I appreciate the comments, but it looks like you’re arguing two different ways. At first you talk about a drop by 50%, when the cost went down by 75%. Then you talk about $3 level gas, when oil was pushing $70. So I’m not sure if you’re saying both make sense, or if you agree with one of us more than the other.
The law of supply and demand is an interesting point here. I’m not sure it applies with things we have to buy.
Supply and demand does work, when I can opt out of purchasing something. If I can’t, it essentially amounts to blackmail. You want your gas, I can charge whatever I like.
Unless I want to quit my job, forget about my mortgage and eating, I have to pay the price they charge for gas no matter what it is.
OK, on the day gas prices go up and you're trying to get to work, you either pay or walk. You're stuck, but it's not permanent because you can move closer to work, carpool, buy a smaller car, change jobs --and in about a year you can fight back.
When us big oil people see prices go up we can hire engineers, call on investors, file the permits, and build new refineries --and it takes about ten years. By then demand and prices are back down and we can't fight back for years to come. We're stuck too; this is exactly what happened last time (from DOE's Annual Energy Review) --in the '70's prices soared, but the new refineries we built never got used because people had already changed their habits and they didn't buy all the new gasoline we wanted to sell.
Don't get me wrong, we did what what we did and we got no regrets. The problem is when freepers try and say we're a bunch of crooks --that's wrong.
