Why is Gas so expensive?

This explains it a little.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/feat...ive-263887.php

"Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it's most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall."

in other words greed and price gouging... what does it matter if its from the supplier these two sentences are polar opposites of each other

This may or may not have been said in the article but the fact that most people won't CHANGE their driving habits contributes greatly also.

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Originally Posted by TekWarren

This may or may not have been said in the article but the fact that most people won't CHANGE their driving habits contributes greatly also.

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True..

Digg much?

Crude oil prices haven't risen at all during these price rate hikes. The middleman is just making more. I find it really convenient that all the refineries have to do maintenace at the same time every summer during peak use. :rolleyes:

The American Mercantile Exchange has a lot to do with it.

Last week the U.S. pulled a full US Navy battlegroup off the coast of Iran, and what do you know, thats the body of water where much of the worlds supply of crude oil has to cross to get to market. Needless to say, stuff like that makes the futures markets go crazy...combine that with the refineries issue, and the fact that despite $3 gas, Americans are still driving their nuts off, gas will continue to go up...we haven't seen ANYTHING yet.

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

Crude oil prices haven't risen at all during these price rate hikes. The middleman is just making more. I find it really convenient that all the refineries have to do maintenace at the same time every summer during peak use. :rolleyes:

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Why would crude oil prices rise? Only 1% of crude oil, after proccessing, is acually gas. Gasoline is a drop in the bucket for crude oil plants. And to be honest, I havn't read this article and I don't plan on it. I am very happy with the gas prices right now. Gas prices are around $7-$8 in most other countries so I'm grateful for our prices. And plus, if you really hate paying that much for gas, ride a bike, america is fat anyways.

In the uk its 95p a litre which works out roughly $2 a litre :mad:

how is it more in the US? That's like $8 a gallon.

edit - ah, you editted your edit

Just because it's more expensive elsewhere doesn't mean I'm going to be happy about the gasoline companies making record profits while we are paying more for gas than we ever have, with no sign of price increases slowing down. I haven't bought a car since my Bonneville died, I carpool and bike it. I still think gas companies are full of crap and prices don't need to be as high as they are and rising.

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Originally Posted by Chase13

Why would crude oil prices rise? Only 1% of crude oil, after proccessing, is acually gas. Gasoline is a drop in the bucket for crude oil plants. And to be honest, I havn't read this article and I don't plan on it. I am very happy with the gas prices right now. Gas prices are around $7-$8 in most other countries so I'm grateful for our prices. And plus, if you really hate paying that much for gas, ride a bike, america is fat anyways.

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The price of gas should rise in association to the crude oil price and the cost to refine it. Most of our price increase are related to refineries just cutting back on production. It's not because of the supply, the supply is still there. If the supply wasn't there crude oil prices would go up.

We also need to build more refineries... From what I've read we havn't built a refinerie in thirty years, With that said I don't think it's the longterm answer but we'd be in a better position right now. We need to get off of petro!!!!

Why invest billions in new refineries when we all continue to demand more and more gasoline regardless of how much the price goes up? What incentive do the oil companies have to spend that money? They spend billions just to make gas cheaper for us out of the kindness of their hearts? Yeah right...until demand is actually affected in a significant way by the price of gas, there is no economical justification for expanding refining capacity.

Well if we don't build new refinerie capacity we really need to raise efficiency standard's on all automobiles.

Everyone should know the true reason behind the gas-price increase: I have just started driving, and got a vehicle. This is why. :/

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Originally Posted by Emilio

Well if we don't build new refinerie capacity we really need to raise efficiency standard's on all automobiles.

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Not to pick on you...and I don't know why I am coming back to this topic :P but this sort of attitude is exactly what keeps the people who are making the money fat and rich! If we all continue to wait on "someone else" to make things better who knows if they ever will. I so wish I could ride my bicycle to work but due to the distance the motorcycle will have to do. I realize not everyone can go out and buy or has access to such transportation. But there ARE other things we can do even small things that add up. Heck I am amazed at how much better mileage my car gets when I train myself to rely on the cruise control...and stay at or under 60mph...try it ;P

I have an idea. Something we can all do to make gas prices drop. We can do a nation-wide strike. Everyone just stay home. Don't go to work or leave your house unless you absolutely need groceries. No one will be driving, so no gas will be sold. No demand, no high prices. The economy will be hurt pretty bad after a few days, so the govt. might step in as well. We strike until gas dips to $1.59 per gallon. How's the week of June 25th sound for everyone? I'll do it. No, well we can start a nation wide boycott of all BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobile companies and products. If thay aren't selling gas they might be forced to lower prices. That's too much work, too. Let's just complain about it until we are paying $8.00 per gallon.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

That's too much work, too. Let's just complain about it until we are paying $8.00 per gallon.

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Ha, basically, you're right, that is EXACTLY what's going to happen.

Gas will continue to go up, regardless of how much we complain, and it will stop increasing once it gets so high that we stop complaining and actually DO something that will actually have an affect on the demand for fuel. And I'm not talking about boycotts, government regulation, tax cuts, etc either.

Unfortunately, with the majority of the US population living in rural and suburban area, cutting back significantly on individual energy usage seems to be near impossible. In the area I live, I would not be able to take a bus/train/subway system to get to work, as many people in Europe and Asia can do to dodge their relatively high fuel costs.

IMHO, the solution to the petroleum problem is going to be in the form of a cheaper, renewable, alternate source of energy. Its not a problem of "if" we will come up with an alternative, its more like "when." We could be waiting a while and I see no reason why $10, maybe $15 a gallon gasoline wouldn't have to be realized before that were to happen. There must be economic justification to making the investment to develop that energy; everyone whining about $3/gal gas is a very very far cry from an economic reason for a switch to come into play.

Ok, since I am one of the older members of this site, I will share some wisdom on the price of gasoline.


When I started driving gasoline cost 33 CENTS a gallon. THATS RIGHT THIRTY THREE CENTS!!!!!!!!!!

Due to the idiocy of Jimmy Carter gas prices trippled overnight (literally!).

If you are familiar with inflation, you will know that gas prices today are actually less than they were in 1980. What you could buy with a dollar in 1980 and what you can buy with a dollar today is substantially different.

Remember, the reason for the increase in price is Supply and Demand. The demand for gasoline in Asia is SO HIGH, that they are willing to pay TEN DOLLARS A GALLON!!!

We, here in the USA, have it really good. I am not complaining -- someone might hear my complaint and raise the price of gas to what the rest of the world is paying.

The thing is, we've had the technology for decades, in several forms. The oil companies just buy up the patents to most of them when they are invented, as well as pay auto makers to both not make a lot of efficient cars, or destroy them once they are made. Like when GM (or maybe GMC?) had 1,000 electric cars that they destroyed. Green groups heard about it and offered to buy the cars that were to be destroyed for $ thousands a piece, but the auto maker declined. They hamust have had a better offer to keep the cars off the roads. It's criminal. I think that if automakers were not allowed to accept money from the oil industry, we'd already have several more options for energy efficient and alternative fuel autos.

I would like to see real proof of this. I think that story is just an urban legend.

Oil companies have much more important things to do than buy useless patents. I have a friend who is a patent atorney. She says that the industry is always looking for ways to build a better mouse trap. Most of the patents that are presented to the industry are just CRAP.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

I would like to see real proof of this. I think that story is just an urban legend.

Oil companies have much more important things to do than buy useless patents. I have a friend who is a patent atorney. She says that the industry is always looking for ways to build a better mouse trap. Most of the patents that are presented to the industry are just CRAP.

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You're kidding right, you honestly don't think they would buy a patent and not use it if it made them BILLIONS of dollars.

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

You're kidding right, you honestly don't think they would buy a patent and not use it if it made them BILLIONS of dollars.

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The point is that 99.99999999% of the patents do not make any money, and therefor do not get bought by the big companies. LOTS of little companies dump BILLIONS of dollars into projects that never make there money back and those little companies go bankrupt.

That unfortunately is the truth. The big companies have the money to investigate a patent before they buy into it.

BTW, my original comment was that I felt that PYTHON_WALLACE's coment:

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The oil companies just buy up the patents to most of them when they are invented, as well as pay auto makers to both not make a lot of efficient cars, or destroy them once they are made.

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was nonsense.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

That unfortunately is the truth. The big companies have the money to investigate a patent before they buy into it.

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Correct and if they thought it would cost them money in the future, they wouldn't hesitate to buy it out.

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

Correct and if they thought it would cost them money in the future, they wouldn't hesitate to buy it out.

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Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.

If you saw Pirates #3 -- the cost of doing business is often death...

I personally know someone, who is a head engineer for a large auto maker, who invented an engine that runs on only gasoline, but the car got about 100 mpg. He applied for a patent and was soon visited by a couple of guys with an offer for his patent that he couldn't refuse. He hasn't seen or heard of his engine design since. And I believe the story about the 1,000 electric cars was an article I read in Time magazine, hardly urban legend.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.

If you saw Pirates #3 -- the cost of doing business is often death...

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Are you kidding? How does spending a few million dollars on a patent not make you money, if owning that patent and not using it causes YOUR company to make 100s of billions of dollars.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.

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So if they bought a patent for an engine that got 100 mpg and released it the demand for their product (gasoline) would go down. Prices of the product would go down. But by not releasing the patent to be produced, they control the demand on their product and can make billions in profits by doing NOTHING extra. I would call that CAPITALIZING on a patent wihtout the need of investing anything but the cost to purchase the patent. Spend millions to make billions, sounds like corporate America to me.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

And I believe the story about the 1,000 electric cars was an article I read in Time magazine, hardly urban legend.

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The reason that the auto manufacture did not want to sell those cars, is that they would have to deal with all sorts of maintenance problems that would cost them far more than what the car was worth.

I do not want to patronize anyone, but lets look at what goes into building a car:

design and testing.
prototyping.
manufacturing and assembly
sales
maintenance
liability insurance and recall insurance

I believe that the electric cars were prototypes.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

The reason that the auto manufacture did not want to sell those cars, is that they would have to deal with all sorts of maintenance problems that would cost them far more than what the car was worth.

I do not want to patronize anyone, but lets look at what goes into building a car:

design and testing.
prototyping.
manufacturing and assembly
sales
maintenance
liability insurance and recall insurance

I believe that the electric cars were prototypes.

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Do you honestly believe they would put all that work into those cars to destroy them for no reason? Why not sell them instead of destroy them?

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

So if they bought a patent for an engine that got 100 mpg and released it the demand for their product (gasoline) would go down. Prices of the product would go down. But by not releasing the patent to be produced, they control the demand on their product and can make billions in profits by doing NOTHING extra. I would call that CAPITALIZING on a patent wihtout the need of investing anything but the cost to purchase the patent. Spend millions to make billions, sounds like corporate America to me.

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If there was a design for an engine that could be economically built that got 100 mpg, IT WOULD BE BUILT IMMEDIATELY. Any company that could boast that they had a car that got 100 mpg would sell tens of thousands of them. The oil industry could never squash that. Period.

I am not meaning to offend, however I think that people need to stop thinking that there is a conspiracy.

Gas prices are still cheaper than they were in the 1980's. Please read about what inflation means.

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

Do you honestly believe they would put all that work into those cars to destroy them for no reason? Why not sell them instead of destroy them?

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Because if they were full of problems, the company would not want to be responsible for fixing all the problems.

As a product manager (software), I would never let my customers get a hold of a prototype, unless they signed an "as-is" agreement. NO CAR OWNER is going to sign an "AS-IS" agreement, if they have an accident they will not be able to hold the manufacturer liable!!!

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

If there was a design for an engine that could be economically built that got 100 mpg, IT WOULD BE BUILT IMMEDIATELY. Any company that could boast that they had a car that got 100 mpg would sell tens of thousands of them. The oil industry could never squash that. Period.

I am not meaning to offend, however I think that people need to stop thinking that there is a conspiracy.

Gas prices are still cheaper than they were in the 1980's. Please read about what inflation means.

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You are giving your opinions and I'm giving mine. You have as many facts to back up your arguement as anyone else does. You have no way of proving that there is no conspiracy( as I don't to prove it). If you think things like this can't and don't happen, you're are going to get a rude awakening some day.

Who knew a oil-rancher from Texas would become president and we would have the biggest profit margins from large oil companies while he was in office. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

If there was a design for an engine that could be economically built that got 100 mpg, IT WOULD BE BUILT IMMEDIATELY. Any company that could boast that they had a car that got 100 mpg would sell tens of thousands of them. The oil industry could never squash that. Period.

I am not meaning to offend, however I think that people need to stop thinking that there is a conspiracy.

Gas prices are still cheaper than they were in the 1980's. Please read about what inflation means.

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To think there is no conspiracy, if that's what you want to call it, is naive. All the conspiracy is, consists of a few companies who make billions of dollars annually, making relatively small moves (for such huge companies) to keep our dependance on oil and gasoline from lessening. If they can spend a few billion dollars every year to buy patents and keep automakers from making a lot of reasonably priced cars that are fuel efficiant or run on alternative fuels, they absolutely do it. They do it because they make billions and billions and billion of dollars, and as long as doing so keeps the trend alive, they are guaranteed to make billions and billions more in profits because of these investments.

I am not saying there is or isn't a conspiracy here, but if you think that oil companys buying patents and paying off the car companys is recouping there profits from lost car sells, your just silly. The fact is that car companys are having a hard time selling cars. So take these three for example; Ford, Dodge, and Chevy. Say Chevy gets a paten for 100 mpg car that could be produced in a manner that can be sold at a reasonable price for the market. There is no way they would sell it to the oil company, nor take a payoff not to produce it. Because they know that the market they are in and that it would be the hottest selling car on the market. It would leave their biggest competitors (Dodge, and Ford) in the dust. They would make billions.

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Originally Posted by BiG~PUN

I am not saying there is or isn't a conspiracy here, but if you think that oil companys buying patents and paying off the car companys is recouping there profits from lost car sells, your just silly. The fact is that car companys are having a hard time selling cars. So take these three for example; Ford, Dodge, and Chevy. Say Chevy gets a paten for 100 mpg car that could be produced in a manner that can be sold at a reasonable price for the market. There is no way they would sell it to the oil company, nor take a payoff not to produce it. Because they know that the market they are in and that it would be the hottest selling car on the market. It would leave their biggest competitors (Dodge, and Ford) in the dust. They would make billions.

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Maybe, except you have it backwards. Do you think the oil companies, who buy the patents directly from the inventor as soon as it gets submitted to the patent office, would sell the patent to an auto maker when holding onto the patent and not letting it be realized makes THEM billions of dollars indefinately? Nope. Do you think an auto company that is having a hard time selling cars and is hurting would turn down a billion dollars from an oil company, when all they have to do is make and sell any cars they want as long as they don't get better than 35 mpg or are hidious little P.O.S? Sure they would. They now have a ton of free money and they don't have to worry about production costs or concept costs to start working with a new line of technology. Call it a win-win.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

Maybe, except you have it backwards. Do you think the oil companies, who buy the patents directly from the inventor as soon as it gets submitted to the patent office, would sell the patent to an auto maker when holding onto the patent and not letting it be realized makes THEM billions of dollars indefinately?

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As I said before, I have a close friend who is a patent attorney. The vast majority of patents are worked through with a corporate entity backing the inventor. To get something patented today requires TONS of money. Usually at least several lawers are involved. So an inventor usually goes to a company first and pitches his idea. The company then helps the inventor spec out the idea and hires a lawyer to submit the paperwork. An individual who submits an idea to the patent office usually does not get a patent. There has to be proof that the idea has not been presented, and that the idea does not encroach on other patents. An individual would have to be increadibly wealthy to do such research.

So the idea that the gas companies go to the patent office and wait for patents to be published and then buy them up is truely insane. Also, once a patent is submitted it could take years before it is approved. Most patents require revision, most many revisions. That is why you see "Patent Pending" on many or most items.

here is the information on how to get a patent: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/howtopat.htm

Enjoy reading.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

As I said before, I have a close friend who is a patent attorney. The vast majority of patents are worked through with a corporate entity backing the inventor. To get something patented today requires TONS of money. Usually at least several lawers are involved. So an inventor usually goes to a company first and pitches his idea. The company then helps the inventor spec out the idea and hires a lawyer to submit the paperwork. An individual who submits an idea to the patent office usually does not get a patent. There has to be proof that the idea has not been presented, and that the idea does not encroach on other patents. An individual would have to be increadibly wealthy to do such research.

So the idea that the gas companies go to the patent office and wait for patents to be published and then buy them up is truely insane. Also, once a patent is submitted it could take years before it is approved. Most patents require revision, most many revisions. That is why you see "Patent Pending" on many or most items.

here is the information on how to get a patent: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/howtopat.htm

Enjoy reading.

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I have read everything that is involved in getting a patent, as I'm in the process of applying for one. You absolutely DON'T need a lawyer to apply for or get a patent, and you don't need a company to back you. The guy I know did have a patent lawyer, but he didn't have a company backing him. He worked on his idea secretly for a long time until he had a working prototype, then he got a lawyer and filed the paperwork. I have several working prototypes for my invention and all the paperwork filled out and I AM NOT using a patent attorney. It's a little bit of work, but it will save me a ton of money and I will get the same outcome. It may even take me longer, but the people who work at the patent office are REQUIRED to help people out when they are applying for patents. I understand that 99.9% of applications are for crap that doesn't work or is useless junk that wouldn't sell, but that doesn't apply when we are talking about working technology instead of "a better mouse trap" or an anti-gravity machine. We are talking here about working internal combustion engines that either get hella good gas milage or run on alternative fuel. Your arguments simply aren't completely true and wouldn't apply here anyway.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

As I said before, I have a close friend who is a patent attorney. The vast majority of patents are worked through with a corporate entity backing the inventor. To get something patented today requires TONS of money. Usually at least several lawers are involved. So an inventor usually goes to a company first and pitches his idea. The company then helps the inventor spec out the idea and hires a lawyer to submit the paperwork. An individual who submits an idea to the patent office usually does not get a patent. There has to be proof that the idea has not been presented, and that the idea does not encroach on other patents. An individual would have to be increadibly wealthy to do such research.

So the idea that the gas companies go to the patent office and wait for patents to be published and then buy them up is truely insane. Also, once a patent is submitted it could take years before it is approved. Most patents require revision, most many revisions. That is why you see "Patent Pending" on many or most items.

here is the information on how to get a patent: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/howtopat.htm

Enjoy reading.

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I got news for you, it doesn't take "a ton of money" to get a patent. I'm friends with an attorney that does hundreds of patents a year for clients. As a matter of fact its relatively cheap. Corporations pay for research etc and high dollar attorneys to file them and thats where their "high cost" is at. Joe Blow can draw a picture up of a part he wants patented and go file the documents and not cost much to do it. It does take a long time to get patent approval, but alot of that is making sure it doesn't infringe on any other patents.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

If there was a design for an engine that could be economically built that got 100 mpg, IT WOULD BE BUILT IMMEDIATELY. Any company that could boast that they had a car that got 100 mpg would sell tens of thousands of them. The oil industry could never squash that. Period.

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That depends. If it got 100mpg and was very expensive, you are completely correct.

However, an affordable 100mpg car would never make it to market. You know why? It would crash oil futures, and have a rippling effect throughout the economy. Right now, we have some cars that get 45mpg... in the history of the automotive industry, we've NEVER seen a car double it's fuel effeciency overnight. It's not for the lack of technology... and it's not for the deep pockets of the oil industry either.

As for the fall of the electric car expressed earlier. He's about half right. He's referring to the EV1, a total electric car that was eventually disbanded and all the vehicles were crushed.

Yes, the oil companies got involved. They, along with the Bush Adminstration, sued the California for allowing the cars on the road. The board responsible for approving the car, eventually reversed its decision and GM didn't fight it, instead decided to crush all of them.

That said, the car had an 80 mile limit on a full charge, and took 20 minutes to recharge. Not exactly a traveling car. So a couple of things are clear: oil companies will do ANYTHING to stop cars that don't run on gas, the US Government clearly will involve itself as well, and finally, GM didn't get "paid off" for the cars, they simply didn't want to fight the government and the oil companies just to sell the 70-some cars they had.

However, none of this matters. With the Tesla Roadster nearly ready for production, along with the up-and-coming ZAP-X there's not much that can be done (since Tesla isn't a US company :D). Although at $100,000 I can't afford the Roadster, but the expected prices of the WhiteStar and the ZAP-X are fairly affordable. Electric is the future, (thanks to AltairNano) but I want the future now!

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

[...]As for the fall of the electric car expressed earlier. He's about half right. He's referring to the EV1, a total electric car that was eventually disbanded and all the vehicles were crushed.

Yes, the oil companies got involved. They, along with the Bush Adminstration, sued the California for allowing the cars on the road. The board responsible for approving the car, eventually reversed its decision and GM didn't fight it, instead decided to crush all of them.

That said, the car had an 80 mile limit on a full charge, and took 20 minutes to recharge. Not exactly a traveling car. So a couple of things are clear: oil companies will do ANYTHING to stop cars that don't run on gas, the US Government clearly will involve itself as well, and finally, GM didn't get "paid off" for the cars, they simply didn't want to fight the government and the oil companies[...]

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Thanks for the clearification. That makes sense, as well as paints a nice picture.

JHall1468 - Thanks, that does make sense about the EV1.

However, no one is willing to refute my simple statement that:

"Allowing for inflation, regular unleaded gasoline is cheaper today then it was in 1980."

Current Gas Prices and Price History



http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFact...line-Price.gif

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

JHall1468 - Thanks, that does make sense about the EV1.

However, no one is willing to refute my simple statement that:

"Allowing for inflation, regular unleaded gasoline is cheaper today then it was in 1980."

Current Gas Prices and Price History



http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFact...line-Price.gif

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I completely agree. So what's your point?

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I completely agree. So what's your point?

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Why is everyone :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r:ing about the price of gas?

I go to the pump buy my gas and keep driving. I have not changed my habits, I make a LOT more money now, then I did when gas was 33 cents a gallon. I drove a VW Beatle then, now I drive a Honda Civic.

I don't care what the price of gas is, and I really get tired of everyone around me complaining about how high it is.

The price of gas is really not that high.

Now if you want to talk about high prices, lets talk about the price of cigarettes! (I quit smoking 24 years ago.)

It says right in your chart that the price increase in the 80's was from the Iran-Iraq war. Not because of supply/demand/cost of refinement. So comparing that price to todays is comparing apples and oranges.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

Why is everyone :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r:ing about the price of gas?[...]

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I am because there's no good reasons for it to be as high as it is. Gas companies are making record profits and trying to feed us the most ridiculous B.S. about the reasons for the constant increases. I'm glad you make enough money to not care. I know people who make enough money that they can afford to have the airlines confiscate $350 pairs of nose hair trimmers on 3 seperate occasions and not care. I'm not one of them, and I would still complain if Target tried to sell me a pair of Wahl nose hair trimmers for $350 dollars and made up some B.S. about the price of pork bellies in Russia affecting the price of the trimmers. I'm not hurting greatly by the gas prices, especially since I no longer own a car, but what about people in rural areas who need to drive several miles to work a low paying job?

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Originally Posted by Wild Bill

It says right in your chart that the price increase in the 80's was from the Iran-Iraq war. Not because of supply/demand/cost of refinement. So comparing that price to todays is comparing apples and oranges.

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I think that you are mistaken.

The "high" price today is because of the US-Iraq war.

NOT a US Oil companies conspiracy, as has been pointed out by several on this thread.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

I think that you are mistaken.

The "high" price today is because of the US-Iraq war.

NOT a US Oil companies conspiracy, as has been pointed out by several on this thread.

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If the high price of gas today is only because we are at war with Iraq, than how are oil and gas companies making record profits? Since the price of crude hasn't risen proportionately with the rising price of gas, if gas prices stayed around $2 per gallon, wouldn't the companies be making roughly the same profits that they were when gas prices originally rose to $2 per gallon? You're the only one calling it a conspiracy. I'm just implying that they are lying about the reason for the high prices, because them making record profits is really one of the main reasons.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

Why is everyone :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r:ing about the price of gas?

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Because public transportation is not available in my area. Because I can't bike to work. Because I don't make as much money as other people and really do have to budget just to pay for my gas.

Personally, I don't feel it's a conspiracy that has to do with the war, I think it's good old fashioned avarice. I think companies are constantly testing the water to see how much we'll pay... It gets almost unbearably high, then backs down just enough to make us feel comfortable. We're all wiping our brows, going 'whew, that's better', but really we just get comfortable paying more and more, in contrast to the highs we experience this time of year. Just my opinion tho.