One major reason why supply is so short, is that we can't refine it fast enough.......thus cranking up the prices!
199426
So that Exxon can reap billions by have a monoply and keeping supplies well managed (for them) This is consistent with the Cheney Energy Strategy
660257
The concern is inflation and rising prices.  Most of it can be pegged to gas prices.  The high price of gas works its way into the prices of all things.  One way to help slow inflation is to raise the interest rates.\n\nGrowth is good, of course, but inflation can lead to uncontrolled growth, which is not necessarily good.
627456
because we the americans have an attention span this --------- long. as long as we vote like we do....we need to throw out all the lifetime goverment babies and start new. As long as we continue to drive like we do and pay ....its not going to change... we need to stick together as one {which will never happen, and they know it} we cant even stick together, with out the communist ACLU breaking us apart...as for the price gouging that is supposedly going on every week......how does the price of gas jump up 10-15 cents on the weekends. To say its the right of the company is b__sh__. its price gouging when you buy a piece of lumber in the northern state and sell it after hurricane down south for a profit. WHATS THE DIFFERENCE?
25725
There are two kind of prices...\n\n1) price to sell\n\n2) price to not sell\n\nIf you're hurry just consider the first option...
642098
OMG !!! Lucky you. It' 3.14 here and that's lower than it was a week ago. It's gotten up to 3.89 out here. It's all gouging. If it's over 1.50 it's too much.
210017
this is stupid.  100 dollars isn't going to really help anyone when it takes at least 30 dollars at least just to fill up once.  where is this money coming from?  oh yeah, us.  Yeah, i agree w/ u
53373
It's a non-renewable natural resource and it takes forever to be made (as in millions of years). So what we have now is pretty much all we have. If it were cheap then we would have probably run out of it already and then we'd all be screwed.
575439
Maybe there's not enough money involved.
310094
We have already - It's just a matter of the 'powers that be' letting it on to the market. That won't happen until crude oil is almost completely depleted and they can make top dollar on the substitutes (or take your house, first child etc...).
169398
Good question....\nWhen supply is down, demand and price go up \nWhen supply goes up probably because demand goes down so does the price.....I think its something like that but...try reading a book called Business Essentials
287965
politics situation, inflation rate, lack of demand.
126261
Because they can!!!  There are certain thing in our economy that we all have to have and will pay just about anything for.  Think about it....would you pay for overpriced gas or overpriced ice cream, overpriced baby diapers and toilet paper or overpriced magazines and movies.  If you have ever noticed those are the types of things that I think have the biggest price fluctuations because companies know we will just complain but buy anyway.
75712
It is a way of controlling inflation.  With low unemployment you have more people competing for goods and services which drives up prices.  Higher unemployment means there is less purchasing dollars out there which tends to stablize or lower prices.
221432
What are you talking about?\n\nGas prices are high because the world (specificly the USA) haven't been researching or building an alternative fuel source infrastructure. Our politicians, both Rep & Dems are bought and paid for by the oil companies, the wealthiest lobby there is.\n\nWhat has that got to do with partisan politics? Have you been asleep?
197570
probably it is supply and demand
167011
The Gas price problem is a combination of things.No1 because of the moron environmemtalists there are 40 different grades of gasoline in this country, also there is not enough refining capacity because a refiner has not been built in 30 years, and yes we should drill and use our own resourcrs
310325
The liberals above me have no idea what they are talking about\n\nIt is simple supply vs. demand economics.\n\nRight now there is great demand for the product of oil.  For one, China has greatly increased their consumption of the product. \n\nThere are two reasons for a limited supply of oil to the U.S. Both unfortunately are due to liberal legeslation.\n\nThe two reasons are, lack of crude oil, and lack of refineries to refine the oil.\n\nThere is almost as much oil in alaska as there is in the middle east.  There is even more oil offshore, where the liberals won't allow us to drill.  You can now see oil rigs south of florida, however they are not ours.  They belong to China, who is drilling with permission from Cuba.\n\nWe have not built a refinery in 30 years due to strict liberal legeslation.  It has also not allowed current refineries to expand their opperations.  We currently lost one of the few refineries we have in Hurricane Katrina. We can not refine enough oil for our needs at the speed we need due to the lack of sufficient refineries.\n\n It does not take a rocket scientist (although liberals cant seem to grasp the concept) to understand that we are not consuming less oil than we did 30 years ago. \n\nWe need more refineries, and more oil from our own country to lower the price.\n\nWe obviously need to work on other fuel options, but that will take time.  In the meantime, work on what we know.\n\n--\nthis anti bush stuff is really getting old.  "bush is an oil man, he only cares about oil, which is why its expensive.  he's not rich enough, he just wants all that oil for himself"  'We went to Iraq for oil, thats why oil is so expensive", "bush is an idiot, even though he went to the same school as Kerry, and got virtually the same grades".\n\nGrow up liberals, and start thinking for yourself, and stop believing people like michael moore and bill mahr.