> This is one of those things where it's easy to get fixated on one aspect and ignore everything else. There are many factors that go into the price of oil. Most of the following comes from the CIA World Factbook.
>
> 1. Supply and demand are very tight. The world produces and consumes a little over 80 million barrels of oil per day.
> 2. Some of the major producers--Nigeria, for example--are politically unstable.
> 3. We have already used a great deal of the most accessible and cheapest oil. Canada is a great example of this. Most of Saudi Arabia's oil costs something like $5-7/barrel to produce. Most of Canada's costs about $25-30/barrel. Only in the last few years have certain large deposits become economical to put into production.
> 4. Demand for oil has increased greatly in the last few years. Admittedly, American SUV's play a role, but a comparatively small one. China now has the second largest economy in the world, and it is growing at 9.3% each year. China now consumes about 6.4 million barrels of oil each day. India has the fourth largest economy, growing at 7.6% per year, and currently consumes about 2.3 million barrels per day.
> 5. The president of Iran. The price of oil spikes every time he opens his mouth. He has threatened to wipe out Israel. He has threatened to stop exporting oil. He has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which he could probably do temporarily. Remember how gas prices spiked after Hurricane Katrina? Katrina took 1.5 million barrels of oil per day off the world market. Iran exports 2.5 million barrels per day. It gets even better. Oil from Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Iraq, Iran, AND Saudi Arabia goes through the Strait of Hormuz.
> 6. There are exactly two ways of dealing with a situation in which demand exeeds supply--rising prices, and shortages. Which would you rather have--all the gas you can afford at $5/gallon, or 0 gallons available at $2/gallon?
> 7. The goverment. Gas station owners make perhaps 3 cents on a gallon of gas. Oil companies make about 10 cents. In contrast, the nationwide average for combined federal and state taxes is about 46 cents per gallon. In Europe, taxes are much, much higher and are almost entirely to blame for the diffence in price between Europe and the US.
>
> In other words, the reason for high gas prices is much more complex than a lot of people realize.

Gosh, I didn't mean to sound like I thought only the car companies are to blame. They just seem to be the one nobody thinks about. They are my pick for the worst, although I am aware that this gas-price thing has a laundry list of villians.

There is no denying that oil companies are racking up some impressive profits. And that petroleum people are in high places in most governments around the world. There is price fixing going on everywhere, and consumers are easily taken in by propaganda. And did you know that the CIA is good at producing propaganda?

I am also aware that Toyota makes a few gas hogs of their own, and that gasoline sold in some countries for twice what it costs here, is refined at about the same cost.

Being a crook is often perfectly legal. Using my definition for a crook, of course.

If states can pass laws that *require* you to do business with insurance companies, why can't the governments of countries around the world look the other way while consumers are skinned by Big Oil.

But the people who build and sell gas hogs should be a sitting duck. We could be smart enough to see through their advertising, but I guess we are not.

Take this example:
A car ad says you can buy that car with a 0% interest loan, OR you can get a $3000 discount. How can anybody not see that the interest on that loan is $3000? If it didn't work so well, I'd wonder how the car companies could be so dumb as to think we are that stupid.

So are they going to care if you wind up with an unpaid-for car sitting in your yard because you can't afford to buy gas? Not as long as you can make the payments. Where were these manufacturers in the 70's when the world energy crisis was invented? Didn't they learn anything at all?

I can remember back then when they fought air pollution controls on cars. They did it by building cars that wouldn't run right with the pollution equipment in place. They also said pollution controls would make them burn more gas and the designed them so that would be true. We were supposed to believe that burning gas causes pollution, but burning more gas reduces pollution. Does that sound like paying more for gas makes more gas available?

I don't believe that rot about how big heavy cars are safer either. I saw video of an accident in Nashville the other day. An SUV hydroplaned into the oncoming lane and wiped out a couple of cars. Was the toll of death and injury less because it was an SUV? Or was it worse? Do the people who design and sell cars care about you? How about Big Oil?
Howard