From $2.00 gas to $5.00 gas in 4 years

Because without buyers oil has no value.

Kidding right? Have you looked out into the Gulf of Mexico lately? Do we control the price of that oil? But yes, instead of the oil companies deciding where that oil goes because someone else offers a higher price we would make that decision based on need not price gouging.

Not one penny, yet they want our taxpayers to pay for that pipeline.

Eminent Domain. We say thank you very much for the ship or we build our own, here. Without buyers for the oil those ships need to be sold...cheap.

I care just about as much as they care about me thinking they are greedy. Our royal family is not cruising the world in 500' private yachts, in fact we don't even have a royal family. So who exactly is the greedy one?

Whatever will allow our citizens (and by that I mean every citizen of the world) to get to their job, heat their home, and produce food at a cost people can afford to pay. Do I really have to explain why?
How would you like to reduce what you charge your customers by say arbitrarily 90% and have it not affect your lifestyle because everything you buy costs 95% less without the profiteers taking their cut?

Speculation is just another name for greed. Today's headline: "Oil price surges to highest since May "

Yes, but the speculation is coming from Investors.......buying and selling oil futures......they're pushing the price up. I don't think anyone should be able to purchase a future unless they can take delivery of it......

Don't care who's pushing the price up. They're all scum out to destroy the economies of many nations. It has to stop or be stopped.

From WSJ

'Stupid' and Oil Prices
Obama's Forrest Gump analysis of rising gas prices.

'The American people aren't stupid," thundered President Obama yesterday in Miami, ridiculing Republicans who are blaming him for rising gasoline prices. Let's hope he's right, because not even Forrest Gump could believe the logic of what Mr. Obama is trying to sell.

To wit, that a) gasoline prices are beyond his control, but b) to the extent oil and gas production is rising in America, his energy policies deserve all the credit, and c) higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy. Where to begin?

It's true enough that oil prices can't be commanded from the Oval Office, so in that sense Mr. Obama's disavowal of blame is a rare show of humility in the face of market forces. Would that he showed similar modesty in trying to command the tides of home prices, car sales ("cash for clunkers"), or the production of electric batteries.

The oil price surge has several likely sources. One is the turmoil in the Middle East, especially new fears of a supply shock from a conflict with Iran. But it's worth recalling that Mr. Obama also blamed the last oil-price surge, in spring 2011, on the Libyan uprising. Moammar Gadhafi is now gone and Libyan oil production is coming back on stream, yet oil prices dipped only briefly below $90 a barrel and have been rising since October. Something else must be going on.

Mr. Obama yesterday blamed rising demand from the likes of Brazil and China, and there is something to that as well. But this energy demand is also not new, and if anything Chinese and Brazilian economic growth has been slowing in recent months.

Another suspect—one Mr. Obama doesn't like to mention—is U.S. monetary policy. Oil is traded in dollars, and its price therefore rises when the value of the dollar falls, all else being equal. The Federal Reserve throughout Mr. Obama's term has pursued the easiest monetary policy in modern times, expressly to revive the housing market. It has done so with the private support and urging of the White House and through Mr. Obama's appointees who are now a majority on the Fed's Board of Governors.

Oil staged its last price surge along with other commodity prices when the Fed revved up its second burst of "quantitative easing" in 2010-2011. Prices stabilized when QE2 ended. But in recent months the Fed has again signaled its commitment to near-zero interest rates first through 2013, and recently through 2014. Commodity prices, including oil, have since begun another surge, and hedge funds have begun to bet on commodity plays again. John Paulson says he's betting on gold, the ultimate hedge against a falling dollar.

Fed officials and Mr. Obama want to take credit for easy money if stock-market and housing prices rise, but then deny any responsibility if commodity prices rise too, causing food and energy prices to soar for consumers. They can't have it both ways, as not-so-stupid Americans intuitively understand when they buy groceries or gas. This is the double-edged sword of an economic recovery "built to last" on easy money rather than on sound fiscal and regulatory policies.

As for domestic energy, Mr. Obama rightly points to the rising share of U.S. oil consumption now produced at home. But this trend began in the late Bush Administration, which opened up large new areas on and offshore for oil and gas drilling that are now coming on stream. Mr. Obama sneered at expanded drilling as a candidate in 2008 and for most of his term has done little to expand it.

In early 2010, he proposed to open some new areas to drilling but shut that down after the Gulf oil spill. According to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permits Index for January 31, over the previous three months the feds issued an average of three deep-water drilling permits a month compared to the historical average of seven. Over the same three months, the feds approved an average of 4.7 shallow-water permits a month, compared to the historical average of 14.7.

Approval of an offshore drilling plan now takes 92 days, 31 more than the historical average. And so far in 2012, an average of 23% of all drilling plans have been approved, compared to the average of 73.4%.

Oh, and don't forget the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have increased the delivery of oil from Canada and North Dakota's Bakken Shale to Gulf Coast refineries, replacing oil from Venezuela.

The reality is that most of the increase in U.S. oil and gas production has come despite the Obama Administration. It is flowing from the shale boom, which is the result of private technological advances and investment. Mr. Obama has seen the energy sun rise and is crowing like a rooster that he made it happen.

Mr. Obama yesterday also repeated his proposal that now is the time to raise taxes on oil and gas companies, as if doing so will make them more likely to drill. He must not believe the economic truism that when you tax something you get less of it, including fewer of the new jobs they've created.
***

We'd almost feel sorry for Mr. Obama's gas-price predicament if it weren't a case of rough justice. The President has deliberately sought to raise the price of energy throughout the economy via his cap-and-trade agenda. He is now getting his wish, albeit a little too overtly for political comfort. Mr. Obama has also spent three years blaming George W. Bush for every economic ill. If Mr. Obama now feels frustrated by economic events beyond his control, perhaps he should call Mr. Bush for consolation.

Drill, Baby

Like all commodities, when the supply of oil available exceeds the demand, the price will drop. Drill, Drill, Drill!

And when was it that you saw the price of gas drop, except for seasonal fluctuations when they slam home heating oil? It has zero to do with supply or demand. We have plenty of oil. Two years ago the excuse was to encourage conservation. The latest price hike was to maintain profits due to the population conserving. Rationalize that one. Then there is the 'instability in the middle east', like it has ever been or ever will be stable. All excuses, but only one reason...greed. Not one more well should be dug, nor another dollar of subsidies awarded until they are owned by the taxpayers.
I expect that in the very near future we are going to see trucks around the world come to a stop and their drivers walk away, because they cannot absorb the higher price of fuel, and it's coming too fast for them to pass it on to the consumer in time to stay profitable.

This is a world-wide problem Pascal. Let's make a concerted effort to keep the individual politics and politicians out of this discussion, as tempting as it is during an election year in this country. This problem must be tackled on a nation by nation as well as world population vs; oil interests basis. Not by individual politicians. That's a distraction the oil interests want in order to get the spotlight off them. It all boils down to OPEC, the oil companies and the commodity brokers. Without them there would be no inflation of any sort. With them the entire world is in danger.

Tanker transportation amounts to only a few cents per gallon.

The day rate for a Suezmax tanker is around $22,000 per day, the ship can carry over a million barrels.

IMO

The following includes fuel costs/supplies as well as most other material and social items tearing apart our national as well as the global economy and lifestyles. Creating destabilization throughout nations... the final paragraph defines the reason and cure to what troubles our nation and the world. Easy to state, nearly impossible to implement in the minds of leaders...


Globally: We Thinking Citizens (of the billions general population who support the entire monstrous-sized world manufacturing, product, commodity, and economic engines) are beating ourselves to death via words and thoughts trying to define and understand who, what, where, and why national and international economic, business, and energy systems are entering into unsustainable troubles, i.e. heading toward unprecedented interruptions (too likely substantial failures). The depths of top level executive skullduggery driven by greed and lies in governments, global businesses, and global financial systems are the cumulative reasons for the unsettling conditions we are experiencing. It appears, due to unmanageable levels of complications already in position, there needs to occur a massive global economic accident before rebuilding can begin. Due to U.S. Presidential race national and international economic shell games may be able to sustain debt bubbles through 2012. 2013 thru 2016, and probably further into the future, will provide global problematic experiences unlike any ever before encountered.

Unfortunately, there is currently not a **** thing that can be done to avert the oncoming conditions... by We Thinking Citizens.

Greed in dealings is not good and Lies eventually die. Equitable dealings are good and Truth eternally lives. Just That Simple!

Not necessarily. A total socialist form does not work because there are more people willing to take than to give. That doesn't mean that some of its principles, combined with a capitalist society, isn't a better way to go. Profit is not the only incentive for people doing things.

And what do you think the store shelves are going to look like if trucks can't afford to roll?

Mismanagement is mismanagement, regardless whether it's the private or public sector. However the U.S.P.O. must survive for national security purposes.

The days of all doctors doing well disappeared with the institution of HMO's, a profit making scheme. run amok. All social systems combined haven't done near the damage to doctor's income they did.

Governments have taken over because business has failed to care for the masses. Very few people wouldn't prefer to earn their living, but we also don't want to trip over dead bodies on our way out of the house each morning.

You won't be able to get anything if the trucks stop rolling. You also won't have any workers in your business if they can't afford to drive to their jobs or if their jobs don't pay enough for them to eat.
There is no one perfect form of government. The reason Russia turned to socialism is because their form of government was oppressive and starved their people. So they went far in the other direction. Capitalism and democracy seems to me to be the best form of government, however it too isn't perfect. It depends of morals, ethics and a sense of fairness to be successful. Business should be allowed and encouraged to flourish, unless it goes too far and tries to take unfair advantage. Then it has to be reined in. That's why we have anti-trust laws, etc. The oil interests have gone so far over the line that they are endangering the jobs and very lives of all but the richest of the world's population. Look at the winter northern Europe just suffered, and the number of deaths. Imagine if none of the homes could get heating fuel or food because the trucks couldn't afford to run or the populations couldn't afford to buy. That's not some far off hypothetical scenario. Independent truckers in this country make on average about $20K a year. How much additional cost do you think they can absorb before they park their rigs?

NYCAP, the big thing you're failing to realize is OPEC is the one that has ALL of the control of oil and it's prices. Piss them off and they'll stop producing and we'll have NO gas. Have you forgotten the gas rationing in the 70's where you couldn't even buy as much gas as you needed, no matter what you were willing to pay for it.

If we are allowed to drill here, we have independance from outside sources of oil. If the pipeline from Canada is allowed, we have a solid supply of oil from one of our BEST allies and Venezuala can take their oil elsewhere. As it stands Canada is going to ship their oil to China. Right now, the Chinese are in Cuba drilling oil rigs off of our coast for oil that we could be pumping. In shore and near shore oil rigs are safe to drill and operate, and look no bigger than some channel markers. We are losing our competitive advantage as a country and handing it to China. If OPEC knows that we don't need them if we don't want them, we are in a MUCH better bargaining situation and oil prices will drop. If a war broke out, we are also in a much better situation to defend our country. Private businesses fail from a culmination of a lot of bad small decisions, not one big bad decision. Governments are the same way and we are little by little making a lot of small bad decisions.

First, I don't subscribe to a policy of fear. Try to scare me and you'll find serious trouble coming. It's much better to be my friend, but don't ever mistake my benevolence for weakness. That's America.
Second, I agree that we should exploit all of our energy resources, beginning with the least destructive and proceeding however far we must to protect our nation and our friends. BUT, we should do this for us, NOT to increase the profits of the oil companies that are ripping us off. Nationalize the oil industry and I'll say build that pipeline, burn the coal and build those oil rigs. Till then, why destroy our natural resources and national treasures so Exxon-Mobile, Shell and BP can get richer? We've survived rationing before. I say let's do it again in order to break up OPEC and big oil. It's time. As bad as it will be, it will be worse next year, and when you're grand kids get to my age...well they won't. Not unless we act now.

What are they going to do with it, drink it?

If the Saudis or any other "westernized" oil producing nation stops selling oil for a week they will have a revolution that will make the overthrow of the Shah look like a university protest.

And one of the other cesspools that are run by post-colonial kleptocrats will be more than happy to sell at a few dollars a barrel if that is what it takes to maintain their personal lifestyle.