Ya know, as much as I love to read the pundit-pushed bullshit people regurgitate on these comment boards, loosely contextual statistics and the whole damn party.... what a fucking hoot... I gotta say some of you...I mean come on people... really. It's not so complex.
You wanna know, "where's the corruption? Where's the money going? OPEC or EXXON? Haliburton?" The answer is all of the above. It's nothing new. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor. Thus we, the poor, get poorer. And if you think there's a middle class you're an idiot and probably an asshole, as well.

Rich and Poor. Or to put it into conceptual terms, there are two groups of people in the US today: people who are hurting due to our crumbling economy and ridiculous foreign policy, and people who are not.

Ego check.... if you find yourself having to choose between defaulting on student loans or having your house foreclosed, you're poor.

The high price of gasoline is obviously doing a great job of crippling our entire way of life. And yes, your government has failed you in regards to this issue and in its entirety. But you can't expect... (or even allow) the government to step in and take control of this thing.

We live in a free market society, people. Profits are the name of the game and record profits are sort of the eternal goal. And the Middle East hates us. The entire region outside of Israel HATES US. Don't fool yourselfs. Why would they give a shit that our gas is going to $5/gal? They're paying $60-something cents. They don't give a shit.

The government can't change it. The oil companies won't change it. YOU have to change it. Stop giving them your money. End of story. That's the only way to stop it. Of course, that's never gonna happen and it wouldn't matter anyway because this empire is bound to fall. But that's not the point.

Consented ignorance and selective amnesia are going to be the end of our nation. Wake up, people. You put two oil men in the White House and now you're paying record prices for fuel while the oil companies turn record profits. That looks, walks, and sounds like a duck to me. Quack Quack.

D,

You're smoking crack. Drilling in ANWAR would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline. It'd give us some more oil, sure, but not enough to effect the price at the pump in any significant way.

The best thing to do would be to develop alternatives to gasoline and oil to curtail the demand. Lowering demand would lower the price. Simple enough economically, it's just a matter of getting someone to take the political risk. Of course, another way to curtail demand is to have oil trade $250 a barrel...

-DT

That's over 85 BILLION dollars they took from Americans last year. Yup, They sure need $4.00 Gallons!

It can be so exhausting explaining simple economics to mouth-breathers.

First of all, the mere fact that somebody is making a lot of money doesn't mean they're doing something wrong.

Second, just because somebody is making a lot of money doesn't mean that their prices are set too high. In fact, if they're setting their prices as low as possible -- for example, a 1% profit margin -- and they're still selling a metric assload of goods, then it seems more likely that they're setting the price *too low*. If gas stations make 1 penny per gallon of gas sold, then they can still make billions of dollars in profits by selling hundreds of billions of gallons of gas. Care to wager on how many gallons of gas were sold in the world last year?

Third, those companies you listed do a lot more besides running gas stations. The vast majority of their profits come from other operations, like refining, chemicals, and other work.

On the other hand, the gas stations are typically franchise operations. They're run by an individual (or an individual's corporation) that is completely separate from Exxon. The franchisees then pay money to Exxon for the right to use their name and buy their goods.

Fourth, who do you think made more money off the sale of oil last year: Exxon or the government? Here's a hint: Exxon's profit margin was 10%. The government took 25% of all revenues (not just profits).

The crude oil IS the big oil companies. They sell it. The stations and the middlemen are the 6%. It never surprises me how even intelligent people fail to understand the whole "take it from the ground to the pump" process. Then again even our government doesn't understand how it works so why should the average person.

If we had been allowed to drill in ANWR and offshore our coast 10 years ago we would be enjoying $2 a gallon gasoline right now. And if we had invested in nuclear power (like most of Europe uses now) we would have lower electricity and heating oil bills, too.

Who has blocked this from happening? The Democrats and rabid environmentalists.

True, the oil companies are making record profits, but it's not all good news for them. Take for example Chevron, which made $18.7 billion last year, but still suffered losses in the 3rd and 4th quarter. Ample supplies of gasoline caused retail prices not to be able to keep up with crude oil costs.

Of course you can't paint the big oil companies as penniless misers, but it's just inaccurate to assume the rise in crude oil prices works directly to their advantage. Shouldn't we really be looking at the tax breaks, subsidies, and incentives these companies are getting?

You're fucking stupid!!! Research how much money any 3 oil companies made IN PROFIT last year and tell me again that the 6% doesn't amount to anything.... Too lazy to research? I'm not. Exxon, Chevron/Texaco & Royal Dutch/Shell made a combined $85, 559, 000, 000
last year. That's over 85 BILLION dollars they took from Americans last year. Yup, They sure need $4.00 Gallons! In my estimation you're either stupid, un-informed or getting paid to sell those lies!

And where's the 30% futures speculation factored in?