Neverside

Two things:

First off, I don't give a damn either way on the Bush thing, I just want to make sure you guys don't grow up thinking that the office of the President runs the economy. Not by a long shot. Sure, wars can definitely have an impact, but too many people are quick to directly blame or credit the current president for our down and upswings. Actually, he plays a smaller role than most people think.

Second, gas prices may have gone up from what we were used to paying two or three years ago. However, if you take into account frequency of vehicle repair, current costs of maintnenece, costs of insurance, AND inflation (and I have seen and done the math for myself) it is honestly cheaper to drive a vehicle in the states today than it was thirty years ago. No matter what the cost of gas is today, I'd call that progress.

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Bmovies are BACK!

If I owned oil companies, I would charge $20 a gallon - because lazy idiots will still be filling up their cars and H2 Hummers.

You can only mine so much oil per hour/month/day/week/year.. this is a hard cap, once you hit it.. you have to seek oil somewhere else.

In the US around the beginning of the year 2004, we hit that cap. We cannot meet the growing demand for oil, with our own supply. Our supply is simply outweighed by the demand.

Because of this, we have to purchase more foreign oil, to make up for our domestic shortages.

Unfortunately for the american people, the price to ship oil overseas, is about 30-40 cents per gallon more than it is to refine and distribute domestic oil.

When the US hit that cap, it took time for us to "order" the crude oil supply we needed to meet the demand. Because of this, the US had to dig into our own US oil reserve. (the barrels of oil the US keeps in surplus, incase an event like this ever happens). But because these barrels are even more limited, the price of oil goes up even more. Resulting in the gas price spike, that most people in the US saw a few months ago.

As things slowly organize themselves, and as the supply of oil is streamlined and stabilized, prices will slowly drop.. until they hit the normal profit margin + shipping and refining cost.

No matter what happens in the middle east, all of our oil from that region still passes through OPEC, who control and maintain gas prices of all oil passing through that area.

Source: National Geographic, and Wired Magazine.