Oil companies haven't built new refineries in 30 years, yet they continue to rake in sky high profits. Rather than invest in new refineries, they just repair, and have maintenance shutdowns all at the same time right before summer driving season. Consumers will continue to get screwed, until they get rid of SUV's and start to seek efficiency and conserve. Apparently they don't mind the pain, since demand continues at record levels.
Point of order, please.
The oil companies have nothing to do with anything you have just described, it is your Congressional and legislative leaders who have passed environmental laws in the past that keep oil companies from keeping prices lower. This includes this newly created ethanol additive that is more expensive to manufacture and is forcing all of the oil companies to retool their refineries to in order to produce this boondoggle.
If you look at the balance sheet of every major oil producer, they currently have a profit margin of around 7-9% based on the company. So if you want to vent, talk to the people who you elected and tell them enough is enough and get their act together for the peoples benefit.
Fib
The refiners have had ample opportunity to re-invest their profits into refineries. They have simply chosen not to. They also have immense lobbying strength. I'm sure an elected official is really going to listen to the average voter when they can be "persuaded" by big oil, and their correspondingly big bucks. As far as ethanol is concerned, you can blame the crooks at ADM, and their lobbying efforts. They are the ones who convinced elected officials that an "ethanol market" needed to be subsidized to the tune of 52 cents a gallon.
The US automakers were part of that fraud also. It was a convulated way to allow them to keep from falling further behind the foreign car makers, and keep the environmentalists off their backs. Otherwise they would have had to invest hundreds billions to meet higher CAFE standards that would have been the alternative. They knew their product sucked and would get beaten by the likes of Toyota and Honda years ago. Ethanol was an easier route to apease the tree-huggers, and taxpayers would have to foot the bill. (i.e. taxpayers and consumers could buy foreign, but they would have to still buy gas with ethanol in it.)
Ethanol is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American public. Frankly I find it Ironic that Toyota and Honda are still kicking their a$$es anyway. They will stay light years ahead of the Little 3 in terms of fuel economy and emissions.
I can hardly blame elected officials because they are too crooked and too stupid to realize how the real world works in terms of technology, patents and competition. We should be thankful we have foreign competitors on the auto front, and also other fronts, otherwise we'd all still be driving Pinto's and Edsels.
I can hardly feel sorry for big oil having "low" profit margins, when XOM makes $36 BILLION in one quarter.
Heck, the people you should feel sorry for are the small businesses, who get no breaks but create most of the jobs in this country. High volume discount clothes retailers can have margins of only 2-3%.
I can bet you that $4 and $5 gas will come sooner than later, and the American public will have little they can do except perhaps capitulate and buy smaller vehicles. In India, there is a car company targeting a price of $2300 for a car to be sold for the masses in that country and China. Even if they are twice that price, it will affect gas consumption drastically in the coming decades. Imagine hundreds of millions of new auto owners in China and India. The oil companies will continue to rake in profits and give a rats a$$ about the American consumer.
And yet we have no major disasters and oil prices down.
Oil is only at $61/bbl. The ratio between oil and gas at the pump is getting broadly worse.
Gasoline supplies are at the worst levels since 1950 ! This is crap if you think about it. Oil companies haven't built new refineries in 30 years, yet they continue to rake in sky high profits. Rather than invest in new refineries, they just repair, and have maintenance shutdowns all at the same time right before summer driving season. Consumers will continue to get screwed, until they get rid of SUV's and start to seek efficiency and conserve. Apparently they don't mind the pain, since demand continues at record levels.
We are at $3.25/gal right now, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see $4.00 gas very soon. Any hurricane activity and all bets are off. We are talking at least $5 or possibly $6. 
