Man. I wonder how they will be able to issue another press release explaining the increased price of fuel, and how it's not just a money grab on their part again.

I wonder when they will announce the next round of layoffs.

Makes me want to go out and trade my car for a horse.

Why shouldn't it be a money grab? They're a corporation, not a charity.

Man, I need to get a job there. Trillion dollar bonus, here I come!

I've gotta agree with dejardins. The reason gas prices are so high is NOT because of the cost to supply the gas - it's the fact that it has an almost perfectly inelastic demand curve, at least in the US. EM and other gas companies can charge pretty much whatever they'd like, and US consumers will pay it. The way to bring down prices is to decrease the demand for gasoline.

I should clarify. I don't have a problem with a company making a profit. Canadian banks, for example. Make a profit, knock yourself out. But don't send me letters telling me that you have to raise my service charge rates due to "increases in costs". Save me the bullshit.

If I don't use my bank's bank machine, for example, I incur 3 bucks in service charges. That's ridiculous. Make a profit, but...c'mon.

I am sure I've heard (from oil companies) that the increased cost in fuel is due to market pressures, etc. It would appear that the increases in cost to the consumer are being seen in increases in profits. If the market is demanding the increases in cost to consumer, I would think that profits would stay sorta in line, not up dramatically.

I'm no economist, so perhaps I'm ill-informed, or naive. It just feels like we are being handed a thick line of BS while the profits roll in.

The price of gas is not yet high enough to get moms to give up their minivans and boys to give up their sports cars and monster trucks. What's surprising to me is that increased energy costs haven't yet rippled through to produce commeasurate cost increases in other goods, food in particular. It's clear though that the energy companies can charge whatever they want. They've got us by the short hairs unless we want to go back to subsistence farming.

DarkForest: food companies absorb the impact of gas prices partially by shrinking their market, i.e. shipping only to stores within x miles of the production facility. That's why you can find brands in Seattle that you can't get in Chicago and vice versa. It's not because there's no market for the product in the other city, it's just too damned expensive for them to get it there.

Thanks, desjardins, that's interesting. Sort of the other side of the coin to the idea of buying local.

I should also avoid saying flippant things like "the energy companies can charge whatever they want". Clearly gas is subject to the laws of supply and demand like everything else. The cost of oil and cost of production probably create a floor price for a gallon of gas, but with demand so high and production capacity limited (and hard to quickly increase), buyers can bid up the price to get the supplies they need. The gas company makes money then. They're probably just as happy not investing in new refineries, to keep the supply below the demand so that prices remain high.

I drink your milkshake.

The cost of making an item has relatively little to do with its eventual price or fluctuations in said price. You can't think that a latte has $4 in materials going into it, even accounting for labor costs. But look at what is happening with Starbucks - they're introducing lower-price coffees because the demand for their luxury products is incredibly elastic. People can much more easily skip their daily latte than they can their weekly gas fill-up. The inelastic demand for oil has been outstripping supply, thus the price rises spectacularly. For more info on the production side, this is a good article. As a company, if you are certain to face increasing expenses in providing your product, it makes sense to charge more now so you can buy that equipment, no?

Maybe they should buy Google?