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I think you have a few laughable assumptions of your own. My, what a sense of entitlement you have! You seem to think you have a right to cheap gas always BECAUSE you consider it important that you get around as much as you want to. Your need to get around, to eat, to drink, etc., DOES NOT OBLIGATE the state to interfere in the market and DOES NOT OBLIGATE private business owners to sell you merchandise for $2 when other customers are willing to pay 3. The truth is, your problem is not with the merchant "gouging," as much as your problem is truly with fellow buyers coming to the table willing to spend more money for the same item than you are, which prompts the increase in price. And you resent their ability to outbid you. Do you not realize that when the state controls prices, the merchant gets mad and quits supplying the good? Then nobody can have it. Dumb.

One thing never mentioned in these gas price threads is that a person might choose to save money for a time of need. Yes, instead of buying that plasma TV you can put the money aside and then when gas goes to 3$ you have lots of money with which to buy the gas.

But what people tend to do is buy the Plasma TV and lots of other stuff and have not much money in reserve. Then when necessities get expensive after a disaster of some sort, want someone else (taxpayers who then do with less) to come to their rescue. The result is the taxpayers sacrifice so that bubba can have his toys.

My, what a sense of entitlement you have! You seem to think you have a right to cheap gas always BECAUSE you consider it important that you get around as much as you want to.

Talk about putting words in someone's mouth!!!! I am a firm believer in a free market approach to the production, delivery, and sale of energy products. In fact, I believe in a free market approach to the delivery of all non-public goods.

I am merely pointing out that it is laughable if anyone thinks that the current market for the delivery of transportation and transportation fuels is not largely determined by government choices, policies, and regulatory processes.

I am not advocating that the government step in and further regulate prices. But Williams is naive if he thinks that when I buy gas at the gas station it is a free market transaction that I am free to decline in any meaningful sense. I can also decline to pay my taxes, and if I don't buy gas to get to work to pay my taxes, I will land myself in a lot of hot water. No it is not a free choice at all.

Good response. Also, if government forces prices down, but the businessman does NOT get mad and quit, we just change the equation for who gets the goods.

Instead of the people willing to pay the most for the goods (in other words, the people who think it is worth the most to them) we get the people who are most willing to wait in lines to get them, or who are lucky enough to show up when the truck comes.

Meanwhile, the people who need gas so bad they are willing to pay double for it DON'T get it because when they show up it's all gone, bought by people who didn't really NEED te gas but figured at the price it was offered it was a good deal.

I think you have a good argument. However, here is my problem with how oil and gas are treated in todays world. I live in the DC area and we just got hit with our first snowstorm. Nothing big, a couple inches. Yet, gas prices in the county where I live - Calvert - went up about 2-3 cents per gallon. If what I continue hearing is true, that the oil companies already factor this in, why do they go up even before the storm hits when the gas in the tanks in the ground was purchased before the storm hit. And if prices rise - for example - 10 cents in a two week span during a bad storm period, why then, after the storm is over, does the price only go back down only 5 cents? I happen to live in a state - Maryland - where the state regulates that gas stations cannot undercut or undersell others. So, gas prices usually stay about the same throughout the area you live in. And it may be niave, but if I was making multi billion dollar profits, I would tell the watermelons to pound sand and start building. One way or another, with the right amount of cash, you can get it done.