[FreeorDie2]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PARAGON:
What a bunch of F'ing idiots. You are simply trying to win an argument instead of offering anything of real value to the discussion. Trying to make things personal. "It's a Hummer forum..." "you don't have to buy the fuel".

Just F'ing idiots. Everything..... absolutely everything in the US economy is affected by the price of fuel. Everything you buy from the sandpaper you wipe your butt with to the Evian water you drink is affected by the price of fuel. If you don't understand that there are only a handful of oil companies that directly and daily control fuel prices, then move on, you don't have enough knowledge to participate in this discussion.

The oil market of the past 3-5 years is nothing near the oil market it was before. Why in the hell are gas prices dropping now? Because they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar, nothing else. There were no production increases or anything else to explain the $0.25 drop in regular gasoline except pressure was starting to be applied. Did a correlating drop in diesel fuel happen? NO! Why? Because trucking companies are passing the buck along to the consumer right now and are not crying as much, except for the little businesses that don't matter.

Let me say this one more time for those of you that don't realize this. Exxon/Mobil receives about $25,000,000,000 ($25B) every year in some form of subsidies from the United States Government. So, if you don't understand why this argument needs to be had then there is no one intelligent enough to explain it to you.

If you still don't get it and think they are simply trying to make a profit. Exxon/Mobil is sitting on over $30BILLION is liquid cash. CASH!!! If you can't add all of this up and see that a publicly traded company that provides a commercial necessity to the US economy, who also receives ridiculous amounts of subsidy from the government, and then is able to nationally increase the price of fuel in the matter of a day, then..... ding, your fries are done! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It seems clear that you are the right one to identify F'ing idiots from the content of your post. . .and your ability to relate a ding sound to finished fast food obviously comes from recent personal experience.

Check the commodity market for futures prices, Einstien. Check the world demand increases over the last few years, especially in India and China. Pick up the Wall Street Journal or, God Forbid, read a book. It's a global economy and we're not the only ones consuming oil. Regardless of how quickly they were able to get refineries back on line, the fact that 15 or 20 of them were off-line reduced supply. . .and that increases price. Distiribution was disrupted and that reduced supply. . .and that increases price. And why are prices going back down? The refineries are back on line and distribution has been squared away. That increases supply and reduces the price. It's called economics 101.

My point is now and has been that the price of gas is what it is. . . and it's still cheap by any measure. And I don't care if XOM is sitting on 100 billion in cash. They earn it and they are entitled to sit on it or flush it down the john if they wish. You don't like the price of gas? You think they are all crooks? Then open your own oil company and sell gas for a nickel a gallon.