I see that my fierce personal boycott of Exxon Mobile (in effect since the Valdez oil spill) is about to bring them to their knees. They are only making tons of money because they are in their last throes.

The prices at the pump are a bit hard to get "accustomed too", when for so much of my life gas was 1.00-$1.50 per gallon but the ROI of my investment in XOM since 1999 is staggering! It almost counter balances the loss in AOL in 2000.....

RB

Anyone here think this might actually begin to force urban jurisdictions to consider implementing real public transit options?

Aw heck, me neither...

Anyone here think this might...

But it might just force the masses to make those "free market" (heh) changes that we all need to do. Yes, I know the short term run-up is hard on folks, especially the poor and those on fixed incomes. But dammit, it's got to happen sometime somehow.

I think the Katrina hikes were just starting to have a positive effect and then it reversed, lulling everyone back to their old habits. I say let the prices inch up and get Congress to rescind all the big tax breaks on oil companies and make new tax breaks for those truly affected in the adverse. With their after-tax profits, the oil companies could still easily afford some cleanest technology new refineries to ease the crunch. But they won't build them. I guess it's more profitable not to, and if it forces people to change their lifestyle, I'm not sure that's so bad.

Crude oil prices have not risen; the problem is refining capacity. If asked, the oil industry and their handmaidens in the GOP and on Fox will tell you that they just can't build enough refineries because of those mean environmentalists. What's a poor underfunded multinational corporation to do!

The oil plutocrats (or is that pollut-ocrats?) saw how much money electricity generators made in California by simple market manipulations at times of high demands. It seemed like a good idea to join the fun.

If we had a functioning democracy, these SOBs who are stealing a few hundred dollars a year from every one of us would be in jail. This is what happens when laissez-faire is an article of faith, despite the oligopolistic structure of the market that makes it inefficient at anything but producing profits for guys in $5000 suits.

Liberty and justice for all.