If you want to really get to the bottom of it, find out which legislators are on the take from oil lobbies.
I'd say that the oil companies, the IRS, and most of the cats on the hill are laughing all the way to the bank.

I heard Obama comment on the gas prices, he said "It's out of my power", now that is someone who doesn't know how to use the power he's got. If I were president it would *not* be out of my power I can tell you that. I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do, I'm not saying it is fully under the power of the president, but I am saying Obama does have some power over the situation and he chooses to ignore it instead of attempt to do something. I would do more than attempt to do something if I were prez, I'd tax, cut, stop buying, stop sending money to, bada bing bada boom, gas prices lowered, it's all about making deals, cutting deals, severing deals, if they don't get help from us I guess the oil tycoons overseas can suffer in their palaces paid for by the American people, there is always a way and Obama chooses to ignore it because he lives comfortably and he hasn't paid for gas out of his own pocket in so long it doesn't compute to his self-centered brain.

I cannot believe some people in this thread believe actually building more oil refineries is going to solve this problem. All that's going to do is feed more greed and make the problem worse. We need to do the reverse. tear down half the oil refineries. Take the power away from Evil Oil. We need to force the consumer public to invest in green energy technologies. We need to change the paradigm, change the game. Unless we do that, we are only going to keep getting more of what we have already gotten - screwed by Big Oil.

Psst...Oil companies do not pay the price per barrel that is on the stock market.


Oil companies buy oil in contracts, generally a six month deal of X amount of barrels for X per barrel. The daily fluctuations in stock prices (driven mostly by traders and speculators) does reflect the daily (and at times hourly) prices at the pump.

There are solutions on how to effectively combat the stock market prices that the government could take, but they are by no means politically advantageous. Alternative fuels hold only so much promise even if the technology was up to speed to be used as a true replacement. Because the amount of per gallon usage in the US per day means that we cannot use something so rare and magical as unicorn farts to power our needs. The cost of conversion (if we had a massive herd of unicorns that dined on nothing but soup beans and cornbread) would be a long and expensive process to the consumers. There are more than 17 million cars registered in Ohio alone the last I checked and that was a few years ago.

For example, let's look at the Chevy Volt. Admittedly this is a not ready for prime time replacement as it only reduces fuel consumption by roughly one gallon per day based on its fuel rating. For a commuter, personally it would be a roll of the dice as to if the gasoline generator would have to kick in because my daily commute is 40 miles back and forth to work of mixed city and highway driving with some hills. But for sake of argument let's say I could drive it on just the daily charge. And we will ignore the added cost to the electric bill for charging it up every night. I would save 12 gallons per week versus the Mustang that I drive now. At $4 a gallon (simple math) I would save $48 per week or $2496 per year. $39,145 MSRP means that Volt better last 16 years for me to break even with the price of gas for 166,400 of traveling back and forth to work. And again, I do have to keep gas in it and do have to use gas from time to time (so it doesn't go stale in the tank) and I still have the cost of electricity in there. So breaking even may mean 20 years and 250,000 miles of service out of a car that just might be discontinued for not being ready for prime time. I am sure (without doing the math) that I would be money ahead on a Chevy Cruze for $18,000. And even more money ahead with the Mustang as there is nothing wrong with it and it has less than 46,000 miles on it despite being 8 years old. Yeah, I bought it used with ultra low mileage. And at 21 mpg on average of mixed city/highway, gas is not killing me, although I would like to see it come way back down to reduce living expenses.

Subsidization, takes many forms. Foreign aid to OPEC nations is but one form that few consider. The price per barrel would skyrocket if those countries had to take part of their oil profits to cover the loss of foreign aid that the US gives in dollars, food and goods each year. The off topic mention of it to US farmers is so farmers remain in business rather than face a deflation of their crop at harvest versus the general stagnation that they have faced for years and years. Profitability (meaning being able to stay in business period) for a farmer means making not only enough to cover the fuel, maintenance, equipment replacement loans, crop insurance and seed for this year but to make headway towards next year's crop as well as paying taxes, living expenses, bills and so on for both business and personal. Farmers face far more financial pressures than your average Wall St. investment banker. And people don't starve if the banker quits.

I mentioned non-politically advantageous solutions. Dictate to OPEC what the US will pay per barrel and inform them that is all we will pay while at the same time cutting off aid until that price is met. Uncap oil wells here in the US (there is 500 years worth of oil here at current usage) to make up for the loss of OPEC oil. At the same time inform auto makers that cars need to run on both diesel and biodiesel, be fuel efficient and will be 100% converted in 25 years time--the days of the gasoline engine will be over. Inform farmers that the back 40 will have a new cash crop of a biodiesel plant whose refining process is to crush the seeds and run the oil through a paper filter to catch the dirt and hulls of the seeds before putting it in the tank. (And yes, T&C's prevent mention of this industrial version of that plant because too many spoil it by talking about the other version).

{Continues)

The downside is once that OPEC oil is off the market and big oil has to drop their exports to Asia in order to cover US demands, the price of gas will be unfathomable. And will be for quite some time. The pressure on the Middle East would make it turn into a full blown war zone, but they cannot slow production enough for the rest of the world to cover the slack in US consumption. US businesses already hurt by the current economy might not recover fast enough to cover the needed increase in wages and expenses due to gas prices. Auto makers might balk to the point of closing rather than face the expense of converting. Oh and say goodbye to cheap manufactured goods. Even a simple Bic stick pen will become expensive due to oil needed for all that plastic. In other words, total global economic armageddon...which is not very politically advantageous to say the least. Such is the price for dependency on a single energy source.

And this is the same thing we as a society would face if somebody developed a “free energy source” that was so spectacular that even Tesla would have said “Wow, that is beyond my ability to wrap my head around it.” So while magical unicorn farts may be the answer, I wouldn't start breeding them just yet. We as a people have a long, long way to go before we defeat simple greed in order to better ourselves.

Originally posted by Hefficide
The current POTUS tried to reduce the taxpayers subsidies to these highly profitable conglomerates and got slammed by the other party.

Reduce taxpayer subsidies and the cost of the loss will get passed on to those who purchase gas. While I agree with getting rid of taxpayer subsidies, we all will just get nailed with higher gas prices. EITHER WAY WE CAN NOT WIN - IMHO

You see people there was an agenda behind the very high gas prices a few years back. We were sitting at what...$2 - $3 gallon back in the day then all of sudden it shoots up to $4-$5 a gallon. What they were doing is preparing us. They raise the prices high in a short period of time and this causes mass anger. They eventually bring the prices back down but just a little higher than what they were before. Now 4 years later they have slowly raised the prices again. Most of us say "well at least its not $5 a gallon". I have said it multiple times on here but 1 of the, if not the, biggest reason our economy stinks is because of higher gas prices.