, fewer vehicles, fewer vacation travelers…etc… People have to change the way of life and consumption, only then will you see prices stabilize, but unlikely to drop. Consumers are the only ones left that can make a difference.

It’s the weak dollar. All this other stuff is just excuses covering up the fact that our dollar has plunged in value and the dollar isn’t recovering anytime soon.

I cannot help to think that some, perhaps well meaning, prognosticators (e.g. Goldman Sachs) insist on trying to make a history by stating that gas prices will rise to $4 or more a gallon. This is like a self-fulling prophecy. These types of statements just seem to give the oil companies license to then raise the prise, because some person or company has said that the prices will rise. Why not just be quiet?

Anyone who uses the excuse of the oil will run dry is not a very smart person….they know nothing about geology. There is plenty of oil for centuries. I believe we should find/research alternative energy.
Here is the win/win/win scenario for this country and includes the government to step up.
Declare drilling of oil a part of national security. Drill every place we can. Build 5 more refineries away from hurricane prone areas. No one can disagree that money that we pay for oil somehow gets in the hands of terrorist.
1. This will introduce more into the market and more jobs in the USA…..WIN
2. This will drop the value of a barrel of oil so it will start to hurt the economy of the Middle East and help our economy because of cheaper oil…..WIN
3. To ease the little minds of the environmentalists, the government will award 500 million dollars to the first company than can produce a car that will get
• 75 miles per gallon
• 0-60mph in 7 seconds
• Can sell the car for less than 25,000.00
• Must be produced in America………WIN

How can you possilby write an article about this and not mention the record profits by oil companies and the fact that an “oil man/family” has run the country for the last 8 years?

Why are gas prices so high? Very simple…the oil companies refuse to back off of their profit percentage. They are fleecing Americans. The Federal Government needs to cap gas prices and not allow this robbery.

• “Rising demand” – Truth, US demand is down (record low).
• “Tight supplies” – Truth, there is a surplus in supplies of Oil and Gas; US refineries are not making more gas (ON PURPOSE) because of “LOW DEMAND for Gas”.
• “Geopolitical tensions” – Sadly used as tactics to manipulate the market.
• “Investors interest” – True, from US Big Oil companies and investors world wide playing the money game with weak dollar and taking advantage of the market.
- The head of this administration is hugely invested in the Big Oil Industry and has been facilitating the biggest lie to his fellow Americans while assuring the pockets of his fellow Oil Companies and his fellow (long time family friends) Saudi relationships (you know, those who support terrorists and profit from our $4/gallon).
- High Gas Prices on the Home front are not because of OPEC’s output. It is the doing of our own Administration & US Big Oil Companies doing business for their best interest and their investors’ best interest, not for the fellow American.

By raising the price of oil day after day, the government is hoping that it will force people to burn less fossil fuels, which will help prevent further damage by global warming.

Those of us who live in Alaska and read the news have a pretty good idea about the why of it. Recently Exxon/Mobil Filed a multi-million Dollar lawsuit becaue our Governor is contemplating pulling a land lease out from under them. this is a verry large and workable feild wich they have had contractual rights to develope, but to date, after 30+ years stands dormant, why?… to gouge the public…
There is no other reason, unless perhaps to force the general public to pay for the EXXON VEDEZ without cutting thier profits to pay for thier blunder… some may say, what about the other oil companies… we say there are a hand full of good ol’ boys laughing thier way to the bank… whyshould I pay for someones new yact or second or third learjet…meanwhile people like myself on extremely limited incomes suffer, not being able to afford even a decent diet because food prices have sky-rocketed due to the missdeeds of those few.
Our country as others are quite capable of producing non-petrolium fuel if the Governments would quit paying Farm Subsidies to Farmers to let thier Fields stand dormant thus undermining the prosperity of all.

Oil prices are high, because most resources are in the hands of people with no sense of social responsibility whatsoever. Instead of investing their formidable profits into valid alternatives, they prefer to work for their shareholders; most of these have no problems with gas at even 6 dollars a gallon. Interestingly; look at petrol prices in oil-producing countries.
Looks as if “free trade” and “world market” are a scam indeed! For true political stability, it is time we stop burning fossil fuels AND draining our wealth…

Some say we should drill Alaska. But even taking the most optimistic estimates of the amount of recoverable oil to be found in Alaska (which are the oil companies’ estimates), and even if we extracted every drop of it,and even if every drop ended up in the U.S. market (under current production scenarios much of it would be shipped to Asia), it would only meet current U.S. demand for about 6 months. And it would take at least 10 years for the production to come on line.

We are to all to blame. We have elected short sighted politicians over the past decades that have banned access to drilling and thus new discoveries. We are banned from exploration in offshore Florida, offshore Carolina’s, offshore California, offshore Alaska, and onshore ANWR in Alaska. Until we elect people who don’t have NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome, things are only going bad to worse. Wake up AMERICA…it’s our fault and no one else’s!

I believe the federal government should be regulating oil. After all it is a natural resource. Meaqning it belongs to everybody the only cost we should be paying is converting it into gasoline. I do not want government invading my life, but There are just a few things the federal government should be in complete control over. Energy being one of them. Why wouldn’t they regulate how much oil we use and how much money can be made off of something that is a natural resource. It does not make sense to let people get rich off of something that belongs to everyone.

I’ve never seen any circumstance that wasn’t seen from two sides of a coin. The first is easy, follow the money and in this case, money beyond the average persons vision. This world is easily controlled by great wealth. The other side is that people are pretty much sheep. If you give them something, especially when you sell/tell them that they want it, they are ususally tail wagging happy and go about their lives. So, you sell them on the notion of gas devouring SUVs and then wait till everyone has them but can’t get clear of them, then you just crank up the price of gas. TA DA you make trillions of dollars. Think about it. If everyone was sold on transportation that didn’t use any gasoline or very low consumption of it, big money would have to manipulate (sell you on)some other materialistic thing to get all of your money. I mean look at bottled water. This could almost be done with water and air. The bottom line is people. People have to cooperate with the idea of having to have something before they give up their power to someone else that has it. Then of course you have to have the people who are perfectly willing to exploit those who want it and with this they get super, amazingly wealthy, on the ability to not feeling or caring how the masses are effected by the exploitation. Of course you can’t cut your nose off to spite your face. You can’t completly kill off the golden goose. That is of course these people realize that the goose is on its way out.

Congress is to blame. They should’ve been working on helping us become less dependent on other countries for oil by working towards finding other fuel sources. They’ve been dragging their feet, yet if they feel they need to get involved with something like investigating Major League Baseball, they’ll drop everything and jump in. No wonder our nation is a laughingstock to the rest of the world.

We did it once before, bring back the federal highway 55 Mile per hour speed limit and even the SUVs will average over 20 miles per gallon. It is a small sacrifice to extend our limited natural resources.

It is the weakening dollar. We borrow money from the Chinese, the Fed bails big banking out, our dollar falls, and our price of everything goes up. If you scale it to the price of Gold in 1999, it hasn’t gone up that much. But keep towing the government’s and the cooperation’s line… and keep stating it’s anything but our worthless dollar and the sheep will still believe you.

The banks are poring money into comodities to offset there losses in the housing market Thus driveing up prices. All americans are paying for the housing crunch through oil. When the banks become flush this market will pop. Who ever is still holding the contracts when the banks sell will lose there money in just a couple of days. Ower week government should step in and dictate the price that america pays for oil about $60.00 per barrell. Or we will never have a decent stable economy. WE are subject to financial terrorists. OPEC would have no choice but accept $60.00 per barrell simpley because oil is there only source of income.

Liberals in Congress who have blocked drilling in ANWAR and other places for the last seven years are the main reason prices are high. Congress has created an artificial shortage. To many of them are beholden to the left wing environomental socialist who like controlling the economy and who get away with blaming the oil companies for the high prices due to people not paying attention to what has really happend.

Let’s see if I can figure this out. Gas is at almost $4.00 a gallon. People are skipping breakfast so that they can put gas in their vehicles. Oil is at $129.00 a barrel and the oil companies such as Conoco Phillips et al have posted the highest profits of any company in US history. Gee, I wonder what’s going on??

I think the higher prices are a good thing. It’s time families with 2 kids stop buying suburbans and expeditions just so they can drop their kids off at school in style. Cheap prices would just encourage car builders to build even bigger cars.

We have been told by US Government that we lack refinery capacity, even though President Bush signed a bill in Sept 2005 making it easier for oil companies to build new refineries. At the same time President Bush/GOP has stood in the way of bills increasing fuel efficiencies because car manufactures lobbied against these bills. Add that with the high demand of SUV and heavy-duty pickups and you get a receipt for disaster.

Drilling in the Alaska won’t change the fact that we can’t refine the oil we find fast enough to assist the average American. Corporate greed contributes to the problem as well. Mccain, Obama and/or Clinton need to come up with an energy plan build for the average American and NOT for the energy companies.

I don’t blame the oil companies. They are not setting the prices. As some have stated it is the futures traders and investment funds who have found a way to drive the price of oil up indefintely. Futures are one of the riskiest types of investments, yet for FIVE YEARS oil futures have been a sure thing. There is something wrong there. They have been able to manipulate news headlines into flimsy excuses to send prices into the stratosphere at the same time demand is falling! SUVs and Hummers being used as single occupant commuter vehicles were responsible for the initial run up. Everything since the hurricanes can be laid at the feet of a corrupt futures market.

To everyone blaming the environmentalist who won’t let the record profit taking oil companies drill in the US I have one question for you:

If refineries are currently at capacity, how will drilling more unrefined crude out of the ground (anywhere) help?

Thank you. That is all

I enjoy how people blame everyone but themselves. If we as customers keep buying gas wasting cars, SUVs, etc.. (by the way, why the hell you need a hummer for?)we have the power to start taking differents of public transportation, carpool, use gas saving cars, etc. I’m now taking it in Houston where public transportation is kind of bad, and I love it! We customers are the ones wasting gas, we are the first ones to blame.

I had NO idea that GW Bush could control a global commodity! He must be omnipotent…You dolts, GW Bush does not have control over oil, it’s CHINA! What part of 1.3 BILLION Chinese driving don’t you understand?

In 1981 Nissan come out with the “Sentra MPG” which got over 40 mpg. Why can’t the auto companies build a car like that now??

Also the “SUV” people should have to pay more per gallon then those of us who have cars that get 30 MPG like my “Honda Accord”?

The tree huggers can be thanked for part of this but there is enough blame to go around. We knew about this in 1970’s but did nothing so we can also put the blame on us not pushing our reps to take action.

There is NOBODY to blame. Its very simple. There is more market demand for oil than the industry can supply. People..especially Americans…don’t want to hear this..but there is no other expanation that has an real relevance. Europe is not to blame, nor speculators, or the falling US dollar, or the middle east.

We in America have had it good for a long time. $1.00/gallon or lower gas for 40 years. Now as supplies are falling demand is growing…guess what? Its going to cost MORE!

It amazes me..when I visit other countries. The reality is not everyone in other countries has a car. Public transportation is far more popular. The vehicles get far better MPG outside the US. For Example…most cars in the UK get 45MPG-55MPG…petrol & diesel. Meanwhile back in the US we get 20MPG…..only recently are we seeing cars that car 30MPG. Oh..yes the Prius…our savior…NOT…too little..too late.

People feel entitled to drive SUVs and have 2 or more car households. (Mom has a car, Dad has a car, and teenage daughter judy gets one when she turns 16.)

Welcome to the new world. American has a high demand for Fuel….so we will have to pay a high price. If people want the cost of gas to go down…the only way is to reduce Demand or increase supply. Increasing supply is no longer an option because oil has peaked…so now we have to focus on reducing demand….IE CONSERVE!

1) Greed and, whoever is behind the 2) sweeping drilling bans in the United States, 3) manipulation of the energy market for excessive profit, 4) lack of investment in alternative fuel by corporate oil companies, and 5) militarily supporting Middle East countries that could care less about America (Saudi Arabia).

Obviously gas prices will continue to soar since our only means of transportation is monopolized by the need for oil. With current rate of climb, this time next year, we will be at $7.00+ per gallon and nearly $200.00 a barrel. Unless and until U.S., leadership recognizes this as a crisis par with WWII and a “Manhattan” type project is implemented, prices will continue without abatement.

Stop your whining.
The biggest moaners are driving SUVs and Hummers that only get 15 miles to the gallon. If you drove sensible cars at 35 miles to the gallon then it would cut your costs by over 50%.
35 miles to the gallon would also completely eliminate your dependence on middle east oil – so you could leave those disfunctional people to survive as best they can. Driving big cars is almost UNPATRIOTIC.
BUT the big oil companies and their lobbyists do not want this.
So it is up to YOU – demand a smaller car and GM and FORD will deliver.
By the way – turn off your air conditioners while you are about it. Your parents didn’t need it – neither do you. Use a clothes line, not the dryer.
I believe that oil is still undervalued – it is way too precious to be burned to drive to the corner store, that is for sure. 300 years from now our descendants will look back on us with disgust.

What about the liberal mandates on ethanol production? What about the ban on building more refineries? But wait…Isn’t electric power is too affordable? Hmm, I wonder what high taxes, solar and wind power mandates will do to the price of electricity?

Here is the key to solving this problem: Find the liberal that represents you on the state and federal level and then vote against them.

I can’t believe that this article completely ignores the relationship of the strengh of th dollar versus the price of oil which is pegged to the dollar. Nor do they mention that the current downturn is causing the fed to allow the dollar to drop, making the dollar drop more. We are caught between a rock and a hardplace because we waited too long to introduce any gas saving changes consumption usage (Hybrid Cars, CFL bulbs etc…)

The CNN Money artical was well balanced and took into account all of the reaseons that oil prices are high. High oil prices impact virtually every corner of the economy. It would be easy to blame OPEC, oil speculators, a growing world economy or any of a number or other things. The truth is that all of these factors came togather over the past 10-15 years and there is a “perfect storm” for high oil prices due to the relatively inelastic demand for oil and its produces.

The good new is that at these prices, the combination of conservation and development of new technologies will limit the upward sprial of the costs of petroleum. Stay tuned!

Why not jump on the UK bandwagon and embrace high MPG vehicles. Gas is a finite resource, we were going to get here sooner or later. Who cares if gas is $4 per gallon if your driving a vehicle that gets 60mpg (this would cut your fillup cost to about $24) – sounds great right?

Oil companies are hiring people to be speculators. They are bidding up the price sort of like what happens on EBAY.

The oil consumers.

Almost everyone blames someone else, but it’s the users who have been unnecessarily buying huge cars and trucks for whatever reason. Unless you’re buying groceries for a family of 10 every day or hauling logs and bricks every day, you don’t need an SUV or truck. People also don’t plan out their trips when they drive. Instead of going to one place to get all they need, they go to multiple places at different times of the day. Our culture cherishes excess, and we do waste a lot of what we have. It’s time for people to finally be accountable for their actions.

A little bit of greed is what makes capitalism work. Otherwise, we could be in commu/socialits countries and enjoying cold winters wrapped in blankets.

People blame people for SUV’s. The reason we have SUV’s is the restrictions that put bigger cars out of circulation. What’s a family to do, chain together a couple of tiny vehicles? People need vehicles that serve their needs for everything from one person driving to work to the whole family traveling to grandma’s house. Tiny vehicles don’t serve all these needs. And the mass transportion beloved by some doesn’t work well either.

The car and personal transportation is great efficiency engine for the economy. Mass transportation slows down efficiency and growth.

The biggest guarantor of high prices is the refusal of Democrats and environmentalists to allow use of the energy under our feet.

Vote high prices. Vote Democrat.

I think that the price of oil is a form of terrorism. Certain countries are trying to destroy the American economy and so far it appears they are being successful.

My stomach will dictate my actions. Sorry if you or your family member got in the way! We are no different than anyone else and I am sure more and more people will subscribe to this fundamental truth as times get leaner. Everyone knows where the money and food is. All we have to do is to go get it. Just look at other parts of the world already ahead of us in this problem and make your own predictions!

There are several factors. I would say #1 is definately greed of the oil companies. How big of a profit do they need anyway? #2 would be the failure of past congress to allow drilling in our own country because Bambi may be out of a home. Well, now there are Americans out of a home…way to go!

Because we have failed to allow additional drilling in Alaska and the midwest. On top of the lack of source utilization, we have failed to build additional refineries in the US. And let’s not forget, no real federal oversight on major oil companies who continue to show increased profits by three fold since 1999.

I am from Europe, but live in the states. Its tiring to hear the analaysts consistently say Europeans are paying more for gas, well they are, but they fail to raise that one important fact. Europe has a very well defined public transportation system, small cars, and people can rely on the public system. Europe is prepared. America is not ready for this. America relies on driving and we don’t have a public systems in place. Yes offcourse, there are middle class people in Europe also suffering from such prices, but they have options. We have none.. So to the analysts if your stating facts and comparing our prices to other countries, why don’t you give all the facts..

The major problem here is that Exxon Mobile and the other major oil corporations have control over our elected representatives in Washington through campaign financing and have sucessfully stymied any serious effort to end our dependance on foreign oil and them. Until the american people throw all of them out in Washington and send a message that we are not going to put up with a Goverment of,by and for Big coroporations this will continue.

I don’t buy for one second that nothing can be done to bring gas prices down.
Everything that is going on right now is being done on purpose to bring America down and to become more dependent on the government. I am so angry right now at our out of control government that I don’t even know what to say right now.

Well I live in America and although the UK sounds like it too is paying its fair share of high prices, I just can’t afford it. When I only make $10 an hour and I have to pay more than $4 a gallon to get to work, bankruptcy or living in my car come to mind…I just can’t make it with the rising cost of fuel.

the American people have been encouraged to be greedy and stupid. We have been overconsuming all forms of energy for more than a generation and now we are surprised that prices have gone up. Get real, learn to cut back and do without.

Another bubble in the markets. Tech bubble, housing bubble, now the commodity bubble. Hopefully the big traders are ruined by this one, but I’m sure it will be passed along to us just like the gas prices. I just shake my head over this. There is no conspiracy here – Greed on the part of speculators, no doubt in my mind. It will all collapse 6 months after the election.

I think gas prices are so because someone finally caught on how to get rich quick. They find something that we cannot live without and capitalize on it. Food is on the rise too. There really is no end to the massacre.

Someone said about ten years ago that the Earth cannot withstand a Chinese middle class. I guess his prediction is coming true because as we let China build everything from squirt guns to televisions it is raising their standard of living. When you bring a peasant class into middle class one of the first things they do is go out and buy a car. Everyone in China used to ride bicycles, now they drive! 1.3 Billion people driving, you do the math. We’re in trouble!

Regulate the oil companies profits? How stupid is that – this is a free market econonmy the last I knew. Oil companies spend over 1 billion a day in getting you the needed oil to run cars, heat homes and business. Basic ecomonics people – supply and demand we are not willing to supply it ourselves (ie;drilling for it in Alaska) so we get it from someone else who is willing (middle east). We need to shift the supply curve by looking at every alternative we can (wind, solar, etc). Regulate the oil companies, yea thats what we need a little more goverment intervention.

I’m sick of reading these BS articles about how demand is causing this. Come on, Katrina knocked out a lot of our refining capabilities. I never passed a gas station who didn’t have gas. Did you?

This whole myth about demand ourstripping supply is getting old and, honestly, is irresponsible reporting.

It’s also pure BS about having a tougher time finding and extracting oil. If it were eating into the oil companies/OPEC’s profits, I’d have to agree but nobody can deny the fact these companies are making a SICK amount of money. So is it really this?

The government will NEVER do anything about this since they receive so much money from the oil companies to get elected.

I Would like to add one more comment. To those of you Blaming Bush for the recent prices, ask yourself this…How can one man be responsible for high oil prices all over the world? Stop living in your dreamworlds and come out and do the research. All the factors causing this started in the 90s under Clintons watch. Get it right people…do the research.

This article neglects to comment on one of the most disturbing facets of the current oil and energy crisis…….the never-before-seen record-smashing profit margins of the oil industry. Can anyone explain this?

You have those idiots driving 80 MPH in their giant SUV that gets 12MPG at 65 MPH, at 80 they might be getting 8-9 MPG. Multiply that by 13 or 14 million idiots, you can see the increased demand. When i really think about it fuel economy has has not really improved in twenty years, it has gotten worse.

What no government or the media wants to tell you is that oil has been running out since the early 70’s Hupperts Peak look it up its not a fantasy its reality because we now live in it. Oil is power and no country wants to say they are running out of it. Why is a diamond so expensive because there rare it also costs a lot to find one and cut and refine one. The same goes for Oil. Dont bother getting used to 4 dollars at the pump because by the end of the year youll be paying 5 dollars and next year 6 dollars.

Congress and state government!!

Can’t use alternatives like nuclear. Congress!
Can’t use shale and canadian oil sands. Congress!
Can’t drill for new. Congress!
Can’t expand refining. Congress!
Must use additive. Congress! No must not use additive! Congress! Must sue makers and users of additive! Congress!!
Must use ethanol! More expensive but who cares. And let’s waste more goverment money on subsidizing farmers at the same time. Congress!
Don’t plan for emergency. Congress!
Let’s make 30+ formulas when 6 or fewer would do. Congress and state government!
Build roads that are not adequate and then put toll plazas on them to make sure that even if cars get 30 mpg will only get 15 because they sit still and are burning less efficient ethanol. Congress and state government!!
If Congress and State government would get out of the way and quit “helping” us we would have better prices, less wasted taxes, and not all the other bad side effects- more inflation, more polution, more dependency on other countries, more law suits.

You guys are forgetting basic economics.. supply & demand. While I believe that most of the price increase is artificial speculation (wall street), I also believe that everyone in this country attributed to the rise in oil. We live in a “want it all” society and when something goes wrong you blame the government/others for your problems. Stop buying large cars, curtail your driving and gas price will lower.

The problem lies to the east… all of the environmentalists who don’t want to dirty our country but want to drive everywhere have left us reliant on foreign oil, and they aren’t looking to do us any favors. It isn’t Bush, or Cheney, it is Congress doing what some people ask of it (environmental lobbyists) and now where has that gotten us? I want to protect the environment (drive a compact car, carpool with three others), but we have to do something until a VIABLE alternative energy method is developed, and now its too late to increase American oil production because we can’t pump out anymore, any faster!

Speculation has exacerbated the recent climb in oil prices. To hit the nail on the head, the old mainstay for sure growth in money (real estate) is now a dead dog, so all the big money is now moving in on the commodity markets for what they are is a sure bet to get rich quick. This will create a bubble to where we will see gas prices soar exponentially while the consumer is stick with the bill. Who profits? Oil companies have already seen record profits, but it looks like big money (hedge funds, investment houses, banks) will profit in a big way…at least, until the price for gas gets so high that the consumer is no longer able to afford paying for gas, and at that point, the bubble will burst, and we will see a mess on the commodity markets that will make the mortgage meltdown look like a fire drill.

At least for right now we can see the demand for fuel alternatives finally becoming economically viable. If the government really wants to change our energy economy for the best, then they would incentivize alternative fuel purchases for the consumer. And I’m not talking about ethanol subsidies for corn growers, but rather tax abatements to businesses and homeowners who build towards a zero carbon footprint by adding solar or wind generation into their new houses or office buildings, as well as for consumers who purchase vehicles that exceed government standards for fuel economy by at least 20%.

So, in the end, no, speculation is not the cause of soaring gas prices, but it is acting like gasoline on a smoldering flame, and the consumer is paying for it now, while the taxpayers will be paying for it later when the commodities market goes into meltdown and the government is expected to bail out all the financial institutions who hedged on oil futures.

I believe that the U.S. Government should add taxes to gas prices and lower them for commercial & industrial use of diesel, for the benefit of our country. Why????
1) Money to go for infrastructure repairs.
2) Repairs create American jobs.
3)Higher prices creates less demand.
4)Less demand means greater supplies, lower prices, and cleaner air.
5) Higher prices also opens up new fields of alternitive fuels and better public transportation options.

Sooner or later we are going to need to change how we live. Why not start now and beat the panic?

In reading I see many people do not have the slightest idea of supply and demand and only blame others, like Bush and Republicans in congress. Well first if I remember the Democrats said elect us in 06 and we will stop the increasing in pricing. Well we are up almost 100% since. Take your head out ot the sand and realize that everyone is to blame. No new refineries have been built, no new nuclear plants have been built, no new drilling has been allowed and yesterday Congress in there great wisdom stops putting oil in the stragic oil reserve (78000) barrels a day, what a joke. You want resluts, do not vote for ANY INCUMBANT in the next election, that is a start and quit blaming others all of us are to blame.

Why not use this opportunity to build more public transportation? Increase number of buses, rail connectivity between cities. Encouraging such activities will result in mass usage of public transportation there by decreasing the demand for crude.

Speculators have a LOT to do with this.
Every time someone sneezes in an OPEC Nation, the price goes up. Every time the dollar falls by .0001 Euro, the price goes up. And so on. I’d bet without speculators Oil would be well under $100 a barrel. Supply and demand have little to do with the current price of oil these days.

THE PRICE OF OIL HAS NOTHING IN COMMON WITH THE COST OF OIL. TAKE THE SPECULATORS AND OPEC OUT OF THE EQUATION AND OIL IS NOT $129 A BARREL AND GAS IS NOT $4.00 A GALLON. BEFORE OPEC, THE PRICE PER BARREL WAS BASED ON THE ACTUAL COST TO DRILL AND PULL IT OUT OF THE GROUND. IF SAUDI ARABIA CAN SELL GAS FOR 45 CENTS A GALLON, IT TELLS YOU HOW BADLY THE CONSUMER IS GETTNG RIPPED OFF. THE COST OF DOMESTIC PRODUCTION IS NOT $129 A BARREL, YET THE LARGE OIL COMPANIES WHOLESALE THEIR GAS AS IF IT WAS. I WONDER IF THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD BE THREATENED WITH REGULATION AS UTILITIES ARE, IF THEIR PRICING STRUCTURE WOULD CHANGE.

Sometimes it takes a Gong to grab your attention. Hopefully the price of fuel is that Gong.
Forget about why. Let’s look at how do we slow the rising price of fuel. What can an individual do to slow the surge in prices? I ride a bicycle to work whenever possible. What do you do?

you do not address the major cause. Back in 1990 the value of the dollar was worth 40% more then today. Giving oil a modest 3% increase since then oil would only be worth 88-92 dollars a barrell. Multiply that by 40% and you get 110-128 dollars a barrel. So to put it plainly, what cause the devaluation of the dollar is what cause the oil shortage.

After having read through a score of the latest postings, it appears no one has mentioned the weakness of the American dollar. How would prices at the pumps look if the consumer was using 2001 dollars? Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernaki, the American trade deficit, and the federal budget deficit (now running at a billion a day) are all big factors.

The solution is to Nationalize the oil companies. It is morally wrong that so few people are getting so lavishly rich on the hardship of the poor.

How about the fact that the 12 major oil companies in 1998 merged with the help of congress into 4 major oil companies, and reduced the number of oil refineries in this nation from 12,000 to around 6?
There is NO fundamental difference today from 1998 other than oil companies controlling the supply thru a bottleneck in refining. WHY is it, the only group willing to build a refinery in this country is the Saudis? (Saudi committed to building a $6bil refinery in Texas last year. Oil companies are in collusion to keep prices high.

A weak dollar doesn’t help matters. Assuming The Feds raise the rates rather than drop them , it would help the dollar become stronger and have more power, thereofer reducing the price per barrel and the price at the pump!

Its a combination of high global demand and the greed of the oil companies in this country. Throw in the greenies’ refusal to allow new drilling anywhere in the US.

It’s the environmentalists stupid!!!
We can’t drill our own oil off the coast and in Alaska, we haven’t been able to build a new refinery in 30 years. HELLO! We used to import 15% from other countries and now import 60%…from countries that use that money to plot to harm us. Wake up America – sustainable, realistic energy policy isn’t throwing money at unreasonable, costly technologies, it is using the resources we already own!

I find it hard to believe the reasons given for the high prices. Remeber back in 1991 when both Iraq and Kuwait oil fields were in flames and the Persian gulf was a sea of oil. Did prices go up to even two dollars a gallon. No. This is greed! With the dregulation of the oil industry and allowing it be on the commodity market it is destroying America.

It is because our president doesn’t put a freeze on gas prices. Thats why it is out of control.

The reason gas prices are so high is that OPEC is smarter than the average American. It costs as little as $1 per barrel to produce crude oil in the middle east. They control the access to 2/3 of the world oil supply. If OPEC decided to increase production, the price of crude could go back to $20 per barrel. But why would they want to give us a break? They are now in control of our economy and will remain in control until Americans get smart enough to develop alternative energy sources. If after 9/11 we would have spent the +$1 trillion dollars going into Iraq on securing our borders and alternative energy development, we could be in control of our economy and the middle east’s economies. However, we Americans voted for the wrong people, Republicans and Democrats alike, and we are now in trouble. Are we smart enough to vote this November for people that will lead us out of this mess?

Do the gas companies really need to have $11B quarterly profits?

Also, more refineries = less bottleneck and more supply. Sorry Owls, we gotta survive. This one is on the Dems and conservative groups. Hey you got your wish!

I think this “speculation” market is what is going to undue the U.S. economy. Don’t think so? You just wait until the ridiculous profits start being posted from the oil companies. I have worries and concerns about my own personal economics and money supply. Does that somehow make me worth more? Probably not….

The demand cannot double in four years, nonsense. It’s greed. It will be nice if CNN can show a graph of big car (SUV) usage increase alongwith price increase.

Gas costs soo much due to speculation in the energy market. Similar to Enron speculation in the electricty market, it has run up gas prices against basic theories of economics. Luckily, gas prices being this high or higher will promote high speed rail (170+ mph), we have too long been investing in only a few forms of transportation (Air, Freeways). Unfortuantely, we as a country should be investing in highspeed rail with light-rail connections. Gas prices are going continue to rise, who really cares about who’s to blame. Lets figure out the problem.

The one thing you forgot to mention is that there are currently no uniform gasoline formula used through out the US. Think about it, if Wonder Bread had to make special recipe bread for several parts of the country, bread would cost 50 to 100% more than it does today.

You want to solve these problems here is how we could do it:
First: Drill domestically in ANWAR, off the coast of Florida, and anywhere else oil is abundant. We would flood the market and drive the price of oil down to a reasonable price.
Second: Put a 25 – 50 year time limit on drilling and take 50% off the top of all domestic oil net revenue and provide this money for research and development grants to Universities.
Third: Set in stone gas mileage standards of 1 mpg for every 2 years for every car sold domestically in the us, with the goal of having vehicles eventually achieving 50 mpg in town minimum.(This could easily be achieved with the research that would be ongoing at the Universities).
Fourth: Make solar, wind, nuclear, and alternative fuel research a national priority. All private electric use prodcution in the US would have to be incremented by 5% for every 5 years for a goal of 50%.
Finally: Start revamping curriculum in K-12 schools to teach children this science.

You may not agree with my plan, but at least I have one. My only question for you is, “Where is your plan?”. By the way, supporting a candidate with a plan doesn’t count.

I think greed and the auto makers wanting more profit instead on working on getting a vehicle that gets better milage. Also taxes keep rising and pretty soon we will be working just to pay our taxes. Too many perks in government and politicians should not be a paid position if they are so patriotic.

Gas Prices, what needs to happen in CONTROL. First a regulation on the trading, what the money hungry fail to realize, is if you make it so the americans and other nationalities average people cannot afford the fuel, then they cannot commute, cannot afford to get to work, then the production and backbone of america crumbles, all this because big money wants to get bigger. And come on, the person in the oval office, from TEXAS, hello…does anyone else besides me see a common denominator here. Big Money has there hand in the pocket of the dubya…..! Am I right? Think about it, what is he doing for the average american, oh here is 1200 dollars, this will help you with putting gas in your car. Yeah dumb ass, into my car into big moneys wallet and BAM, right into your wallet. Think about it america, change needs to occur in the oval office, greed needs to be eliminated and someone with some clout needs to realize fuel is a need, not a money making venture. Regulate it, the producers make a profit and the workforce can afford to commute to there prospective places of employment to serve america, serve the people. If this does not happen, I fear for the worst. Good Luck.

Many world events.

How is one person responsible for the rise in gas prices? Do your damn homework people. I’m sorry, congress and the republicans are to blame? Who took over the majority in ‘06 and what have prices done since then?

Record profits? It’s all relative. Look at the profit margins for oil companies in percentage and compare it to other industries and their margins. People are upset because big oil is making all this money, but they spend a hell of a lot more too.

I can’t believe they started this article in 2004. The oil price increase started on March 9th 2003. What happened that day? We attacked a country that exported oil. Oops. Now we have high oil. If you don’t like paying $4 a gallon for gas, Don’t vote for republicans in November.

Thus far, the “war on terror” has been the initiation of a war, and American Consumers putting magnetic ribbons on their cars. Until we have a national policy of reduction, Americans can just keep on complaining and sending their dollars to countries that hate us. Not one single politician has asked the American People to make a sacrifice to that end. We are being forced to sacrifice at the whim of the pump. All we hear is how Big Oil or Opec is the cause of the problem and should be punished, which is still not going to give Joe and Mary Public any relief.

In conjunction with finding the cure for oil consumption, I would support a national rally call to reduce oil dependency- something we should have started 30 years ago- and place this on a National Patriotism level similar to that of WWII, when the greatest generation sacrificed for the common good of the country. Want to reduce consumption and not have it hurt? Good luck, but here’s two suggestions which will never fly. Cut my mail delivery at home from 6 days to 3. I can handle getting my mail every other day. That cuts the USPS gas consumption theoretically in half. Special Delivery services would not be affected. This leaves more of the supply for consumers. Now this one will be really hard to do- get the high school students to leave their cars at home, and ride the school bus which has to burn fuel whether it is loaded or half loaded with students. Instill some national pride, “I do my part” like slogan from the WPA. As Kennedy challenged to put a man on the moon within a decade, America should make the same commitment to oil reductions, and less dependency on the oil.

A June 2006 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices,” noted, “…there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.”
What the Senate committee staff documented in the report was a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading so huge a herd of elephants could walk through it. That seems precisely what they have been doing in ramping oil prices through the roof in recent months.
The Senate report was ignored in the media and in the Congress. See more on financialsense.com

Other factors? Do you mean besides greed, fear and the legalized extortion opportunity provided by a “free market” and an indispensable commodity?

I remember the lesson that should have been learned during the 70’s. The government should have intelligence to forecast events like this and to plan for situations like this. Our foreign policy is dictated by conditions like this, which should make strategic planning a critical part of the solution. Too much $$ involved however for special interests. The American consumer is about to go through an uncomfortable period in which their standard of living is going to be adjusted, because of poor planning, and cost.

This is just the beginning of feeling the impact of supply and demand. China is turning out many first time car owners. It is estimated that 1000 new cars per day hit the road in Beijing alone. The World, including the United States, better start seriously thinking conservation and alternative energy.

One of the main reasons gas is so high in the US is because of Bush & his cronies are big oil special interest. We have a trillian gallons hidden for emergencies and war they should release some of this, also we have plenty of oil in the US that we don’t drill for what happened to the Alaska pipeline? Where I’m from in Michigan central Michigan is rich in oil they used to drill for it theres a town near Mt. Plesand called Oil City and I have an old postcard of this place it looked like old Texas in the woods, it’s the tree huggers falt as well, don’t want to disturb any Caribou do we. We are too dependant on Middle Eastern Oil we even shut down our off shore drilling rigs why? We’re spending 16 billion dollars a day in Iraq another Vietnam that we can’t win we need to develop our own resources and use some of this money for heathcare and the development of jobs, Michigan is in a depression there is no work and the big 3 are sending all our jobs to Mexico, China and India because of corporate greed. This country is screwed up’
JT

You already told us what one of the main problems is.

“as well as sweeping drilling bans in the United States”

What kind of moron votes against getting oil on our own soil?

The world runs on oil, whether you like it or not. It’s cheap and easy to use until we have something else as cheap and easy in its place.

We all want cheap and easy. Why do you think so many people shop for bargains? We hold on to our dollars tightly.

We have our own resources and yet we don’t use them? You have to be a complete idiot to think that way. “I own my own car, but I drive a rental instead.” Pure stupidity.

Here is my rant on why oil is sooo high. This is a theory that I have worked up on my own, and I can sum it up into one word “technology”. It’s here , it’s evident and it’s happening. All around us the green initiatives that are being implemented in automotives as well as business as a whole is going to cut down our consumption of oil. Cars are going to run on alternative fuels, appliances use less power to run them, buildings are being made more environmentally friendly, other forms or energy are available. Wind farms, solar power, hydrogen powered cars will soon be here. The oil companies know this. They know that eventually the bottom is going to fall out, and I am not talking about 30-40 years down the road, I am talking 10-15. I wonder how is it that we as a country are using that much more oil when everything is being geared towards using less energy. Sounds like a farce if you ask me. Technology people, the word is technology. Oil companies are getting while the getting is good.

In order, I blame OPEC for refusing to increase production in response to world wide increases in consumption, the so called “War” in Iraq that is diverting millions of gallons of our fuel to an area with its own unlimited supply and U.S. automakers for continuing to ignore fuel efficient design.

Supply shortage? Has anybody waited in line at a gas station recently because of diminished supply? There apparently is plenty to go around, or we would be having lines at the pump! Nope, you cannot convince me that it is anything other than greed… apparently the oil companies think the only shortage exists in the brain capacity of the American people to figure out they are being had!

high price is good for environment. By trading in my Ford for a Toyota Prius, my gas cost is just like $1/gallon.

I had a hard time understanding the 90 cents a gallon gas rather than the current situation. Also the common belief this natural wealth is unlimited in supply.

The US Economy has proven, at least at the moment, it can afford the higher price for oil by cutting out other expenses. We are too dependent at the moment for us to switch or change significantly our lifestyle. They are cashing in on this effect. Our economy hasn’t collapsed and is bearing the higher prices. Simple supply and demand. As a nation, we need to develop alternate fuel. Congress needs to get going with alternative energy and subsidize development and implementation of alternative energy technology. This probelm won’t go away, better deal with it now rather than later.

Greed. Plain and simple. The United States has over 775,000,000 gallons of oil in reserve. What are we saving it for? A Rainy Day? In my opinion the rainy day is here now. If we use some of that oil reserve, just enough, the Arab countries will see we do not need them as badly as they believe we do and they will have a surplus of oil that the US isn’t buying. They lower their prices to a more reasonable price and MAYBE we start buying from them again. If the U.S. wasn’t so lazy they would see that the oil reserve can be more of a bargaining tool. A way to get us out of this pinch and hold us over until we can support our country by developing more economical forms of fuels and finding our own means of support. We give them the upper hand while our families choose between gas and food on the table, or life saving medicine. Think about it? What is the oil reserve for? Us, hardworking Americans who paid tax dollars to buy it in the first place, or the Government?

Enough! Gas prices are high because of us greedy Americans. We are all responsible –from the soulless people who own the oil companies to the thoughtless people driving gas-guzzling vehicles who do nothing to promote alternative fuel initiatives, to the lazy person who drives instead of walking. I am tired of the lies and perhaps this country needs gas to cost five dollars a gallon so this country changes its priorities and lifestyle. Support this war that we’re in if you wish to maintain your greedy lifestyle, but there is a different and happier way to live. Enough is enough, America.

As much as all the factors cited in the article contribute to the problem of high prices, the fact is our own oil execs are consumed with greed. They prefer to rake in the profits for themselves rather than look at the US economy overall and see how badly the cost of living has spiked due to rising oil and gas prices. More and more people are having a hard time making ends meet with their utility bills rising, pump prices, consumer goods prices absorbing the increase in transportation costs. Unless someone in position of real authority does something to stem this trend, the US economy will so far down the drain, it’ll take many years to recover. Political promises seem to always be nothing but good intentions, but the bulk of our politicians refuse to do anything meaningful about it. Maybe those oil execs need to be forced into building the needed refineries and increase production out of their billion dollar profits so US citizens can afford to live in a home and feed their families.

We, (the United States), need to stop giving so much money to foreign countries when we recieve nothing in return. One of the reasons we have enjoyed lower gas prices is because of just that. It’s time we take care of our own and stop relying on the rest of the world. If these foreign countries are’nt going to supply oil at a reasonable price then we should not supply money & aid. Maybe they should be charged for these services??? I don’t know, call me crazy…

That’s the wrong question to ask. What if $4/gal is actually closer to the “right” price than $0.9/gal was? Maybe $4 more accurately accounts for expected future supply scarcity as well as the negative externalities (environmental damage, etc.) that before now have not been reflected in artificially low gas prices. Given all this, I think the real question is: why is gas still so cheap here? And yes, $4 gas IS cheap. Gas costs the equivalent of $8-$12 per gallon in much of Europe, Asia and Latin America, and not all of the difference is accounted for by taxes. Bottom line, $4-and-up gas is likely here to stay and maybe this will finally push us toward more intelligent energy and transportation policies.

A large part of the price increase is the devaluation of the dollar.

This has been caused primarily by huge amounts of spending (trillions in debt)by this administration while at the same time decreasing revenues through large tax decreases.

In a time of “war”, when you are spending 100’s of billions per year, you cannot expect the dolar to retain it’s value.

This administration signed off on every spending bill that congress has sent through in the last 7 years. The high cost of fuel can be laid directly at their feet. They have been poor overseers of this country.

Crude oil is a commodity just like anything else in the free world; the more the demand the higher the prices go. If you don’t believe in this theory ask the housing markets that were artificially inflated by the “everyone gets a loan” concept.

The reason is simple. The organizations who control the oil see the writing on the wall regarding hydrocarbon based energy supplies. The entire world is beginning to move away from polluting sources to green energy. So, the “organizations” are stockpiling wealth at an astronomical rate so they can use that capital to invest in other business ventures when the oil business dries up.

One glaring omission in this article is the lack of a comprehensive eneergy policy in this country that is two fold. One, develop the resources here in the U.S. from coal , shale, and other noted oil reserves in this country (Dakotas and Alaska). Second, work to encourage, fund, and promote alternate technologies that will take time to develop their efficiencies. This lack of foresight is what led us to this situation, not the oil companies.

Why is the price for gas so high? It’s a simple answer. Blame our idiot politicians who don’t have the courage to stand up to the idiot environmentalists. If you happen to be one of those who supports the drilling bans on U.S. soil, you have no right to complain about how much you are paying at the pump.

The weakness of the dollar is in large part the reason gas is so high.

Right or wrong, environmentalist and their democratic party have their wish of high energy prices. Will the higher prices spur alternatives or spur demand for even dirtier energy such as coal and tar-sands?

As President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask the House of Saud to open the oil spigots a bit wider, Congress showed once again how clueless it is when it comes to energy policy.
Underscoring its failure to grasp the nature of our current problems, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday refused to end its moratorium on oil shale development in Colorado.
“If we are really serious about reducing pain at the pump,” Colorado’s senior senator, Republican Wayne Allard, said, “this is a vote that would make a difference in people’s lives.” He’s right.
But the shale proposal went down to defeat with Allard and 13 other Republican members in favor and 15 Democrats opposed. Once again, Democrats were on the wrong side, opting to keep oil in the ground and punish you with higher prices as a result.
This was no minor thing. Estimates put the amount of oil locked in shale in both Canada and the U.S. at more than 1 trillion barrels. Pulling out even a tenth of that would quadruple our current reserves.
This is the same Congress that refuses to allow drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which holds up to 20 billion barrels of crude, or offshore, where another 30 billion await.
Meanwhile, Brazil — which recently made a major oil discovery almost in sight of Rio’s beaches — announced that it has leased 80% of the world’s deep-sea offshore oil rigs. In other words, Brazil unlike the U.S., isn’t dithering as prices soar. It’s drilling.
If you think Congress’ decision-making on energy couldn’t get any worse, think again. While Bush was in Riyadh urging the Saudis to pump more oil, congressional Democrats were busy undercutting him, threatening to halt arms sales to our Mideast ally.
It was a politically peevish move with consequences both for U.S. energy security and the balance of power. If we don’t sell arms to Saudi Arabia, Russia will. The result would be a loss of American leverage with the Saudis, who, like many, feel threatened by a nuclear Iran and the menace of al-Qaida.
At least Bush convinced the Saudis to boost output 300,000 barrels a day. That helps. But we still have to do more ourselves.
The U.S. uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day. But only 8 million come from our own sources. That leaves a 13-million-barrel-a-day deficit that, at $126 a barrel, will cost us $600 billion to plug this year. That’s more than two-thirds of our total trade deficit.
Congress could reduce much of our oil shortfall by drilling for more on our own territory. This would lower prices and increase security. Yet, Congress seems dead set on doing the opposite.
With its failure to tap the vast supplies in ANWR and offshore, its passage of costly global-warming legislation and now its refusal to exploit our massive resources of oil shale, Congress has set us on a path to less energy, higher prices and weakened national security

The Democrats locking up ANWR, coastal areas, and the rocky mountains to drilling is a major cause to which they continue to this day. This is costing consumers, billions in balance of trade payments, and hundreds of thousands of good paying American jobs. CNN of course will never mention this fact.

WE are all to blame for this mess as we let our politicians get away with doing nothing to address this problem since the 1970’s. Our collective short attention span is one big reasons we are going down! How this country has managed to remain the world’s top economic power up until now is beyond me!!

If people remember all the lie’s from the early to mid 70’s when fuel jumped from .40 $ to over 1.50 $ per Gal.we had crooked people in the white house then. According to Nixon we would be out of oil by 2000. So why should anyone believe any more lie’s the Govrn. has to offer. How soon we forget.

I understand the demand has gone up and that output is restricted, but I have never seen exact demand increase numbers posted. Maybe I have missed them, but the closest I came was a CNN article that said demand went up .8% in the first quarter of 2008. What is the demand jump from 1999 to 2008? Can we get those numbers next to the years since demand accounts for 70% of the price?

Because the U.S. under George Bush has negleted this country! No new drilling for three decades? Come on! As Bush once said ” It O.K. to drive SUV and use all the gas we needed in the begining of his term in office he should have made sure we were drilling in Alaska and other ares of the U.S. where there is ample supply of oil and completely blew off those tree huggers, hell the use the gas as much ass anyone else!!!!!

High taxes on fuel, misguided government regulations preventing building of refinaries and drilling within our own country are the cause of high gasoline prices. All this will lead to is higher prices for everything and the destruction of the middle class.

We should be able to control the ‘drilling bans ‘that exist in this country. We need to balance the need for oil, with our ‘going green’ agenda. The swimming or migration habits of a fish or mammal off the coast of Florida need to take a back seat to the country’s need for a supply of oil.

No, the main reason is due to the fact that we have to rely on other countries to supply us with oil. They know this and continue to limit production to inflate the price of oil. We need to start looking alot harder at alternative power sources and alternative fuels right now, or we will be looking at $10/gallon gas.

They asked for change in the 2006 elections. Boy they really got it eh>? Thanks Nancy! You’ve been an unwelcomed mother-in law after the Fourth of July party!

Give me a break!

There are three reasons for high oil prices: global demand, the weak dollar (oil is pegged to the dollar), and the chaos factor in the Mid-east.

Four dollar gas and $ 130/ barrel oil are due directly to the bad policies, bad decisions and junk economics of the Bush/Cheney Administration.

The U.S. now approaches $10 trillion in debt due to our borrow and spend policies. We pay more in debt service each year than we pay for homeland security, education, and healthcare, combined!

The quagmire in the Mid-east has lost our position of leadership in the world, lost lives of our kids, squandered military resources, given Iran a greater role in the region, made us less secure as a nation, and daily adds billions of dollars to our national debt. It is a fiasco now, and will become known as a catastrophic failure of judgement and leadership!

As individuals we should all do what we can to reduce our consumption of oil. The truth is, however, had we had fiscal responsibility, a strong dollar, and no war in Iraq, oil would now be $50-$60 barrel!

I believe we are all to blame. We choose our products. I know it hurts now, but hopefully in the near future, many companies will find non oil alternatives that will not impact the environment or our energy source. The automakers will either conform to high efficiency engines or go under. Makers of consumer products will limit or eliminate plastic packaging or go under. Hopefully train usage will go up. Using trucks for cross country transport is ridicules and expensive. There are too many examples of how we Americans are too dependent on oil. Either we conform to the new world economy or we will go under. Maybe we should stop having petty conflicts with Europe and learn from them.

For years it was easy to blame OPEC and then the oil companies, but now the price seems to be more heavily influenced by speculators who contribute nothing to the equation but an unbending greed and “me first” attitude. These vultures have driven prices well beyond the reality of the market and we, the consumer, are powerless to stop them. Some obscure conflict in a thrid world country that produces a minuscule amount of oil to the market spikes the price. The drop in the value of the dollar spikes the price. Harsh words from the war mongers in the White House spike the price. You name it, and the speculators have a reason to drive up the price of crude, but it all boils down to one thing….GREED!

…and when haven’t there been rising demand, tight supplies, and geopolitical tensions? I am 36 years old and can not remember a time where any one of those factors were not an issue facing the world community.

I sure get tired of hearing about the big bad SUVs, my Toyota Forerunner gets 20 miles to a gallon, that’s better than alot of Sedans.

So obvious. You start an expensive war which greatly weakens the dollar (primary currency for oil in world) and destablizes the entire oil-producing region. Blaming lack of drilling in U.S. is nuts — environmental controls have been in place for years. Check the timeline of price increases to the dollar exchange value and war-caused U.S. budget defecit and how can anyone NOT blame Bush?

Greed is the reason for the cost of gas an oil.There is plenty of oil in the U.S.there is plenty of oil in the world.The Bush Administration just does not want to open the drilling market because it would drive the market down,not only here but around the world .The Gov’t is not doing enough an I blame the Democrats for that.For some reason they will not act like they did in the 70’s .They could start by price control an reduce the cost of desiel fuel by cutting corprate profits you will then see the inflation disappear here and around the world.The problem is greed

Because we (the USA) are owned in every way, shape, and form by the environmentalists. We have banned any type of drilling in the USA or off shore of the USA.

I’m wondering when the environment loving spiritually elite are going to start a campaign to save the last great endangered species . . . .MAN!

I break it down as simple greed.

Regardless of external circumstances OPEC is making tons of money and people are buying it no matter what they charge so they see no reason to lower prices.

Regardless of supply/demand/economic forces etc it all boils down (for me at least) to billionaires who are consumed by greed and want even more.

The weak dollar limits our buying power on the world market. We would be paying fewer dollars for oil if the dollar was worth more. That’s largely due to our monetary policy.

Additionally, we are entitrely too dependent upon a volatile world commodity market. We have had years to develop a comprehensive plan involving short term access to our known domestic sources of fossil fuel, increased refining, evolution to nuclear and ultimately alternative fuels plus solar/wind. All of this takes time, and this we have squandered with complacency on some levels complicated by endless partisan bickering.

Gas prices are directly due to analysts and politicians putting extra money in their pockets. It has absolutely nothing to do with supply and/or issues with the supplying countries. I am sick of hearing all this garbage that the politicians and analysts spew to make the prices go up. Stop stuffing your pockets and look at what you are doing to the people of this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every quarter the oil companies register BILLIONS in new record profits. Hi America, the oil companies must own the media because I keep hearing about the “reasons” for high gas prices, other than the real reason – we’re being GOUGED and GREED is the reason. I the other often stated reasons truly affected the price of oil/gas, then the profit margin of those industries would be more in line with the average American corporation at 10-15% of net sales. But we’re way to stupid to realize this and keep right on listening to the analysts like sheep to the slaughter. HELLO!

Since 1985 the U.S. has gone from producing 9 million barrels of oil a day to 5 million. In that same amount of time our consumption has increased by 30%. Think how much an extra 4 million barrels a day would help at the pump. Even with gas at $4.00 a gallon we will still not drill in Alaska, the gulf or off either coast. China and Cuba have an agreement to drill off the coast of Cuba, so oil that we could have discovered will now go to two countries that we don’t trust.

Driving smaller cars, setting the heat to 68 and he air to 78 will only do so much, in the end we need more supply. We need more wells, more refineries, more nuke plants, more coal plants. If we just sit and do nothing, gas (and energy) will only become more expensive.

So I ask at what point do we see the error and actually get our own oil? $4.00 a gallon isn’t enough to do it. How about $5.00? $8.00? $12.00? Don’t say it can’t happen, no one thought it would get to $4.00, but here we are. Let’s get to work now. Some say that drilling for our own oil would not affect the price of gas one bit. I find it hard to believe that more supply would not lead to lower prices. Still it may not, but at the very least it would keep the price the same.

In the next few years when oil gets to $200 a barrel, remember who wanted to drill and who prevented us from drilling, and vote accordingly.

Gas prices are unnecessarily high as oil company executives pocket profits that the middle class family could never even fathom. Nobody in the WORLD needs that much money to live a comfortable lifestyle.

What you said about the increased demand plays 70% of today’s gas price is not true.

There is increased demand, for sure, but never doubled or tripled compared with 1999 or 2007. That’s why OPEC refused to increased supply.

Everyone the demand of oil in the world is about 80 millilon barrels and the supply is about the same. Again, OPEC refused to increase the supply, because there is no such shortage.

The major reason is speculation. For last 6 months, oil price doubled, that’s all because of the speculators.

I think you should correct your analysis.

Why are gas prices so high? The question has already been answered in the article. “A new refinery hasn’t been built in the United States in three decades.” If we were allowed to drill our own oil we wouldn’t be relying on foreign suppliers and we could increase supply to offset demand.

That really was a pivotal point. Maybe, with the restoration of MEANINGFUL majority and a Democratic president, they will show some leadership. If we are going to pay this much for gas (and we shouldn’t) then, it ought to go to taxes, like in Europe.

Often, people talk about how cheap oil prices in the US during the 90s led to increased demand and decreased expansion of supply. While this is true, the artificial market that subsidies to the domestic oil industry has created is also to blame. If the prices reflected the true cost, they would have been much higher in the 90s and, likely, above $4 today. When oil execs are making exorbitant profits, the public should be outraged that their tax dollars are used to subsidize the industry.

I understand the reasons for the surge in oil prices being attributed mostly to the rise of Asian consumption. However, how does that account for the past few months? I mean its not like India and China have suddenly asked for a third more of the world’s production?

Add two more contributors to the list. First, the April issue of Geotimes, a trade magazine for geologists, indicates that 35% of the rise is due to the falling dollar as compared to the euro. Second, US energy policy failures — especially the failure to promote and fund research solar, wind, tides, nuclear, and other alternatives coupled with foot-dragging on mandates for fuel efficient cars. Third, the auto industry’s foot-dragging which also has left them losing market share toforeign companies who make smaller, more fuel-efficient autos.

Reluctance on the part of Congress to allow drilling in Alaska and offshore; unwillingness to use alternate sources of energy such as nuclear power and natural gas.

World greed for a quick buck has hurt us all! We are to blame for our own faults in the economy, housing market, and the falling dollar. We have become too needy on anything foreign (clothing, food, oil) and not keeping money in the US or even close to home like home grown food.

Your article states that gas 90 cents a gallon in 1999. It is more than just a coincidence that the gas prices have steadily increased since 1999, since this was the same year that Exxon and Mobil merged. Exxon Mobil is now enjoying the benefits of record profits at the expense of the average American. Surely if there was a shortage of refined oil then they would not be making news with their windfall profits. There is plenty of oil in the world and the record profits are proof. Split up the the major oil companies, create more competition, and watch the prices drop.

You also need to add the Democrats’ loss of control of the Senate (2004), which meant the loss of the last oversight over the oil industry. From there, it’s been open season for the oil industry and the speculators.

Because they can get away with it of course! And because our government is debasing the dollar so bad.

As mentioned in CNN’s article, the economic laws of supply and demand are at work and providing the best price for efficient oil distribution. However, there are distortions in the price due to unnatural intervention in the economy.

The most easily cited examples are gas taxes, however there are many taxes at all levels of production that affect the total price of gas.

Another problem that everyone knows of but safely ignores is OPEC. When OPEC was first created gas prices spiked significantly. Its because it is a government sanctioned cartel that limits the supply of oil. Its time to break up OPEC. The world community ought to exert pressure on the members to pull out so that competition will increase.

Further government problems in our country are the political costs of building a refinery. The reason there hasn’t been a new refinery in 3 decades is the government. When spiking demand, it doesn’t make sense that eager business men wouldn’t build a new refinery if it were possible. It is for this same reason that we haven’t built a new nuclear reactor in decades which could have been really helpful in the current energy crisis.

The solution isn’t government investing in alternative energy. If its a viable alternative the market will invest on its own. If the government does its own investment there is no promise of a profitable return. Instead government intervention in the market needs to be stripped away and let working citizens solve our energy problems. They can do it much better.

Government has prevented new refineries, added many new formulae for gas to comform to air quality regs, added taxes to get to nearly 25% total tax load with fed-state-local taxes and ,worst of all, allow the dollar to fall from the world’s reserve currency to a little desired financial instrument by taking it off the gold standard, spending too much and borrowing too much.

These are the facts that are causing oil to go up and the USA economy to decline:

1. 9/11 events have caused the economy of USA and the world a big decline

2. The war in Iraq was a big mistake and has caused a shortage of oil and a big dent in the financial ability of the USA

3. Iran is now trading oil in Euros instead of dollars.

4. The world is loosing confidence in the dollar.

5. The dollar lost its value and prestige vs. the Euro and other world currencies

6. President Bush’s policies against Iran, Venezuela, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make the world look at the USA as a weak leader and therefore the USA is no longer considered THE SUPERPOWER.

7. The rise of India, China, Russia, and Europe means the USA has lost its world dominance.

8. OPEC has no incentive to lower the oil price. If ONE Google stock cost $580.00 then expect ONE BARREL of oil to cost $580.00

9. The Middle East countries are making BILLIONS of dollars in profits from oil: I hope they are using these BILLIONS to pay their debts, build their infrastructures, build schools and hospitals, and bring their societies from THIRD WORLD LEVELS to FIRST or SECOND WORLD LEVELS

10. My fellow Americans, We are moving from a FIRST WORLD COUNTRY, to a SECOND WORLD COUNTRY. But we will survive. Every empire goes through the following three cycles: Creation, Prosperity, and Decline

I’m so proud to be an American. At an early age we’re thought to be patriotic and loyal for our country. And what do we get in return? A president and his administration with a constant hidden agenda, and Corporations who monopolize and squeeze every little bit of disposable money we have into their pockets. Hey, at least I’m still free…for now?

The post touches on all that have causeed gas prices to rise, but failed to highlight the primary cause in this country. Namely, the myopic view of Congress on energy policy. The two most recent examples is passage of legislation to stop filling the oil reserve and the shameful grilling by the senior senator from NY of oil executives. The first isn’t energy policy & the second fails to recognize that the main problem w/obtaining any kind of energy, be it drilling, building refineries, nuclear plants, wind farms, is people in Congress like NY’s senior senator. So ask the candidates ” will you spend most waking time (try 30 hrs/week)working to unfetter energy availability”

The reasons are Bush, Bush and Bush.

1. He unnecessarily attacked Iraq. Saddam was good for USA keeping Iran under control.
2. He did not wipe out decisively terrorists. He should have bombarded Pakistan until they give up Osama and all Mullahs shouting slogans against WEST.
3. Are we nuts ? Why do we accept Muslims when they openly advocate wiping us out. We should wipe them out first.

All of this may be true, but if the situation/demand/supply is so difficult for the oil companies to handle, why are they all making $10 billion a quarter in straight profit? Still seems like extortion to me.

If the cost of finding, processing and distributing oil/gas has risen due to factors other than oil company profiteers, then why are the oil companies making record profits?

This is the question no one in washington or the media seems to be able to coherently address. How does record high oil prices translate into record high oil company profits? If the cost of oil and the price of gas are rising at the same rate, oil company profits should be, in terms of percentage, the same. Are these record profits the same in terms of percentage or are the oil companies raising prices on their end? If the profits are the same in terms of percentage, then record profits are potentially the result of more money at work in the industry. If the profits are greater in terms of percentage much of the fault lies with the oil companies. Either way, it seems federal regulation of oil company profits is now in order–something we will not see until this oily administration leaves office.

I’m not sure who directly is the blame of this but it is uncalled for. It’s almost $4.00 for a gallon of gas! I have to travel to get to work,
I can’t afford to move my family to the city. I just don’t think it’s right that we help out some many 3rd world countries and we can’t even help the people who live in the US. We have homeless, and hungry people here. Wouldn’t you think you would want to help others around you. Instead we have the homeless who remain homeless, the hungry who remain hungry. We have some resources in the US to help those who are in need but it’s not enough. But again. I don’t know who’s fault it is that gas prices are so high but they need to do something about it. People still need to be able to provide for their families and the high gas prices don’t help. Soon people are not going to be able to go to work because it cost to much to drive there!

We are being governed by idiots that don’t have any common sense.

It’s no more complicated than that!

Those other mentioned factors are at play, certainly, but until Exxon quits posting record profits, I’m blaming them as well. They should feel the crunch just like the rest of us if those other factors are that great.

Who’s to blame? Our government who sit on their hands and don’t do a damn thing. If they would have to pay at the pump out of their own pocket for sure something would be done! Good-bye to the middle class.

This is petroleum’s “perfect storm” with conditions around the world aligning to escalate prices. Chief among these are speculators who buy futures contracts at ever higher prices. Imagine buying a contract in December for $70 oil in May when prices reach $126 or more. These same speculators drove residential real estate prices to absurd levels in many areas. They were the first to abandon the category when the downturn began and now that they’re gone, residential prices are seeking a level based on affordable reality.

A second contributor to the cost of oil and, in turn, gasoline, is a dollar that’s now worth about 64 cents on the world market. Remove that factor and theoretically, $4 gasoline could be selling for about $2.60.

It seems like most of the recent major boom to bust cycles revolve around greedy folks buying up supply in order to make billions when the prices rise. Real estate and dot-com busts come to mind as the same style of cyclic greed, but these vultures are playing with the world in order to make a few bucks. Maybe it’s time to make essential commodities like grains and oil off limits to speculators to stop these pirates from making a killing from everyone else’s pain.

Alot of the supply and demand issues could be fixed if we built more refinery capacity and drilled for oil within the USA. But that wont happen with enviromentalists blocking every attempt. The enviromentalists are hypocrits. They say they want to protect the enviroment, yet the USA has the most strict laws governing oil drilling and production. So it would be safer and cleaner to do it all in the USA. But they say no to that, but yes to doing it all in some 3rd world contry with little to no laws so thier enviroment gets wrecked. How is that helping the enviroment?

We invade Iraq, threaten Iran, suport a coup attempt in Venezuela, and we’re surprised prices went up? We have met the enemy and he is us.

Our political leaders are to blame. Thirty years ago, they could have demonstrated the same foreword thinking as other countries. Take Brazil for example. That country’s government demonstrated the political genius and will to become energy independent. Thanks to the continued vote buying by the energy lobby in the USA, we are left squeezing the “hind teat” (old southern expression for ditching American citizens…once again).

I think the stated reasons for high gas prices are a part of the reson, but the largest reasons are related to ongoing war in the middle east. Oil companies have shown in the past that they price fix and gouge consumers at will, seemingly without worrying abo0ut accountability for these actions. In the past when gas tax has been suspended in order to give consumers a break, oil companies simply raised prices accordingly and took what had been intended for consumers. The reason this is allowed is that lobyists representing oil companies own the votes of too many senators and other government officials. Until this practice is disallowed, the rich companies will control the government under the table and prevent the anti-trust laws from being applied to the oil companies.

We have ignored the writing on the wall for decades now. Unfortunately, the 70’s didn’t teach us a thing. We could’ve been proactive then and looked for alternatives, (instead of being at the mercy of the big producers)but we chose to do nothing. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Maybe our next generation will be smarter than we were. Maybe they’ll finally get it right.

OPEC is the elephant in the room…they are a cartel and keep the supply low and demand high by not producing what the world requires, though they could do so in short order. The rest is deflection…

enviro”mental”ists preventing us from
drilling on our own lands, Alaska, Gulf of Mexico etc..

Hmmmm …. Let’s see now. As best I can tell, there’s one political party here in the US that has consistently, for decades now …

1) opposed drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve
2) oppossed drilling for oil in the continental shelf off the coasts of the United States
3) resisted attempts to construct more nuclear power plants
4) resisted attempts to construct new refineries here in the US

Here’s a hint: It ain’t George Bush and the Republicans.

Seems to me that this particular political party has to take most of the blame for today’s gasoline prices.

The weak dollar hasn’t helped.

I think there are a lot of factors into play. I don’t understand how gas can jump 10 cents a day? It is frustrating to know oil companies have made huge profits while we have suffered though higher and higher gas prices. Everything else is effected by the rise in gas. I hope the next President will address this issue more then President Bush has. He doesn’t pay for gas does he?

If gas prices are where they are supposed to be for the supply vs. demand theory. Why are oil companies such as Exxon/Mobil reporting record earnings every year? If we as consumers are paying more because the oil companies are paying more per barrel of crude oil. Shouldn’t there profits remain the same not increase?

Instead of being part of the problem and speculating as to why our gas prices are so high, I’d like to offer suggestions to resolve it. There has been talk about lowering the national speed limit to 55mph again (the most fuel efficient speed). The federal government (not local or private sector) should fund a nationwide railway system much like the Eisenhower administration did with the interstate system since rail travel is much more efficient than road travel for the transportation of goods and people-not to mention we, the US, are far behind the rest of the world in this form of transportation. Setting quotes for the auto industry to reach in producing diesel vehicles (better efficiency) and hybrid vehicles. Maybe the government should offer tax incentives to owning less cars or owning alternatives like smart cars, mopeds, or just bicycles.

Gas prices are so high because the US depends on foreign oil. Too many environmentalists and liberal whackos that are too concerned to drill on our own land.

End of story.

Suspend trading in oil futures for a time to try and get real supply/demand
in balance

There is essentially no competition within the energy industries.

Are you serious? Any one with any business and economic background who wants to be fair knows that this huge increase is due to the current president and his pals in big oil. We know this is the real reason we invaded that country. It was for the long haul…..

Another major factor would be the decline in value of the American dollar. As our government continues their uncontrolled spending spree, we just print new money, which devalues the whole monetary system. Oil is a global commodity, so as our dollar declines compared to other currencies, we have to give more dollars to pay for the same things, relative to other currencies. Stop the uncontrolled spending by our gov’t, add value to our money, and the gas price will go down again!

I blame Congress for not making oil companies justify their high profits. If any other industry had such a negative impact on the economy and the American way of life, you can be sure Congress would have done something at the onset. But I believe that because oil companies make such huge contributions to election campaigns, there will never be a slaying of the Golden Goose.
Imagine Microsoft suddenly charging businesses hundreds of dollars a day for each computer they use.
The fines would be astronomical.

Obviously the record profits of the world’s largest energy companies are tied to record profit margins derived from record high prices…is this really the question?

One word, “Bush.” This man has been the cause of many things that is wrong with the U.S. but no one seems to believe it. It is time that americans stop being so naieve and stop believing what Bush has said and what he is going to say. Your President of the U.S. has taken this country down, involved us in others businesses such as Iraq, Iran and other countries. The man doesn’t have two matching brain cells and you believe what he says. You ask why the gas hike, well look at him.

The fix is in. There is no shortage of oil, but people have bought this lie and it’s too late to turn back now.

The cost of oil has risen steeply in US dollars because they are worth much less than they were 4 years ago. The cost of oil to Europeans and Canadians has risen less precipitously because they have managed their national economies somewhat better. Americans just don’t understand that they cannot allow a president to borrow 5 trillion more dollars from various sources against the earnings of their children and grandchildren to execute his international war games without impacting the value of the dollar. We moved back to Canada from the USA about 5 years ago because of the American actions in Iraq. On Memorial Day you can beat the nationalistic drums all you want but it won’t pay off this obscene debt. If the Iraq war was necessary, then persuade the people to pay for it in real “now” dollars. If you think you can wage war with dollars borrowed from your kids and grand-kids, don’t expect them to come to your rescue on Social Security. The USA national debt is one big cause for the high cost of petrol at the pumps.

Gas prices are out of control for the same reason tech stocks and real estate went thru the roof then burst.
It’s investors in a senseless frenzy.

we need more domestic oil refineries, and we need not be afraid to drill in anwar alaska.

“Some say the Bush administration’s provocation of Iran and Venezuela, coupled with a botched occupation of oil-exporting Iraq, has contributed to the geopolitical tension. But defenders say that, in the long run, the administration’s actions will eventually lead to a more democratic – and thus stable – global supply.”

- But wait…I thought we went to war in Iraq to fight terrorists?

You should re-word that questions. Why do you think the Oil companies had the highest grossing 4th Quater in the history of the US…. that should narrow everything down..

I think your last point about speculators is controllable. I think legistlation should be put in place to limit speculators impact on price may ceilings and floors. It is outrageous for a speculator to create this kind of havic. Also their should be ceilings and floors put in place if Oil prices increase or decrease by a certain material percentage with a short period of time.

thanks
CT

I have a quesion on a related subject. Why has the price of diesel fuel out paced the overall increase in gasoline pricing? Diesel fuel used to be cheaper than gasoline, but is now more expensive.

America wake up. We are like a bunch of people dieing of thurst infront of a water well. All we have to do is droup the bucket in. We want the mid-east and the rest of the world to do for us what we won’t do for our selves. It’s this easy, want fuel, drill.Want gas, refine.

How about the record profits of the oil companies that have occured quarter after financial quarter? Yes, political tensions as well as supply play an impact but the political leadership in Washington DC is in the pockets of big oil in this country. Can we say price that there is some price gouging occuring?

We are paying $4+ for gas because people who shouldn’t have owned a house in the first place were allowed to own one! There is enough oil left in the world. USA is probably sitting on the largest deposit of oil outside middle east.

In response to “why are gas prices high?” Oil companies are recording RECORD profits. Profits in the billions. Meanwhile, hard working middle class American people are becoming homeless by the day. Oh and did I mention that we have people in office who have a vested interest in how well oil does. America’s business is business. Nobody cares about anyone but themselves and everybody wants help, but nobody wants to help anybody else. I think another reason why gas prices are so high is because of politcal power. We have some politicians who don’t want to drill in Alaska so we can protect wildlife and others who do want to drill in Alaska (like Bush), and did I mention that he has a vested interest in how well oil does? The more we can’t drill in Alaska, the higher gas will be because it’ll be “cheaper” to drill in Alaska (so they say). It’s just a power trip for politicians who really don’t care how much we pay? They’re WELL taken care of.

The main cause of rising oil prices is limited supply. Demand has certainly not doubled in the past few years. The limited supply is a direct result of our policies in the Middle East. We have become a political pariah after our bungling invasion of Iraq. More than any other nation, Saudi Arabia can influence oil prices. In the past, Saudi Arabia has cooperated with the U.S. and has increased production to ease periodic demand spikes. Now, however, it is political suicide for the Saudis to help out the U.S. by dramatically increasing production — which they could. Bush has personally travelled to Saudi Arabia to request help twice since January and has been turned down both times. That speaks volumes.

We caused political instability in the region and slapped other Arab nations in the face by invading Iraq and acting arrogantly during the Bush administration. Think of the spike in oil prices as a giant middle finger pointed at us from the Arab world in response.

If something does not happen soon, you will see a vast number of the middle class lose everything. It seems no one thinks of this class of people that is the backbone of the US.

Get real!!Every time there was a oil spill,oil refinery fire,etc. prices went up due to that so called loss.How is it that now we have introduced biofuel,electric cars,windfarms,also include we are pumping more oil out of the ground in our homeland, etc and we have not seen any downward action in the price of oil,while the input of all the things I named were reducing the demand of fuel yet seemed to reflect no decrease in oil prices while a oil spill,oil refinery fire,etc. caused a increase in oil prices.Come on,you know good well that all the excuses don’t add up.One time it’s a oil spill then it’s opec’s fault,then it’s that we have no new oil refineries,.Note well,we are getting a big part of our oil from Canada and Mexico.Why do we bother with OPEC?

Bush Clan & Corrupt Politicians. Gas cost the same to make everywhere but it’s up to the Government to control the prices. The cost of gasoline a gallon in Venezuela and Dubai is between .21-.40 cents. Why are we paying $4? The Government helps alleviate the cost for the people while ours tries to take every penny from us because they are greedy!

It doesn’t really matter to me who is to blame. The important thing is fo the United States to do what is necessry to produce oil here in our own country. I agree that we need to protect the environment but people have to have a place to sleep and food to eat. Our Senators and Congressmen need to get off their duffs and do something about it……

One main reason everyone seems to be forgetting is that the tax cuts foe the wealthy caused our dollar to be worthless, because we are now so much in dept. If our dollae still had the value of 1998 we would be paying around $2.00 per gallon of gas instead of $4.00.

What a load of crap.. Keep deceiving the U.S. citizen so they keep their eye off the GREED and PROFITS of BIG OIL and those Associated. I,ve not seen 1 line in the USA for a gas SHORTAGE. Only after Katrina and that was because of distribution problems after a major catastrophe.. Supply was back to normal in a week or so.

Demand Pressure.. if there is so much demand pressure how come in Central America and the middle east the suppliers of this product OIL charges .20 cents to .50 cents a gallon??

The Storm.. just a reason to jack up the price.. there still was no lines for gas shortage 1 month later any where..

Hot Tempers.. Give me a break.. Just another reason for speculators to run up prices because some dictator shoots off his mouth..

Tight Supplies.. GREED.. No one talks about the 1 billion plus $$,s or so the OIL Ceo,s and Execs. get paid in salaries, bonuses, and stock options..Bet you might be able to build a new refinery or 2 with some of that and the over 100 billion plus $$,s in PROFITS the Oil Companies have made in the last 5 years. BIG OIL has finally gotten a hot comodity and they created it so why would they build more refineries and kill the goose that lays the golden egg… Big Oil and the speculators and investors are the sharks in the water and feasting on the American people like the BIG OIL SUPPLIERS (OPEC).. The government Wall Street and BIG OIL have things the way they want it, if not, they,re would be a rush to increase production and infrastructure.. it will take years if not decades (2) to do and I don,t see any one jumping through hoops to do… Bend Over America where in for a long haul of high fuel and energy cost……

This article only mentions the falling US dollar in passing, but that’s at least as important as the other reasons listed. The USD has fallen 30% vs. Euro and Canadian dollar in the past 4 years.

If a president of the contry says that the gas will never cost $4, what do you want to hear from the regular Joes?

On Sept. 12 2001 if George Bush would have said “We will find an alternative form of fuel by the end of my administration” he would have equaled JFK’s speech on putting a man on the moon. Instead he had two years of Republican rule were he could have passed laws allowing drilling in ANWR. Instead of going to Iraq, that money could have been spent on hydrogen powered cars, just like Honda and BMW now sell. The best way to hurt your enemy is to get them in the pocket book, if we don’t buy Saudi Oil, they can’t train terrorist. Why is this so hard to understand?

As usual, The US is the biggest consumer of oil in the World but I believe over these past years since invading Irak we have consumed an unimaginable amount of oil that I believe has influenced a lot despite what other people say. Off course, demand has risen to exponential proportions after the growth seen in China and India, who together represent half of the World’s population! All in all, the price will never drop down to where it was months ago, its just going to get worse and the middle class will be drastically affected. You don’t listen europeans complaining about there prices ($8 a gallon) because most of them use their public transportation, which work like a swiss watch, always on time! Here is another story, if you don’t have four wheels you can forget getting to work! its a sad reality that a country so great as this one hasn’t done anything to expand on its public service transportation. I live in Miami and we drive a lot here, average miles a day is around 55 miles! thank god I have a Corolla and will keep it forever.

Why is gas so high? Your really dont know?
George Bush and Dick Cheney are making an unbelieveable fortune.
Do you really think they care about the high price of gas?

One source for the current high prices for gasoline – oil speculators. Demand is high, but so is production. And since there is no current shortage of oil or lack of ability to increase capacity prices are not being driven by supply and demand.

Oil/gas prices are low compared to what they will be as the supply of a limited resource dwindles. The U.S. should import all the oil it can from foreign sources and save our own reserves for the future. I hope this is an unspoken policy practiced by our government.

I think people just have to finally realize that the world’s oil supply is NON-renewable and no new reserves are going to be miraculously found.

I think that this story misses the fact that up until the last couple months the price of oil has kept pace with the price of gold and the rise in gas prices is a result of the falling US dollar at the hands of the federal reserve. MESSAGE TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE: PLEASE STOP PRINTING MONEY.

When big corporations can manipulate politicians this are the results.

It seems to me that the U.S. government should have the resources available to determine EXACTLY why the price of gasoline is so high, and who really is making all of the profit. Just follow the money.

Speculation is a SMALL part of this issue. It’s supply and demand… we are reaching (or have reached) the all-time peak in oil production. The other side of the bell curve points inexorably down. The easily obtainable, cheap oil is gone… the rest is harder to get and expensive. No more cheap fuel, and no amount of alternative fuel will replace oil on the same scale. Say buh-bye to ‘easy motoring” and the suburban lifestyle which is only possible on the current scale with CHEAP energy.

I don’t believe gasoline prices are supply/demand driven. They are profit driven, which is evident by record profits of oil companies. They will charge what they can, and right now they can charge $4/gallon. As much as I hate to have to put $100 in my vehicle to fill the tank, we need prices to raise to undbearable levels. That’s the only way we’ll ever force change in this country, and the only way our legislators will wake up and push for alternative fuel option.

Much of the high gas prices are nothing but ‘price gouging’ by the oil companies as record profits of $123 Billion dollars easily shows.

What ever happened to the Bush administrations statements that Iraqi oil would ‘pay for the war’ that George started ?? Where’s the oil ??

Our energy needs for oil could be greatly reduced and jobs created if our government utilized the two processes developed by Americans that use salt and fresh water. Those processes, utilized on a large scale, would also reduce or eliminate the need for nuclear generating plants and make our country a lot safer.

Who is suppressing the large scale use and spread of those patents, and why ??

Many jobs could be created in converting current and future vehicles to use these processes plus other machines that will use them, like electrical generating plants.

Peak Oil. Deal with it.

“and underinvestment in new production by the world’s oil companies.”

“New supplies of oil from non-OPEC countries were supposed to come online in 2007 and ease some of these supply bottlenecks. But problems in Kazakhstan and Russia – as well as sweeping drilling bans in the United States”

Remember, every year, OLD oil fields are depleted. Many huge ones are past their peak, as in Mexico and Russia. The oil production curve does not have to be a bell curve: you can ‘overinvest’ and push up the production on the left side, only to see a faster crash on the right side (happened in Yemen, and Great Britain – Norway pumped their North Sea fields a bit more conservatively, peaked a few years later).

And don’t think ‘drilling bans’ in the US are keeping oil prices high. The 7 billion barrels in ANWR are chump change compared to the 110 – 220 billion barrels in Iraq. Of course, SOME Americans want to pocket the money 7 billion barrels will bring

The ’speculators’ know the Oil Age is coming to an end. Do you ? If you still have a truck or SUV, you do not.

Hmm, has anyone thought that it might be because of government regulations, or government subsidies.

There are some reasons such as higher demand and lower supply which are driving up the price. However, there has also been no control over the oil companies and some degree of price gouging as evidenced by the recent spike at the end of Bush’s term. When invited in front of Congress to explain record profits, the oil company CEO’s weren’t even asked to testify under oath! American’s refusal to adjust their driving habits as a result of the higher prices has not yielded any relief yet as well, how many people do you know who carpool?

Oil price increase – perhaps another reason for the oil price increase is the devaluation of the US dollar over the past 4 years. Since oil is priced in dollars, the fact that the dollar has drop 50% or more compared to other currency may contribute to some of the increases from imports

It all boils down to supply and demand. If we don’t address both of these, it will get worse. That’s how we got where we are now.

GREED!! Some fool had to predict $4.00 per gallon gasoline by Summer and that’s all the oil companies needed to hear to clear the path. The price of gasoline is the tail that’s wagging the dog.

My opinion? An inelastic demand curve (rising prices don’t decrease consumption) along with an inelastic supply curve (rising prices don’t increase output) have triggered investor speculation which drives the price of oil up without change in either demand or supply. I think some limitation should be placed on investor money in commodity markets that is not directly related to either consumption or production. It’s like having investors drive up the price of tulip bulbs when they neither grow nor plant flowers. Same is true for corn– if you don’t grow it, eat it, or refine it, you should be discouraged from speculating in the market through significant taxation on profits made solely by flipping corn futures.

If the high prices were truly an indicator of short supply, we should be seeing shortages and gas lines. We are not. Therefore, at least some of the prices are artificially high. The U.S. has a weak economy and a weak dollar, a leadership which is unpopular around the world, and presidential and congressional elections to distract much of that leadership. For the last six to seven years, there has been a strong focus by the administration on helping industry over people, and encouraging business decisions that increase profits while gouging customers. All this, plus the instability in many oil-producing areas, has contributed to the high prices. When companies make billions while the price continues to rise but supply keeps flowing, there is a conscious effort to make this happen. It is not an accident.

You failed to point out what is responsible for up to 40% of the increase in the price of oil.
The President and Congress’s continuing increase in US debt and mismanagement has changed the value of the dollar in relationship to the other world currencies. When oil was just $110 per barrel an article in Wall Street Journal accurately stated that if the US dollar had just retained it’s value against the euro oil would have been $70 instead of $110.
Place blame where it is due, mismanagement by our President (and a complacent Congress who failed to challenge him?)

Why aren’t people discussing the impacts of a weakening dollar? When we have to purchase oil in a global market and the dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to, we’re simply going to have to shell out more of them to get the same return. As long as we maintain interest rates as their current levels (to save people’s ill-advised mortgages), we’re going to continue to have a weak dollar and higher gas prices.

Could we not eliminate the “gas” shortage by reducing the amount of blends refineries must make. If the refineries only produced three grades of gas then they wouldnt have to schedule so many variations of gas that cause the shortages.

There is only one organization reaponsible for the gas prices in the US…a corrupt and spineless federal government. They have sold out the American economy to special interest and fringe environmentalists groups in exchange for reelection. “The public be damned” is the prevailing attitude in Washington.

Seems to me we’re finally paying what gas actually costs to produce, and what European and other countries have been paying for years. More drilling and more exploration won’t solve the problem long term; there’s only so much oil out there to be found. Our best long term strategy is to quit whining, move closer to our jobs, ditch the Hummers and get real about the cost of this stuff. Even Saudi Arabia will run out eventually–and may have peaked production in 2005, if Michael Sullivan is right.

As long as we refuse to drill for oil in our own back yard we are at the mercy of speculators who infuluence the price based on geopolitical factors.

That’s funny that all those factors are cited as reasons for the gas hikes, yet there is no mention that the profits of the oil/gas companies continue to grow and eye-popping bonuses continue to be awarded to those executives who are ostensibly just trying to please the people.

To paraphrase Occam’s Razor, what is the simplest reason that will be the most likely? If gas prices have increased by 10% and gas company profits have increased by 10%, what is the simplest explanation there?

But no…let’s instead choose to blame it on exculpatory and uncontrollable factors, such as “geopolitical tensions”. It’s safer that way, keeps us xenophobic and rabid at the Middle East and less likely to tick off the big dogs.

And don’t even try to tell me that as a person who has a mutual fund that may have a gas company comprising a tiny portion of that fund, I myself am driving rising gas prices with my demand for my $.03 dividend at the end of the year. I saw an ad in a newspaper just this past week postulating that very idea, which outraged me even more.

Sorry, but I as a “shareholder” of infinitesimal “stocks” unfortunately didn’t get a chance to vote to award any gas company CEOs $170 million in bonuses this year.

I’m asking for a BICYCLE this Xmas – and I’m going to USE IT. Who’s with me?

They are high because of banks and investment companies – oil is a commodity, and of course we cannot drill in our own country because we might hurt the environment – please aren’t we smart enough to do it without hurting the environment -oh I forgot only Dems are that smart, so why aren’t they doing something and don’t say the Reps are getting in the way you control congress….- Tell me this – if JFK can say we will put a man on the moon in ten years and we do it in 5 – how come we cannot develop a non-oil/gas needing car? we can but because of the money power hungry people in power they won’t.

Obviously all of the factors that are highlighted in the article are at play, but the media seems to down play the fact that the liberals won’t let us tap into the areas that have more than 50+ years worth of oil independence(by the lowest of estimates) sitting under the soil. It makes better news when the President is to blame because of our involvement in the war and his relationship with the oil industry.

BUSH BUSH BUSH…thats all I hear people saying, but they can never really tell me how..Oil is a traded commodity, and is highly controlled by OPEC and traders, supply and demand and other factorss noted in the above story. I believe that BUSH’s (or more likely his administeration’s) decisions have incresed geopolitical pressures which have an effect, but I cant figure out exactly how he is all to blame. Too me it seems like uneducated people looking for the easiest target, without knowing how the whole market works. And aren;t we still the cheapest gas in the world….

We can all thank the enviromentalist who have pushed all of the oil refinement to other countries. Now with the weak dollar and demand being high around the world, we are feeling the effects. Even if we built just a couple of refinaries since the 70s we would be in better shape than now.

I live in Austin, Texas and see a trend~
Everyone invested in high tech stocks…that busted…

Everyone invested in the housing market…that busted…

Everyone is investing in commodities (Oil)…..

It is pretty obvious that oil prices are artificially high – driven by speculation…..

Supplies would not nearly be as tight if we would drill for oil on our own lands and waters. The extreme environmentalists have as much to blame for this as anyone else. We have wasted time and resources on biofuels, which caused food prices to skyrocket, without expanding our ability to produce and refine oil in the U.S.

Six words:
Oil Men in the White House.
There’s your answer.

It’s about supply and demand. There is a finite amount of all fossil fuels. Some argue that there’s plenty of oil and there is but it can’t be produced cheaply like that we’ve burned up these past 150 or so years. Also, within that time period, human numbers have risen from just over 1 billion to today’s 6.5 billion. Get the picture? Oil isn’t like corn or cotton. You can’t harvest it then plant more. Geologists say all the ANWR oil would fuel this country for about 6 months. The cost to recover that oil is huge. Same for offshore oil. Shell spent $1 billion for a well in the Gulf that didn’t produce enough to justify the cost. A “dry hole.”

We’ve got to conserve big time. We need a passenger rail network and urban transit like Europe has, we need to redesign our cities around that transit network. Our suburbs need to revert back to small, self-sustaining towns they once were and we need to restructure our food chain to minimize transit. Alternatives like solar and wind will be a great help but they won’t play a large role till technological innovations make them more viable.

Conservation of energy is not an option; it’s vital to our survival. The planet existed millions of years without humans and can do so again, it’s up to us to innovate and prolong our duration as a species.

I only dream what it could be like to fill up for $4 a gallon.

Come to the UK and pay $11 equivalent, you will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Gas is high because there are people running this nation that want to see America fall. This is the perfect way to do it. Bleed the American People dry of their $ and cripple the economy. If the US would drill in Alaska (where we have 400 years worth just sitting there) we wouldn’t be having this problem. No one in government is doing anything about it and that should tell the American people a lot. They don’t care because it’s part of a larger plan that most of us turn our backs to.

I think the major problem is our government is not allowing us to drill for our own oil and build more refineries.

I love how, the article offsets the issue of refining capacity by pointing out some expansion. The truth is oil companies have closed 24 refineries in the US since the mid 90’s. THEY are the bottleneck, there is no oil shortage and demand has been on a steady predictable curve. The Indians and Chinese didn’t suddenly open the spigot. This is a cash grab nothing more.

Environmentalists are to blame. They have blocked or severely limited the ability for the US to produce domestic oil and be less dependent on foreign sources. They have also blocked the expansion of nuclear power.

WALL STREET GREED
Us middle class folk are now in the poor house-how the devil are we supposed to survive?

Our Congress has not served the public by providing an energy policy that worked for our country in sufficient time. Politics as usual.

Its obviously alot of factors but our own government isnt really doing anything to help the situation.Bottom line is prices have shot up more then triple in 10 years..nothing goes up that fast..and we have done nothing about it.

I don’t know who’s to blame, if anyone, it’s probably just the natural economic law of supply and demand. Howeve, I am certain of who CAN’T fix it and that’s politicians. Just before the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, Nancy Pelosi said thay had a good plan to reduce gas prices. Gas was $2.25 then, it is now $4. What a great plan that must have been!!

THE ONLY REASON FOR HIGH GAS PRICES IS PURE GREED…THERE IS ENOUGH OIL IN THE GROUND ON THIS PLANET TO KEEP PRICES DOWN BUT ALL MAN WANTS TO DO IS SERVE HIS BELLY….PURE AND SIMPLE….

Very simple, The US Government, It will take a combination of Drilling for our oil and the continued development of alternative fuels to save the US economy. Alternative fuels for cars are 20-30 years out if you consider the infrastructure needed to fuel them. Alternative fuels for trucks are farther off. Many other products need oil so its not going away. Nuclear and clean coal will also help. The energy situation is a national crisis but our govenment is unable to summon the courage to buck the environmentalist. They are cowards and corrupt and do not have the publics interest in mind. The economic effect of the impending crisis will make the depression look like the good old days. If we started drilling and building refineries today it will be several years before it will have an effect but every day we wait makes it worse. Americans cannot afford and companies cannot produce all of the vehicles needed to reduce the need for gas significantly in a short time. The unkonown is what affect our mobilization of resources to increase our domestice oil production would have on prices It may result in lower prices immediately or possibly higher in the shor term. One guarantee is doing nothing will bankrupt our economy. No oil=no jobs=no health care+no taxes=anarky. Common sense is what is needed people. It will take addressing all fronts. Our current crop of candidates are not going to address this issue so God help us.

Gas prices are so high because of the politics involved. There are a group of invididuals making out big – namely, the big oil execs and our elected officials such as President Bush.

It’s a simple concept – how do you make higher profits without becoming more efficient? By raising prices! Since America is hooked more on gasoline than it is Starbucks, these execs know they have complete control over the price. This puts the consumers at the mercy of the few.

You can begin with a spineless Congress, which has never had to pay a dime for anything on their own. Gasoline, food…the taxpayers cover their tabs. A Congress cowed by minority interests who scream as if they are the majority.
You can also look at the most overlooked bio-alternative source, hemp.
It can not only be used for fuel, but also fiber for paper, fabric, food (as a omega three fat acid source, and as a medicinal source. And, NO, I am not talking about smoking it, albeit, that helps some who suffer from glaucoma, post-cancer side effects and HIV/AIDs patients. But rather as pure hemp oil, which for nearly one hundred twenty years was commonly offered at every pharmacy for relief or curative effects from most of the illnesses that are now common.
But…hemp is considered illegal, by the government, DEA, FDA, and pharmaceuticals cannot make a dime on a
naturally growing plant.
Need I say more?

greed, greed, greed by the oil companies, wall street, mullas and the sheiks of arab contries..oil companies and auto mfg’s are in cahoot with each others..sure, in near future an conomy car will do 70 or 80 MPG..but it will cost the avg of $150.00 to fill-up…i cant blve how stupid the economist and this gov’t are..forget recession and depression..we are heading to a world wide economic disaster..riots and civil unrest will be norm and way of life even in western and european countries, and beleive or not this time like the 30’s depression the poor is just not going to sit back and watch the rich enjoy their lives..we needed to act yesterday..not now..not tommorow..or we can watch civilization as we know it go down the toilet!!

The issue is simple. Gas prices are high because the US imports so much oil that we’re dependent on other countries and have to pay their prices. If we started drilling for our own oil and stopped importing so much we wouldn’t have to pay other countries’ prices for their oil. This would cause those other countries to lower their prices so that the US would start buying from them again.

Analysts say rising demand, tight supplies, geopolitical tensions, and investors interest are the main reasons for surging gas prices…..others say it’s because of greedy politicians that raise our taxes and continue to outsource our work to other countries. They don’t care about the lower class people that have to work hard for a living so long as their pockets keep being lined.

How could you forget to mention that George Bush’s war in Iraq, among his other idiotic decisions, has increased the federal debt by over 4 trillion dollars, causing the dollar to fall to unprecedented levels of weakness. This makes everything we buy on the international market more expensive. Oil is simply the most visible. So if you voted for Bush and his rubber-stamp republican cronies in congress, blame only yourself. And your SUV.

The low dollar directly causes oil prices to be high. Why was this equation not included in the article?

Fact: 3 of the top 5 most profitable companies last quarter were oil.

Where does that profit go? tax. also called Iraq.

We all pay for the war in Iraq. At the pump.

the president obviously doesnt have the backbone to gather a thinktank of people in his cabinet that can give better direction to change the direction of the cartel marketeers and derive better adminesterring to the crisis.

While we hear the same old story about rising demand, we need to pay attention to oil companies posting 12 even 14 quarters of record profits. Most Americans fail to realize that Canada is the biggest importer of oil, not Saudi Arabia. We need to explore the Alaskan concept and I agree it shoudl be done in an environmentally friendly way. In addition, this country needs to build new refineries. The road block ther eis the EPA and other goverment entities blocking the way. If we truly want to see fuel and even health care lower, we need to demand all goverment officials pay as the cost consumer have to bear. When your health crae and fuel are free… who cares what it cost!

OPEC is producing MILLIONS more in oil, drilling has increased and USA buys gas on the open market at a discount. reason we are having high prices is the bid shots in Washington and at the oil companies are padding there pockets

All I want to know is this….If we’re paying $4.00 per gallon, and Europe is paying anywhere from $5-9 per gallon (they must have a great minimum wage) then why in gods name is Saudi Arabia paying 80 cents a gallon?

GREED! If there is one thing I know about millionaires and billionaires it’s that money is everything and they can never have enough. You don’t get to be filthy rich by thinking about what’s good for others. There may be exceptions to that but not many.

I think the policies of the Fed are partly responible as speculators on the “in” can borrow huge sums of cash at 2% then run down to the trading floor and make a killing, then pay the money back after pocketing the profits.

It’s mentioned briefly – but surely the terrible performance of the dollar on the international money markets has a lot to do with it. If America buys its gas in dollars and the dollars value is down over a third compared to seven years a go (using the USD to GBP) is it a huge shock that gas has risen over by a large amount over the same period.

The oil companies are reporting record windfall profits and we as consumers get screwed more and more. How can they be making such profits and yet complain that the high prices at the pump is due to higher oil costs. If profit = income – costs, then these record profits have to mean we’re paying record income to relatively stagnant costs.

In short, the consumers are being gouged. The know we have to pay the price no matter what it is. You can choose not to buy milk or bread or go out to eat or go to the movies. You can’t choose to not buy gas since you need it to get to work…

They have us by the collar and know we have to pay no matter the price.

Who writes these articles anyways? Do they have the first clue as to true economic forces because if they did they would know exactly why oil and other commodities are running wild …. the US dollar dropping like a rock!

The FED, along with the help of OUR government has debased our currency to the point it is the joke of the world. Oil producing countries are ‘running for the exits’ now trying to sell their supplies in anything but the US dollar. You think Iran now sells oil in Euros because they don’t like us? Nope, it’s simple economics …. the lower the US dollar drops the more they get hurt!

Want oil prices to drop? Tell the FED and the government to stop ‘printing money’ to prop up Wall Street, tell them to stop dropping interest rates … THIS is why we have runaway inflation, this is why everyone is hurting and lastly lets actually call this what it really is, Stagflation. If you don’t know what that is look it up because this is the exact same scenario we went through in the late 70s and if they don’t do something to fix it soon this country’s economy is in deep deep trouble!

1)our president is a defunct oil tycoon
2)Mobil’s 20 billion dollar profit with a boss who has 500 million in stock options
3)Saudi Arabia
4)China
this past week president smush met with the king of Saudi Arabia
THEY WANT GUNS WE WANT OIL SEE THE PICTURE

Your article mentioned the falling dollar but only as buying oil for a hedge. But wouldn’t a 5-year 50+% fall in the dollar mean it takes twice as much dollars to buy the same barrel just to maintain the same real price?

What’s driving up oil prices? Oil, like food, industrial metals, and precious metals are commodities. These commodities are traded worldwide. They are subject to the price on the world market. And our US dollars have dropped so much that all these commodities are costing more in US dollars.

Essentially the US dollar is going the way of the Peso

This is an incomplete article. The weak USD is also causing price increases in the crude futures markets.

Another area that this article does not explain is the record profits being made by Exxon Mobile, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell.

I think most people understand the demand side of the equation, its the supply side that is being manipulated on so many levels; people don’t understand the complexity which this article did little to explain.

Look at the price of oil in November 2002 – before the Iraq invasion. Then look at it 18 months later!!!!

I think the gas prices are just anothe way to put the middle class in their place by the filthy rich…we are not only juggling gas prices, but low wages and no jobs…many are living in tents and seniors are wondering once again whether they’ll get their medicine or eat..shame on politicians for letting this happen to such a great nation as the United States..if there’s enough money for the war, there’s enough money for the poor!

Going back to my Macro Econ – If the demand curve is inelastic (buyers will buy despite high prices), for a given product, pricing (with-in a range) will not affect the demand for the product.

In other words, the producer is free to keep supply with-in a range that will support a price as high as the market will bear. The real problem – the buyers. Ourselves as well as the rest of the world.

If we want to see the game played in reverse, acknowledging that this is very difficult, the buyers need to do everything that we can to not use oil. Improved efficiency, fewer unneeded trips, slow down, etc. As demand drops, the producers (especially OPEC), drunk on high prices and spending everything they make (i.e. Venezuala) will opt out of their oligopoly arrangements and increase their production. Voila, higer supplies than demand – lower prices. Isn’t that easy!

We can’t complain about the problem if we’re not part of the solution. Get on board folks or pay the high prices!

I believe that the price gouging of the people of the world is caused by the owners of the major oil companies. For example, the execs from the major oil companies were supinied to
washington, to tell why the gas prices were so hihg, but the Chicken crap Representatives of ” America” would not even make them swear in, allowing them to lie with no bad consequences.
Yes the Government is also responsible, by not putting price stops on the gas, allowing the major corps to get over 400% increase of revenue in the last 3 quarters.
Basically, even at $130 a barrel, a barrel of oil is 55 gal. Deisel is the easiest to distill, yet it is more expensive than gasoline. Why??

i think the oil prices are sky rocketing because there is going to be an alternative fuel source soon, and oil tycoons are trying to make as much money as possible before this goes into affect. basically greed.

Extraordinary events have added to the urgency of creating and implementing an honest energy policy.

1st, create ‘energy safety jobs’: these are jobs that create conditions under which oil can be safely drilled within and around US Borders, Nuclear Plants can be built and Coal & Other Fuels can be more cleanly burned.

2nd, immediately explore , drill & build.

There is no reason the USA cannot be self sufficient and environmentally sound and while doing this.

The only reason not to do this is if you want to control the movements of your population, where they go, how far they can travel etc.

Brazil just found an extraordinary supply of Oil on this side of the world.

We already know where supplies are here.

For example, there are vast oil supplies within the US located in existing oil fields with existing leases on ‘allotted lands’ (American Indian Owned) that are being undereported to the government by Oil companies holding those leases.

Time to get our people to work on correcting our energy and accountability policies.

I think the gas prices are drastically increasing because the oil companies are just plain greedy and all they’re trying to do is prepare themselves for the transition of Hybrid and other fuel efficient vehicles. Let’s be serious, do you really think they care about the American Citizens to just let us save money in our pockets by buying fuel efficient vehicles?! I don’t think so. They’re adjusting their rates to make up for loss revenue due to fuel efficient vehicles. They want to keep those profits rolling. The more fuel efficient cars become, the higher the prices will go.

Gas prices are high due not only to what has been mentioned in the article, but also because the big oil companies such as Exxon are taking advantage of the current climate to line their pockets. Exxon made the biggest profit ever last year. Duh!!

You folks semm to have addressed the fact that countries like the US (non-OPEC nations) are underperforming towards helping to supply the world oil markets. But you choose to not say why… so I will. While I understand and accept the need for environmental policies for the long-term safety and well-being of the human race, I believe environmental policies in these United States have far oustepped any boundaries of reason and sanity, and are now suffocating our economy. While we are not able to get at our own natural resources that would definitely increase world supply (basic economics) other nations are able to drill for oil right off of our shores AND we have $4 per gallon gas. How much higher do we have to go before other folks will see this? And all the while Saudi’s can fill theirr tanks for $.50 per gallon? This great nation is supposed to be leading the world, not be held captive because we are too stupid or stubborn to see otherwise.

American overconsumption of gas is one of the major resons for the spike in oil prices. American motor vehicles are much bigger, heavier and more gas-guzzling than similar vehicles in Israel.
The average family car in Israel is the size of a Toyota Corolla, a Ford Focus or a Mazda 3 with a 1600 cc engine, along with many even smaller cars with smaller engines, and everyone gets along fine with that. How big an engine do you need anyway to do 70 mph?

Another reason for the gas crunch is that the US government does not encourage economizing – by higher taxes on gas or on motor vehicles, for example.

Americans must learn to think small, and if they can’t on their own, then the government should “encourage” them to do so.

Why are we not doing more drilling in our country, and why are we not making more refineries?I hear the reason is people don’t want the oil wells near them or it’s the enviroment, I believe it’s time to ignore them and do what’s right for the economy!!!!!!

I just spent 3 years in the UK where gasoline is about $10 USD a gallon. Only now, with the recent jump from about $8 to $10 is traffic slowing down. With such a fragile, diminishing, and non renewable resource I think the price of oil should be three or four times it’s current cost. Maybe that will encourage people to live closer to work or more working from home, invite innovations in public transportation and alternative energy, and stop profit gouging by auto manufacturers. When it’s gone… it’s gone… and this, folks… is only the beginning!

The SUV, or should I say SIV (Socially Irresponsible Vehicle) has a lot to do with our current situation.
And why is the word Conservation looked upon with such disdain from some people in the US?

Falling US $$, all the worlds currencies are up. Oil is priced in US $$.

Old fashion greed! Initially the unrest in the Mid-East brought on by our lack of understanding of their culture started the speculation of raising gas prices. Then speculators, playing mostly with other peoples money drove up the price buying futures, even though demand was DOWN. Capitalism is broken because of greed. The free market only works if it responses to normal pressures of supply and demand. Greed of speculators drove up the price for those who can afford it the least.

How about these facts:
1) We haven’t built a refinery in the US in 30 years.
2) We haven’t built a nuclear power plant in over 30 years.
3) The Feds won’t allow drilling in ANWR or the coastal shelf.
4) We pay close to 50 cents in taxes for every gallon – enough to make a billionaire oilman blush.

1) Bush’s actions both Nationally & Internationally 2) Liberal Tree Huggers blocking responsible drilling in the US. 3) Inaction on all of our parts in not moving much faster on alternative energy sources.

The main culprit is the US consumer. Other countries have had policies in place to reduce oil consumption for a long time. The US, however, went a binge, recklessly ignoring the basic fact that world supply of oil is a non-renewable resource. The plus side of high gas prices is that consumers in the US will at long last get the message, and reduce consumption.

Dennis
Bozeman, Montana
I feel that the middle men that are the commodidty buyers, have forced this oil market thru the roof, and are affraid of letting the walls or bubble collapse. In the mean time, very few people are getting rich while the rest of the population is in turmoil. We may be at the pooint were government needs to step in like they did 100 years ago to break up the commodity broker strangle hold.

The number one cause of our high gas prices is our weak dollar. While the cost of a barrel of oil has increased versus the dollar, you will notice that the increase in price of gasoline and diesel to european countries is nearly flat over the past decade. The reason is that our country is paying for stuff it cannot afford – and since we do not have the tax revenue to pay for the war in addition to our welfare system, our government borrows money from other countries or asks the federal reserve to print new money. Both of which cause inflation.

Gas Prices are high because the oil companies want to make more money off of us and Bush is allowing it because he is getting a cut, which also ties into one of the reasons why he doesn’t care about finding Osama Bin Laden. Behind the scenes, Bush is friends with all the foreigners that have to do with supplying us oil. Mark my words, he’s trying to make gas as high as possible so that he can make a huge profit off the citizens of this country before he leaves office, in order to make him rich for the rest of his stupid life. Just Greed! Way to leave out with a bang though Georgie and screw the american people in your exit! I didn’t vote for your illiterate behind either time!

People will protest for Gay marriage, The War In Iraq, Polar Bear Demise etc. HOW ABOUT HIGH GAS PRICES!!
THERE SHOULD BE A REVOLUTION!!
All people would need to do IS NOT DRIVE FOR ONE DAY!
If everyone in the country did this I think the Oil companies and this government would get the message.
This is about SUPPLY & DEMAND, NOT A SHORTAGE.
If there were not any oil available then gas would be just as high in Venezuela as it is here.
EVERYBODY NOT DRIVING FOR ONE DAY WILL CURE THIS!!! Stop worrying about American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, and Obama and his Pastor and do something as simple as not getting in your car.

In your report you stated that there have been no new refineries built in 30 years. I believe that to be true, however, there have been old refineries retired over the 30 years. Couple that with the incentives that are given to the oil companies to suppress alternative fuels (read ethanol). So I lay blame on our government officials for not forcing the companies to build new and more efficient refineries to help with the supply side. As for crude oil; why do we need to keep putting oil back into the strategic reserves? Are we banking on another war to use this oil?

The media! They compete with each other as to who will anounce the following morning first how gas has risen 1 cent overnight. The rich get richer and poor get poorer. Have you ever heard that saying before?

It’s not ANWAR, ANWAR would take 10 years to get on line and only pump 10 years.

It’s not taxes, the US has the lowest gas taxes in the world.

It’s partially supply and demand. low mileage standards (increased demand) and a lack of domestic refining capacity (low supply) got us to $2.00 per gallon.

Everything above $2.00 per gallon is purely a speculative bubble, which like all bubbles, will collapse eventually. How much damage it does before then remains to be seen.

You have to ask why gas prices are going up? It’s the last 6 to 7 months of an administration that has a president and vice president with ties to the oil industry. (IIRC, Cheney didn’t even leave the board of one of them…) They only have so much time to get money to their friends and buy off jobs for themselves in the future. Once these guys are out of power a proper investigation on price fixing could begin, but not now. So the industry is just taking advantage of their lax oversight. No surprises there…

I think it is a crock of stuff. Hurricane Katrina took 200k+ of car off of the road. US refineries are running at 85% of capacity. And oh yeah the dollar is weak? I sure the Dollar is still stronger than the Peso and Diesel fuel is selling for $2 across the border. Or may it is because tanks, bradley’s and humvees get single digit mpg.

I say bring on those high prices! Our conceited attitudes have not conceived any significant advances in mass transportation. Cities were/are poorly planned, and all America is in love with all-mighty automobile. Being a native Texan, and watching my parents aged 70s-80s struggle with transportation in rural areas for medical issues makes me mad as hell. Am I mad at the Middle-East? Absolutely not! I’m mad at the oil producers, and lawmakers that still think fossil fuel is the answer! I say, bring on those high prices, because these events are the only things that precipitate change in our third world country! We should probably also think about putting some of our lawmakers out to pasture! VOTE!

Oil companies are posting record profits Who do you think is to blame We need to regulate the oil companies and their profit margins

Doesn’t it seem odd that gas and oil prices began to rise right after the merger of Exxon and Mobil? It now has almost total control of prices.

11 years ago we tried to drill for oil in Alaska and the Democrats shot it down. Their main reason was it wouldn’t be productive for at least 10 years. Well here we are now, 10 years later and we sure could use that oil today. Bill Clinton will always haunt this country by all his actions!

I personally think it began with the introduction of SUV’S. THe vehicles getting 10 miles to gallon have flooded the US and therefore are consuming the majority of the gas. And as a side-note, how ironic is it to see one of these gas guzzlers with a bumper sticker reading “NO BLOOD FOR OIL”

Greedy American Consumer. All of a sudden those gigantic SUV’s arent so impressive anymore. The automobile industry along with demand favors autos that appeals to the ego with very little practicality.

I think we would need to see the vice-president’s energy policy before we could do more than speculate about the answer to that question.

I think its simple. People will continue to buy it so it will continue to go up until we find another form of fuel and car companies will put that technology in production. Also Enviromentalist need to shut up and we need to drill in alska out in the middle of a frozen desert. They dont car about the enviroment that just like pissing people off. We have the oil here in the U.S. to meet demands we just need to get it. As long as so many people are making so much money that will not happen.

Thank the pres vice pres for destabilizing the mid east they new exac what they were doing ; oil prfits at the exp of the mid class

Gas prices are high because Bush needs something to fall back on when he is no longer President

George Bush. Every time the word “Iran” comes out of his mouth, oil goes up $1/barrel.

Peak-Oil!

You left out, entirely, Congress. Those bozos have banned drilling in all off-shore economic zones, at ANWAR, and in most Federal land. Add to that the fact that no new refineries have been built in the U.S. in 30 years, efforts by the eco-fascists to stop all energy programs in the U.S., and one has a sure fire receipe for eventual energy disaster. Of course, that is exactly what the American hating Left wants since, they believe, that should allow them to garner more control of the government and, thereby, the American people. Wake-up folks.

Basically, GREED. All the way from Sudia to the US. I do not see any of these people selling any of the their 7 homes, or cars or islands that they own. They are not sleeping in their cars are they. Gas station people say they are barely making it…if it is so bad for them we would see more closed stations, not new ones opening. We live in the heart of Ethanol country and in the smaller towns we can not get the Ethonal why it cuts into the pricing.

Only Congress is to blame for the high oil prices. Congress refuses to allow drilling in ANWAR and offshore. If Congress had voted 5 years ago to allow drilling, we would have an abundant supply by now. If Congress had OK’d incentives to oil companies to expand and build oil refineries we’d have the refining capacity by now. If Congress had approved the building and use of nuclear reactors while funding research for “meaningful” (not hydrogen or ethanol) alternative energy programs we’d be less fossil fuel dependent by now.

Congress is solely to blame for not approving a comprehensive energy package. The longer they wait, the more it will hurt us all.

The Bush Administration. He and his side-kick Cheney have ticked off the Middle Eastern nations so much, they are now sticking it to us. Plus, we all know that Bush and his father have strong ties to the Saudi’s, so there is no doubt he will benefit from this once he leaves office. Why don’t we triple the cost of food to the Middle Eastern nations or starve them out and see how they like it.

BUSH and thats all i have to say about that

Simple greed and the fact that our governmental leaders are in the back pockets of the big oil companies

The media, economist, and the u.s. government. First the media you write about it, got analysts that talk about it, but what is the media doing about it. Second the economist knew about raising gas prices and don’t really want to fix it because i think some of them have stock in opec. Third the president has all these advisors what are they getting paid for either he knew about all this and refused to say anything or do anything until it got bad and the american people wanted an explanation and oh i forgot the president still own his oil fields

We as a people are to blame for the $4.00 gas. We didn’t want more refineries, we didn’t want to tap all our known oil reserves and of course we don’t want nuclear power. Even if we had all electric cars now the electric grid would go down. Wake up america!!

Perhaps you should look to the man running your country for the reasons behind your astronomical gas prices. Did you REALLY think not restocking the nations reserves was a logical idea? History has shown time and time again that our thirst for gas increases substanially over the summer months thus increase the price at the pump. Full reserves = lower fuel costs…brilliant isn’t it?

I agree with all of this and would add: worldwide production is 85M BBLS per day and has been stuck there for a while; ANWR is a false hope as all the oil there will feed US consumption for about 3 days; the field just found off Brazil has temperatures and pressures that we have never overcome; Ethanol is a joke unless we make it from a non-food source; India has put a $2500 car within reach of another 100M people, and last the Chinese, in competition with the US, has been cutting deals with countries for oil that we won’t acknowledge because of foreign policy, making it inevitable that we will compete for fuel. Look to great Americans like Boone Pickens who just bought all of GE’s windmills for the next 4 years. This is a painful but necessary change for us to get away from the need to pander countries that don’t like us and NEVER will. I just hope as a nation we wake up and embrace it without too much whining.

Liberals would not let us drill for oil,build nuclear power plants or build new refineries.If we had done all of thoes things we would not be near as bad.In addition we should have put more pressure on detroit to build more fuel effecient cars.

I think “blame” is a misnomer – oil is a finite resource, and that, coupled with China and India’s industrialization, make the demand that much greater. I think we should be more adamant about focusing on alternative energies; not only is it better for the environment, it’ll be better for the consumer.

There are many reasons and one of them is BIG OIL…it is no coincidence that BIG OIL profits are sky high…their profits are approx. 14 million per hour…and that is PROFIT!

The value of the US dollar is the major reason. Oil is valued in US dollars. The international value of the US dollar has sunk so low that it is half the value it used to be. Chart the international value of the US dollar against the cost per barrel of crude oil and it might amaze you.

The oil industries control the supply. When they spiked the prices up to $3 when katrina hit they realized that they could get away with gas being that high because people still bought it, and ever since they have worked it up higher and higher. I mean come on they set record profits last year. DUH! Isn’t it obvious that they are screwing us! The profits should stay the same. I bet they break all kinds of records this year! Don’t feed me that ’supply and demand’ crap. I know why the prices are so high. Prices shouldn’t go up 10-15 cents a day as it does sometimes..I mean come on. That’s not because of ’supply and demand’…

Oil prices are high for two reasons:1) it has been the policy of OPEC to raise prices ever since oil since oil wells were first nationalized by Arab governments back in the 70’s. Egypt’s Nasser was the first to point out to Arabs the power they could have by taking over the oil industry in the Middle east.
2) Futures investors ar artificially raising it by buying thousands of barrels each week and hoarding them or holding them off the market to raise prices and then sell later at the higher price. It is because of the existence of commodities investors that OPEC feels their own prices are acceptable at least to some people.

The simple reason is GREED at the corporate level.

We did not learn anything from the 80,s. We must conserve, use alternatives, and convert coal to oil now and put the people who are robbing us out of business.

The price is gas is due to market greed. Stock price and speculators putting money into the oil market are what drives up the prices. Supply and demand, which we always hear as factors creating the high price is but a scapegoat. The real reason gas prices are high is corporate and individual greed, period. They get what the market will bear, and so there is no reason to lower prices.

GREED!!!!

No, gas prices are not too high ! All 100 million Americans who have a 401K Plan, Retirement Plan or SEP Plan or something similar, are invested in the stock markets and the reason their plans are up is because of Oil.

It’s profit and selfishness of the business minded people. It’s supply and demand. Don’t tell me that they can’t maintain the same price even with all catastrophes going on.

GREED!!!! That’s a major cause for rising gasoline prices. Here we sit trying to make it to work everyday so we can have enough money to buy the gas to get to work and you hear on the news that Exxon and Mobil stock is down because they only made 10.8 BILLION dollars in profit rather than the 11 BILLION they expected…it’s a vicious circle…we try and use less but they increase price to satisfy investor’s expectations…

Also, why do they keep raising the costs at the pumps daily when I’m pumping gas that’s already in the tanks???? They didn’t pay what they’re charging when they filled their tanks last week or last month…Who’s getting fooled here?????

Big oil is “making hay while the sun is shining”. They know the Republiban’s (not a typo) reign is almost over. Certainly W’s foreign policies haven’t helped things, but this really all stems from the secret energy policy meeting held by Cheney back in summer of 2001.

If you took the speculators out of the market, that is, restricted contracts to actual users of the oil, what would happen to prices?

I am under the Impression that someone with BIG money is playing political games with the American pocketbook.

Since the beginning of 2006, when I first became aware of “peak oil,” (we are not running out of oil, but we are running out of “cheap” oil, upon which the world economy depends) both the media and the politicians have ignored the subject, instead deciding to blame everything from speculators, to weather, to geopolitical events, to bad economics etc. etc. What no one in the media seems to realize is the gravity of this situation — our lives without affordable oil (and natural gas is in just as wobbly a situation) are going to change drastically. The silence has been deafening. Well, guess what? Now you’re gonna get off your butts and start caring. The world isn’t going to end, but life is going to become a lot more expensive

George Bush!

America’s meddleing and bullying has cost a great deal!

Because a monopoly controls the market and can raise prices at will. Therefore there is a disconnect between supply and demand driving price. Then there is just falt out greed….but that’s another story

Bush, Cheney, and Republicans in Congress are to blame. They want gas prices to be high. The Bush family made their fortune in oil, as did Cheney. If Republicans didn’t want gas prices to be high, then they would not have blocked every attempt to improve gas mileage standards for auto makers for over 3 decades. If the fuel standard were 40 mpg now, we would not need mid-east oil and the price would be about $1.15/gal.

George Bush met with the Saudis years ago and they were all very very buddy buddy. Now we know the results of those meetings.
Our country has been sold off for a little money to foreign nationals by our elected politicians.
Soon the riots will begin, and as those politicians hang from the trees throughout the country by their necks, some elected officials just might start to do their jobs with a little integrity and in the interest of the people. This corporate fascism needs to die a hard death.

please explain how low gas taxes (which reflect payment to governments, not the oil companies) negatively impact a desire to develop additional investment in exploration.

CONGRESS!

They have failed to pass an energy bill that would allow us to increase our production. No to ANWR, No to continental shelf, No to nuclear, No to wind (kills birds), etc. Now all the tree huggers and their liberal congressman reap what ye have sown – $4 gas headed much higher! Enjoy!

GET BUSH OUT OF OFFICE, AND GAS WILL DROP BELOW $2.00 GAL. GAURANTEED! HE IS MAKING A PROFIT ON OIL, AND NOT WILLING TO PUSH THE OIL COMPANIES, SINCE HE WILL NOT GET ANY MORE OF THE PROFIT.

Commodity brokers get 90% of the blame right now. They are playing games with the country’s future and lining their pockets.

Interesting article. However, you seem to carefully avoid mentioning that oil companies are posting record profits. Perhaps if they were to lower their mark-up, prices would drop to a reasonable level.

While all the reasons given are contributing to the escalation of gas prices, the #1 reason is artificial – it’s speculation – it’s greed. No way the supply and demand for oil can change the price this rapidly. While foriegn and national policy can change a lot of this, price controls are required.

bush mccain administration is to blaime! that and a “war” ! meanwhile we protect Saudi Arabia for free, and Iraq banks the excess oil profits while we pay to build and rebuild their economy. “Bush McCain is to Blame”

GREED