Gary, no disrespect to you but what government policies were put in place to drive the price of oil up that weren’t in place two years ago when oil was half as much as it is now. I just want to know incase I missed something. Were the new regulations about safer deep water drilling some of them. They need those regulations or it will be oil on shorelines everywhere unless stricter controls are inplace and ruining whole industries like what happened in the gulf coast. Why should it cost more to be safer at deeper depths when drilling. Those safety precautions should be a concern for those drillers anyway, they should want to do them. I have a hard time rationalizing that the safety thats needed to drill deeper is whats driving the cost up. I know it costs more to drill deeper useing more pipe, safer safety valves but whats that add up too, a 1/2 cent a gallon when they find a 10 million barrel reservior.
Right now with the amount of oil available in wells that are capped by the thousands of wells thats never had any taken out of them, the only thing that stands out for a reason why theres high oil prices is because they were minipulated to be at the price they are, its not supply and demand because the supply is there.
I stop into a bar once in awhile and met a guy a few weeks ago and he said he was a retired oil worker that worked the oil fields in Montana, wymoing and North Dakota for 35 years. He hurt himself so many times that now hes on disability because his back and legs are shot from lifting and manuvering drill pipe. He told me don’t let anybody kid you, theres all kinds of oil in wells that were capped 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago and its still there. I asked why he thought oil was so high and he said so the people who own it and process it can make more money. If theres all that oil then why aren’t they selling it to bring prices down. Its called price fixing in a nut shell.
I heard it said two years ago on a tv program that ethonol can stand on its own. The industry will only make about 2 to 3 cents a gallon profit but thats enough to keep it afloat, it no longer needs to be subsidized.
Thats the problem with the oil industry, they can build another one, two or three oil refineries and process some of that oil but they don’t want to because thier making the money they want to make with the amount of refineries they have now. The supply and demand ratio thats put in place now is makeing money for the whole industry so why would they want to put in another few refineries. They could but don’t want to, to keep earnings high and at the price where some have to suffer so some can profit at the levels they want to. My question is why didn’t anyone start building a few new refineries years back when we were talking about this then. Everybody thought a few new ones would help solve the crunch. Here we are 5 years later with high oil prices and no new refineries, it kind of shows me what direction the oil industry wants us to go. Keep prices high so the industry makes high earnings and pass the costs on to us, they don’t have anything to complain about and if they did they’d change it into something like it is now. The oils there and from what I’ve heard alot of it so why don’t they process it.
You don’t help your argument, admitting, the inflated prices drive the cost of everything up, hence, controlling/holding hostage, the economy. It has nothing to do with supply and demand, unless you call that pencil pusher in the 3 piece suit, standing in the pit, buying shares of gas today, to sell tomorrow for a dime more, demand 
Wait until gold starts the dip 
