Do you have any evidence that price fixing has occurred? Or are you just being accusatory because the price is going up. There are other reasons why the price goes up besides price fixing. The increase in demand and the fact that supply is starting to show its limits is moving the price beyond what we have seen in the past. But I don't see any evidence whatsoever that any price fixing has occurred. The profits from the oil industry are staying at the same percentage as what they have been previously.

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"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

I did not say that I believed price fixing has occurred. I said I am not certain that it hasn't occurred. Are you? I don't trust Big Energy. You do?

Prices have increased due to a number of reasons. As I said prices will continue to increase because oil is reaching the short side of being a finite resource, if it isn't already at peak. From a financial perspective OPEC is crazy to base oil on the dollar. They're leaving a lot of money on the table by doing it. The U.S. doesn't manufacture much of anything anymore. OPEC then must purchase goods from the EU and other countries with a stronger currency and bang! they get hit again paying prices based on stronger currency. OPEC would be wise to sell oil in euros. There are reasons they haven't at this point and raising the price of crude is a short term measure to offset the imbalance of dollars to euros. When and if oil is euro based our prices at the pump will go through the roof.

With all this we do not need price fixing to increase the cost even more. Cheney sat down with Big Energy 7 years ago and mapped out an energy policy. To this day the wussed out Congress cannot even get a copy of the agenda of that meeting. I don't trust people like that. There's more than enough reason not to trust corporate America to do the right thing. Passing a law that would help keep them honest is not a bad thing.

One reason why I hate capitalism is that it contradicts democracy. Instead of the people having a voice, the wealthy capitalist secretly dictate our government and undermine American tax dollars through earmarks and cooperate tax cuts. For all we know, every lawmaker in the Congress could be on the Big Oil payroll. It is time to take action. I still can fathom how the the Big Oil companies can justify making record profits during an oil crisis and global shortage. This would suggest to me that the Big Oil companies are beating the hay our of scarecrow and taking advantage of the deflation of oil by the Saudis. I am not going to support the US Government taking cooperate profits, but I do support a cap on those profits. If you're making 100B in profits, obviously, prices should be lowered. Why? Because such profits indicate to me that the increases in gas prices can not be justified. The gas prices should only be increase so drastically if expenses are increasing.

On the other hand, I believe that if this cap is to be put into place, the US Government must first allow drilling in both the Pacific & Atlantic to help these Big Oil industries meet demand. We can not place a cap on these companies if we are not willing to do our part in increasing the oil supply that these companies have to distribute within the United States.

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http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1139.html

And so, we see how such high profits cannot be justified. Government, I demand you cut our taxes.

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"It is extremely difficult for our contemporaries to conceive of the conditions of free banking because they take government interference with banking for granted and as necessary"

-- Ludwig von Mises

I'm beginning to think oil is not a bubble. I saw it dip, but not pop. That makes me skeptical. Oil will not be over valued until we stop consuming, and my personal consumption hasn't dwindled at all. For me, it will not be over valued until it becomes cheaper to move closer per month than to drive.

I drive a long way, and make very little - part time minimum wage. If I paid $400 dollars for rent per month, it would not be cheaper to live closer to my school unless gas was $5.80. Most people probably don't have the same situation as me. This is living at home vs. moving with in walking distance of school/work. Anyone who rents could do that with less to lose than me, but when it actually becomes cheaper to move, that is when I think oil is becoming over valued.

This is very understandable, but it's been happening a long LONG time, since before Rome. You, nor anyone else, is going to take action. Even Obama is having a controversy right now with a person he hired for his VP selection comity. Apparently the person working for him hasn't paid taxes, nor has his corporation paid taxes, for several years because they were friends of a certain congressman. I really don't think this is the time to take action, I think that time was several hundred years ago when the constitution was being written.
Try to think of it in terms of supply and demand. If the supply goes down, the demand goes up. The increase in demand causes price to go up. So it's not hard to understand how an oil company - a company that has oil - is making profits.
The government has the money, ability and power to make something happen. They don't. Why don't they you ask? Because they make money off it. Don't hate capitalism, hate government.
No. That's not true. This is a science, not an art. There is nothing moral about economics. If the demand goes up, the price is going to go up if the supply does not go up. Think of it like computers. 10 years ago computers were $2000. If those were the only computer that were ever made, and people were as computer crazy as they are now, then those computers would be worth $20,000 - regardless of how slow and inefficient they were. That's really a bad example, but w/e.
I think we should DEFINITELY DO THIS.


One other point. If gas companies had a price limit, as in they could not increase the price, they would just sell it else where. Gas would cost roughly $20 a gallon, and people would be sucking it out of their tanks.

Congressmen aren't complete idiots. They are more like morons with an idiot filling.