Well over here in the UK. The Petrol courts are warning they will have to put an extra 10p on the price of a Gallon off Petrol, not as if Motorists have enough to pay, with the dear costs of petrol nowadays.

Oh they profiteer while the rest of us struggle. Scumbags I say!!

There is nothing you can do, thats how they get ya. You cant drill, refine, or import your own oil, they know this. E- 85 is a joke , so is biofuel in larger quantities. Every aspect of your life revolves around oil, so much that you will die without it, relatively speaking. We cant even get cars to a 30mpg standard in 100 years, to much science is suppresed to make a difference.

If NATO or the US get into Libya FAST and secure the pipelines from these Muppets, then we can probably say that gas prices will not go too silly.

But if this is a spark for the whole Middle East to go up (Israel, Syria, new Nuke plant found, Iranian Ships etc.) then we might unfortunately be looking at quite high oil prices soon.

Not to mention the untold amount of money that is made worldwide due to speculation. Suppose you bought 1000 crude oil shares at 85$ a share and the price went up to 100$ next week and you sold said shares?

The big oil racketeers always , always say that when the price of oil drops it takes about 3 months for the drop to filter it's way down to the pumps . On the other hand the minute the speculators drive the price up , and they are the speculators , it hits the pumps instantly . They have multi-million barrel storage facilities before crude goes to their refineries so if the extracted and bought crude at 50 or 60 bucks and it hits 90 , they instantly tag 90 on the price and the consumer gets killed . If they aquire at 50 or 60 bucks and the price falls to 35 like it did 18 months ago it doesn't show up at the pumps until 3 months later and even then the pump price is chump change compared to what it should be . If the price of crude drops the speculators (them) have shorted it so they never lose . Only the consumer loses , all of the time , every time . Big oil designed OPEC to manage the price higher no matter the market availability . Libya produces 2% , not enough to move the price of crude by 2 dollars . 2% of the daily spot price of crude and Libyan crude is still flowing so there has been zero impact on the physical market . If Libya totally shuts down it's still 2% . Fear mongering and speculation . Same as the bs about the Arabs of any country shutting off our oil . It may hurt us a bit in the short term but we have so many sources . Those countries that that have a single resource would commit suicide over night and their own people would put the heads of the governments on stakes as their economy collapses over night and the starve and freeze in the dark . Iran is loaded with oil but they buy refined fuel from other countries because they only have two refineries and need every dime of crude sales to support the country and subsidize everything . We may be the market but one , month long interruption in their sales and they are finished . All based on fear and speculation designed to seperate us from any money or wealth we have . No different than a ring toss at any carnival where the sucker has no chance of winning , and they own the carnival . Step right up , winner every time , step right up .

And the cost of airline tickets has already jumped too, and the price of food will go up, and the cost of heating and electric, and most of these prices will ever come down again even when those numbers at the gas pumps do. Thank Wall Street and no one else No supply-and-demand excuses this time, Just "worries." Isn't it fun being at the mercy of these "worriers?"

I believe what BANDITO is saying to be fairly accurate . I think of it like this, My company is a monopoly , we make a " universal widget '" we are the only people in the world who make this, you buy from us or you dont. This scheme also drives up the price because this " widget " can only be used once ( gasoline ) . I mean they got ya by the b###ls , nothing you can do about it. How would you get a one month standoff, ive no clue, let alone a one week or day sort of thing. People have to go to walmart and soccer games and to the movies you think they would walk or ride a bike or even carpool?

Sadly, we have only ourselves to blame.

It's not about supply and demand, or refining capacities.

Big Oil was testing us during the summer of 2008 to see what we, as consumers, would be willing to pay before we would change our gas guzzling ways... would we carpool, ride a bike, public transit, etc.?

And we showed them that yes, we are lazy and completely willing to pay $5 a gallon on average. I'm to blame for this as well, since I didn't change my lifestyle until early last year.

As long as we continue to do what we are expected to do... IE, go to work like good little soldiers, do and buy as we're told... then we'll continue to get milked for what little bit of wealth we do manage to get our hands on.

Greed is the most powerful force on this planet.

Not love.
Not nuclear weapons.
Greed.

Costs me 100 bucks to fill my truck up now 3$ 30 gal. We need small car here for short trips to the store or a friends house, and use our normal car for long trip and passengers. Why dont we have affordable autos yet. You cant even get a new car for less than 10,000$ anymore ( i may stand corrected ). Look a all the mini trucks and cars overseas that are cheap but they send over 25,000$ toyota suvs.

This is the problem that can occur when corperate interests seem to outweigh national governments ability to protect thier electorate/population. Idealy speaking , a government should be allowed to prevent these hikes by unanimously saying " Excuse me, but you arent selling fuel to my people for that extortionate amount, and if you try, I will see you in court" claiming global blackmail and extortion. Its a FACT that the oil companies make more per pound on fuel than do the people running the petrol stations, in fact a gentleman who was interviewed yesterday on this subject, told the BBC that he is pretty much at the point where its not economicaly viable to open his petrol station, but that equaly he cannot afford to close.
Odly enough, I cant find any video of that right now... strange.
I see this the same way I see the banks. They only get big bonuses because we let them, the oil companies only charge us the earth to get to and from work because we let them, and government only stiff us on those things, and everything we dont pay a company for, because we let them. It IS time to make a stand and tell them exactly what they can do with thier 1.1billion pound bonuses, forty pence more per litre, thier 20%VAT rise and all the other ridiculous numbers they are demanding from us at this increasingly difficult economic juncture.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
And the cost of airline tickets has already jumped too, and the price of food will go up, and the cost of heating and electric, and most of these prices will ever come down again even when those numbers at the gas pumps do. Thank Wall Street and no one else No supply-and-demand excuses this time, Just "worries." Isn't it fun being at the mercy of these "worriers?"

Heck the actual COST of airline flying has gone up just with the advent of bed bugs on airlines now...