Originally Posted by C-D-P

[qutoe]You buy gas for $1, you go down the street and sell it for $1.50. But you know the next time you go and buy gas you'll have to pay $2.00. In order to make the money to buy that next gallon of gas, even though you bought this gallon at $1 you'll need to charge $2.50 for it to make the same profit and be able to buy the next gallon of gas. The converse of the scenario is you buy that gallon at $2.00 but the next time you buy it's going to cost $1.75, you'll continue to sell what you got at $2.50 until it runs out, and then your next gallon you can sell for $2.25, but not until your current gallon runs out. Trouble is that the time line is much longer and what comes out of the pump predates what's being sold on the market.

That probably didn't clear anything up but I tried.[/qutoe]

That would make sense if the price raised on July 15th, but it did not rise. It dropped. So in order to make money off that gas purchased at $1, it would need to be sold at $1.50 like it was on the 14th.

Originally Posted by Raharu Haruha

Well, for one, it takes a week or two before the oil bough it turned into gas ans shipped to the gas station.

Also, the supply of gasoline is different than the supply of oil. One of the biggest problems with gasoline prices is that we consume more than we refine. So we import 5% of our gas. If that were to be taken care of, gas would cost 50 cents less per gallon.