It's not supply and demand, it's theft. Supply and Demand is an equilibrium device. If there is a surplus, price goes down. If there is a shortage, price goes up. The oil companies should generate fairly similar revenues in either situation. If there really was a shortage of oil, they would be selling less of it but for a higher price. The amount of revenue should be approximately the same as if they were selling more fuel at a lower price. You can't make record profits when there is less oil to sell in the first place. Not unless they are charging 2 to 3 times more for it, which they aren't right now.

Every year they switch out from winter to summer fuel. So why did they choose now to also change from MTBE to Ethanol? They have known that MTBE contaminates ground water for a while now, and they knew that they were going to have to switch formulations this time of year. So why is all of this happening now? I think it's because if they can artificially inflate the price of gas up to $3 or $3.50 now, then if we get hit hard by hurricanes again, they can raise it up to $4 a gallon or more.

If you are satisfied with paying this much for fuel, have at it; but I'm not. By your attitude, I would think that you either have alot of money, or you don't have many bills. That's something that probably 90% of this country doesn't have in common with you. If we are content to let the oil companies gouge us, next year it will be up to $5 per gallon, just because they'll know that they can.

 

If you want to whine. Whine to congress and the president. Yes, they can do something. Just saying they'll drill in ANWR will lower prices of oil. Drop the MTBE and Ethanol in gas and we can up the supply.

Maybe they can get on the phone to the oil companies and threaten a tax on pensions over 1 million!

 

Actually most of your imported oil comes from Canada.

 

yeah ok, so in vancouver bc its $1.168 per liter, so thats $61.90 US to fill up my RX-8, try that!
(14 gal=53 liters)

 

145 yen/liter in the Tokyo area.

 

I'm seriously starting to look at the long term big picture for me and my 8. I was planning on doing some mods to my car this summer. I was going to start with new suspension, but now I'm not sure I can justify spending the money because I'm changing my driving habits already due to the price of gas. And I'm not complaining about the 8's gas mileage. Even if it got 30mpg I'd still change my driving habits. Luckily I started my new job last month that is 2 miles from my house instead of the 20 miles away I used to work.

If gas prices keep going up and I drive less that means less time to enjoy the 8 on the road, which is what bothers me. I'll probably only drive the 8 to work and to parties and use my wife's car on the weekends for errands and longer trips (she has a Jetta).