I just had a $60.00 fill-up on my car, 16.4 gallons at $3.659 reg

[whistle]

...that is all the gas I'm going to use to the end of this month since I am now well over my monthly allotment of 20 gallons per month. I waited because I thought the price might go down, but it went up instead. By this summer gas will be over $4.00 per gallon by all indicators.

[MindPilot]

1. What are you complaining about?

I've been paying within a few pennies of four bucks for weeks. Bought gas Monday; $3.98 for regular.

[whistle]

2. I'm reporting not complaining, you should be the one complaining

...since the pResident said he never heard of $4.00 per gallon gas :shrug:

Also, if I knew that the bulk of the windfall profits on gas which now goes to speculators and cartel price manipulators went instead to the Federal Government to fund energy independence and alternative fuels, I would be more inclined to accept these weekly price hikes. How about you, do you like what's happening regarding gas prices?

[MindPilot]

16. I would but no one cares.

And the Pretzeldent doesn't get out west much.

Frankly I wouldn't mind the high cost of gas if I thought for a moment the money was going to something useful, but we all know that will never happen.

[Liberal_in_LA]

35. In LA, we'd stampede for gas at that price. lol

[onehandle]

3. $1.46 when Bill Clinton left office.

The good old days.

[whistle]

4. Since then it has been all price manipulation and windfall profits

[doc03]

6. Boy their heads explode when you bring that one up.

I did this morning and the guy starts screaming about 911 and Clinton letting OBL go.

[onehandle]

7. Try this: Carter took action to limit foreign oil. Reagan struck that down.

Saudi-Arabia's wealth exploded after that.

They funded 9/11 with our gas money.

Thus, Reagan funded 9/11.

Simplistic? Maybe, but basically true.

[doc03]

11. It goes in one ear and out the other, you know

they heard it on Faux News it has to be true.

[MadinMo]

37. "They funded 9/11 with our gas money"

If this wouldn't be so incendiary it would be a great campaign point --or at least one for the debates after the conventions. But, it would just fan flames of hate for all Middle Easterners, and then cause worsening frictions with the Middle East.

It may be simplistic, but OMG how true.

[whistle]

18. ...and of course Bush and Cheney have secret dinners with OBL

...to plan the next strategic blunder which will keep the wars going

[doc03]

5. I just heard this morning it's

the environmentalists fault for not letting them drill in ANWAR. Or it's because they can't build refineries. Those f-----g dip-shits listen to Limbaugh and Faux News of course.

[Robbien]

12. They can build those refineries

But they want the taxpayers to foot the bill. The billions they make each month is needed to be handed out to shareholders.

They want government to fund it, but they want all profits to go to them.

[whistle]

19. Just nationalize the industry and be done with it

[whistle]

21. That's the Big Oil response, well fuck them, the people can nationalize

...oil, they seem to forget that.

[AZ Criminal JD]

23. What country do you live in?

In the U.S. we have a Constitution which would not allow that.

[whistle]

25. Where in the constitution does it say that government can not take over

...and regulate an industry which is vital to the national welfare of the country? Please show me.

<snip>

The Constitution of the United States of America - Preamble

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.preamble.html

[AZ Criminal JD]

32. The Constitution gives Congress specific powers.

Article I, Section 8. Seizing industries is not one of them. The Constitution gives Congress the power to do certain things. If they aren't in there Congress can't do them.

[TahitiNut]

26. Nonsense.

Just pay "book value" and exercise Eminent Domain.

[AZ Criminal JD]

31. The Supreme Count would not agree with you.

Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry during the Korean War and got slapped down. But go ahead, get Obama to suggest that. LOL

[Fumesucker]

36. The interstate commerce clause

Is what is used to make having a certain weed growing in your back yard a felony crime..

If they can do that Constitutionally they can do any damn thing.

[AZ Criminal JD]

38. The commerce clause says "regulate"

Seizing a group of businesses is not regulation and would never survive a court challenge.

[Individualist]

34. Next time someone tries to sell you that BS,

tell them the facts:

However, the record shows - supported by documents I have obtained - that there is more to the story. Specifically, the documents suggest that major oil companies pursued efforts to curtail refinery capaity as a strategy for improving profit margins; that competing oil companies worked together to subvert supply; that refinery closures inhibited supply; and that oil companies are repeating record profits, yet benefit from a proposed national energy policy that would offer financial incentives to expand refinery capacity.

http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:q76P7ZDKtAEJ:wyden.senate.gov/issues/wyden_oil_report.pdf+keep+fuel+prices+high+by+closing+refineries+and+controlling+supply&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

That is fact. The oil companies say: Well, the problem is we do not have enough refineries. If we had more, then we would have more product and we might have a smaller spread and we would not be. Let me tell you what: Today, the refineries in America are operating at 85 percent of capacity. Do not buy this argument that it is about refineries. They have more capacity. They are holding back so they can keep their product dear and limited and short, and so the consumers will ultimately pay more. http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=296989

[Xenocrates]

8. The Oil Bubble

This happened in the 80s. Oil prices went up to the point that investors starting looking to alternatives.
Then the oil bubble burst. And investors lost millions when oil became the cheapest energy source on the planet.

The bubble is back, and its bigger, and eventually it will break.

[Initech]

9. Yeah these gas prices suck.

Of course the jackass in chief isn't going to do jack shit about it. He thinks $600 a person is going to solve all our problems. :mad:

What should happen is that Exxon should be forced to surrender one of its $40 billion profits and give every motorist a $2500 refund as punishment for these prices.

[Fumesucker]

15. Well, that would take care of 16 million drivers..

What about the 200 million or so of the rest of us?

[alfredo]

10. It's $3.74 here in Lexington Ky.

[whistle]

20. I know it is bad all over and Florida still has lower gas prices than most

...of the country. My point remains that all of these oil windfall profits go down a rabbit hole and after almost eight years of Bush and Cheney and trillions of dollars sucked out of consumer's pockets we are no closer to a national energy policy geared to giving the U.S. energy independence and cost effective alternative fuels then when Cheney met in secret with the top energy executives sixty days into Bush's first term. What a total economic waste! :wtf:

[alfredo]

33. bush has been a big waste of time.

[Fireweed247]

13. It is 4.17 in Alaska and we are the ones with all the oil!

Totally unfair, but the state is raking in the oil revenue. You think they would use it to get our own oil refinery up and running so we don't have to ship it down to the lower 48 and back again.

I won't even fill it up anymore, it just hurts too bad...

[whistle]

22. Correct, you have the crude, but no way to refine that crude into usable

...products, so Alaska is like a colony of the oil corporations which monopolize your resource. Why is that allowed to happen, can somebody answer that? Wasn't the pipeline that Nixon pushed for in the early 1970's supposed to give every Alaskan a tremendous rise in their standard of living?

[Xenocrates]

14. btw, I've been paying $4+ diesel for weeks... (nt)

[whistle]

24. Well in Orlando diesel does run well above $4.00 per gallon, I just did not

...notice what it said today, I was in too much shock about what I had to shell out for another tank full of Shell. By the way my station is usually a few pennies below even the discount places in my area, so it must be getting up close to $3.70 at most other stations around here.

[Dissent Is Patriotic]

17. $3.99 for regular here...

that's in westchester county new york...some stations as high as $4.19 a gallon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[marmar]

27. I paid $3.89 pg for regular at a Speedway in Grand Blanc, Michigan.....

..... I've never, ever paid that much for gas. :cry:

[Mind_your_head]

28. $3.84 - $3.99 in western burbs of Chicago

Check this out before you go fill up (if you're not doing so already):

http://www.gasbuddy.com/

edit: typo

[whistle]

29. The "N" word Nationalization of the oil industry has been around a long time

<snip>
Take Back the Oil Companies!
The "N" Word
By MIKE WHITNEY
May 1, 2006

Nationalizing the oil industry should be the central tenet of any progressive political movement. Evidence of the industry's involvement in the invasion of Iraq as well as its obvious complicity in corrupting the political system should provide ample proof that the oil giants are a clear and present danger to democracy and need to be put under state control.

In an era of oil scarcity we no longer have the luxury of allowing a handful of corporate plutocrats to decide the fate of the global economy. The industry chieftains have deliberately closed down refineries to lower production and enhance their profits. They have sluiced boatloads of cash into the political system to ensure that congress and the executive carry out their directives. Presently, there's not an inch of daylight between the Exxon boardroom and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, they both operate off the very same script.

The oil industry is the primary beneficiary of Bush's war in Iraq. Industry executives had a place at the table when Dick Cheney carved up Iraq's oil fields for future distribution among America's elite corporations. Freedom of Information requests have provided "edited documents from the Cheney Energy Policy group. One of these was a map showing lease areas where oil drilling was planned (in Iraq). Another consisted of a list of 40 oil companies from 30 nations who were slated to get permission to drill for oil in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The problem for the US and Britain was that their oil companies were absent from this list of those who were to get concessions..The US and UK would thus be frozen out of what was clearly one of the greatest material prizes in world history." ("The CFR Debates" Lawerence Shoup; Z Magazine March 2006)

This explains why the industry backed a bumbling oil-man from Texas who showed neither interest in policy nor aptitude for leadership. Bush became the draught horse for executing an agenda that would replace diminishing Saudi reserves with the second largest supplies in the world, and then, conveniently remove France and Russia from the list of competitors. 2,400 American servicemen and 100,000 Iraqis have now sacrificed their lives on the altar of corporate profiteering. Bush has spread his energy war from Central Asia to the Middle East; increasing the incidents of terrorism by 4 fold. The American middle class is being crushed by soaring gas prices and government malfeasance while well-heeled oil moguls trundle off to the bank with the largest profits in history.

Isn't it time we rethought the economic system? <MORE>

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05012006.html

<On edit an even more recent article>

04/25/08
08:01:23 am, Categories: Voices, 1188 words
America, Fight Back: Nationalize the Oil Industry!
William Hughes

<read MORE>

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2008/04/25/p25043

[spinbaby]

30. I remember how shocked I was when I hit $30

$30 in a smallish Saturn! I was shocked.

Seems like a bargain now.

[lovuian]

39. I guess we have to WAKE UP to the fact that the quicker we

start carpooling and using trains and getting gas effecient the RICHER we will become

people who think Green will be richer and people who don't will be poorer

thats the reality

Its only going to get worse