I thought I'd repost the chart for ease of discussion re: some of your points.
Sorry but you might notice the spike began in 3/12 and prices rose for four periods before steadying out a bit...The price of gas fell in 75% of the time that it took to go up. Proving conclusively that prices do not rise faster then they fall."
I'm not arguing that the price of gas DOESN'T fall eventually, or that it doesn't fall quickly. But I'm definitely sure that this chart doesn't 'prove conclusively' what you say it does. Look, for example, at what I'm noticing here at the various rises and drops from 4/17 to around the end of June. While the earlier gas price rise seems to correspond to oil, its drops look to correspondingly drop later and less. Say that the gap between crude and gas on 4/17 is the benchmark for the rest of that period. The lines should drop as crude does, but they only minimally track, and gas only varies slightly as crude goes up and down widely. I can't look at these and say unequivocally that 'prices do not rise faster then they fall.' Only when the broad trend in oil is a substantial drop in price is gas price seeming to drop correspondingly, and yes, in some cases quickly.
Consider for example the week of 4/17 where there is a small short spike in Crude but no corresponding spike in gas. Please point out ANY corresponding spike in gas that is not found in crude.
But as I note above, the broad spike in crude has already happened, 'broadening the gap' between gas and oil price, and that not only is there little movement after the price rises, there is almost no movement after substantial drops in oil price. Actually, I'd like to see a chart that shows the current cost of crude oil as a percentage of the current price of gas, which would better settle this discussion. And before you say it, YES, I know that crude now doesn't and shouldn't track prices now precisely. I'm just making the argument for academic purposes here, not out of some grand commitment to bagging on oil companies or gas sales outlets. They are fun to bag on, yeah, but only in a Rat stupid class warfare way. I'm only saying that here, I do see how the data might be supporting the conventional wisdom that gas sales prices don't track crude as quickly on the drops as they do on the rise. But such a chart as I suggest would show what time lag is present quite nicely.
Are you saying that as the price of crude rises that gas stations make less of a profit margin?
Nope, I'm saying that from this chart, the reverse seems to be true. If you look at the gap between the two prices, when oil prices are high, gas prices rise higher, as measured by the width of the gap between the two. When oil prices are lower, the gas prices are dropping more widely. From a consumer perspective, it looks like when oil's cheap, prices are more competitive, but when oil's expensive, gas sale prices all get in line, and at a higher level.