It just doesn't make sense that gas is still up while the oil price has went down some this week.

 Maybe the gas prices will go down next week.

 Of course it makes sense, it's called greed and screw the public.

gas prices wont go down until after the summer.  making vacations painful.  forcing you to stay cloose to home.

gov't claims there going to stop filling the reserves so that the price of gas will go down.I've lost faith in gov't,if they really wanted to help us they would've stop high gas prices before they started. they don't care so hold your %$# and start hiding your money.

I blamed it on Oil companies.  Though have seen the ads they tried to explain where a dollar goes to when it come to price increase.  They are ones of the most profitable companies, arn't they?

Let's not be so quick to blame the oil companies...directly. Instead, blame the hedge fund managers and "other" heavy weights who are buying oil directly from NYMEX under claims of "supplies are not going to meet demand".

 I threw a post under "Traders Edge"

Speculators (hedge fund managers who bought in at record volumes and certain others) are exactly to blame.  Issues such as "supply concerns" as justification for anyone investing into commodities is irresponsible (can't say what I really want to say here) at best.

 It would be my hope that Capitol Hill takes those investors out of the equation. Energy is more of a right than an asset and those like (initials) GWB who said we need alternatives to energy is just as damning as the speculators..Brazil clear cuts more of the forests not for housing development but for sugar cane for bio-deisel(sp?) and farmers uproot whole crops in favour of bio-fuel crops. End result? No matter how you look at it, food inflation and energy inflation are destroying the North American and ultimately, the global economy..so as a cheer leader, go Canadian Banks! In the mean time, I like this game in seeing exactly where Canadian Oil companies end up.

And

And if you are in doubt over "supply concerns", look at the EIA data and the fundimentals. Oil was over supplied to the markets for roughly the 2 years following Hurricane Katrina's strike to the Gulf of Mexico because of the appearance that Oil production from the Gulf would have created a real supply disruption. OPEC over supplied the markets to compensate and then some and after that 2yr period, OPEC returned their production back to "normal".

 Hedge Fund Managers..er, I mean the speculators used that normalization as justifying that we now have supply issues. So, how can you have supply issues when production returns to "normal" and issues such as Nigeria are only a drop in the bucket? In saying that, the motivation would appear more political than practical. The very presence of the US being in the Middle East carries the worry about a strike on Iran, but realistically, can anyone afford the US taking that chance?  That would most likely be the premise that GWB took when he virtually demanded North America remove itself from Oil reliance...BUT lets not dismiss his position on Arctic Oil exploration and production (a bit hipporcitical I would think).

And

If history is any indication, you'll remember that last summer the prices also went up.  Its a trend.  Then they tease us and drop a bit so we all say yes and feel relieved and then they will keep that price and no one complains.  We all need to boycott buying so much and then they will have to come down.

Supote:

I blamed it on Oil companies.  Though have seen the ads they tried to explain where a dollar goes to when it come to price increase.  They are ones of the most profitable companies, arn't they?

 Anybody have any shares for real that know anything about this?

This is the "unofficial" beginning of summer as the news dubbed it...we will start to see the gas price continuely rise from now until after summer...

I haven't heard anything about a special dividend, but it does sound realistic.

What we have in Canada are Energy Income Trusts and though the rules are going to change in the next few years, they are designed to flow through a measure of the taxes they essentially pay to the share holders. I've seen the dividends range from 5-12% but I know that there are higher.

By doing this, they pass on their liability directly to the shareholder who pays taxes at a much lower rate than the corporation. I would suspect that the flow through that you heard about in the States would be simular to an overpaid actor donating to charity but in this case, you don't get something without someone benefiting.

If you had real shares long term, you would stand to benefit the most, but I wouldn't go out and "stock" up, that would be silly.

Oil companies themselves are only 30% of the problem. The other 70% include the government and any greedy little bugger out there looking to make a quick buck.

Here's a novel thought. How about blaming ourselves.

We make up less than 5% of the world's population and consume 25% of the annual output of energy produced in the world.

I don't recall Exxon or Chevron forcing us out at the point of a gun to buy SUV's...etc!

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Seti03:

Here's a novel thought. How about blaming ourselves.

We make up less than 5% of the world's population and consume 25% of the annual output of energy produced in the world.

I don't recall Exxon or Chevron forcing us out at the point of a gun to buy SUV's...etc!

Are we to blame? That's one loaded question. Yes, we are the end result of the process, and problem but the issue is what happens in between.

We are the consumer.  In the end, we are the ones that buy the finished product. BUT we are also being taken advantage of.  When OPEC oversupplied the markets following Hurricane Katrina, did our consumption go down? No. Instead, our consumption rose but only modestly.  So, how do you then account for the actual rise in the commodity oil is?  What we are hearing in the media is what scientists have been forcasting since the 1950's about dwindling oil supplies.  Even earlier than that, we had the potential for a steamed powered car that would have been run on pure 0% emmission renewable source, but that was trounced because as the consumer, we didn't demand it but more importantly, many of us didn't hear about it either.  Let me refer back to the early 90s when gas shot from about (in Canada) from .28cents/litre to around .60cents per litre. Why?? Iraq invaded Kuwait and in turn, the States invaded Iraq.  If that doesn't signal speculation, nothing does.

Some gent came up with just recently, the novel idea of bombarding salt water with radio waves creating the electrolitical process of reversing the binding process that makes water. 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen. This process is soooo simple that he created this using pie plates and a cheap radio emmission source. As consumers, this is what we should be demanding but to make this viable, it should be just as simple, but lets see how this would be construde by those that said the steam powered car was stupid. 

We are hearing about hydrogen fuel cells, but give me a break!! Expensive research process and only reduces emmissions minimally AND we are told that this is "new technollogy, but we need it so it's worth the extra money".  Come on people, we're being taken for a ride because there's money to be made somewhere. You will never see anything "new" unless there is a market willing to eat it up AND it must make profit.

So, are we to blame?  Yes. We are also to blame for rising food costs, food shortages, the mortgage crisis, the credit crisis, the stalling of many global economies as a result of our need to seek out alternatives to oil.  Not only is energy inflation hurting us, but in creating bio-fuels, whole crops are being uprooted for bio-fuel crops (because there's money to be made) driving up the costs of many food items we take for granted increasing food cost inflation.  US Feds raised rates to stem inflation created a global credit crisis because people could not afford to renew their mortgages and with rising food and energy costs, are not making the major purchases.  In reducing the rates to "energize the ecconomy", devalued the US $ making it much cheaper for foreign commodity traders to buy as much oil, gold, silver and refined oil products further driving up the price of oil&gas alike.  I also draw your attention to Brazil which is still clear cutting rain forest to plant cane crops for their bio-fuel needs and didn't scientists say that the rain forests soak up the pollutants that contribute to "green house gasses"?

Let's look at yet another problem. Hybrids. Those cars that assist in cleaning our air. Um...Where are the parts for these made? Not entirely environmentally friendly..many parts and alloys for the Hybrids are being made in congested centers that employ many people that have to get to and from work and since they don't have the strict environmental standards we do, are adding to the pollution problem.  Since that part of the  pollution problem isn't happening in North America, aren't we "exporting" our problem?

The end result with this mess, is more layoffs, rising costs and a reverse in the ecconomy and I do believe we are now facing "stagflation" where interest rates are not in-line with consumer inflation.  Everyone has a part in creating this mess we are in and are heading towards; environmentalists, commodity traders, oil companies and consumers alike.  That's a mouthful I know, but that is also the true reality that the media has not really covered.  As a consumer and investor, do your homework.

It's called price-gouging.  When a hotel doubles its room prices after a hurricane, the attorney general steps in.  Anytime demand spikes hard, the government warns companies not to price-gouge or else they will face prosecution.  The oil companies, on the other hand, seem to be immune to that...