How long will prices go up? this year 2008 and next 2009?
When will we have stability?
It will be nice to know!

Anyway, it is only my opinion

Homero Velazquez

Prices are up, but the oil companies continue to make record profits.
Instead of giving us a check to boost the economy, government should drop their taxes on gasoline completely.
Yes, I know ... we use that money to build and upkeep roads. But I just read Irak costs us 12 billion a month. Let's bring the troops home and spend those millions here, where they are NEEDED.

If they dropped the taxes on gasoline, it would increase the deficit.

It gets you nothing. Worse yet, it would encourage people to buy SUVs.

Can you say "GREED"? There is a supply glut of oil/gas at the US refineries yet the big oil boys keep it artificially inflated and climbing. Why does the DOE/Congress allow this to happen? Can you say "FREE $$$" from the lobbyists?
Free "fact finding" junkets for the Congress and spouses?
EPA and DOE need to streamline the new refinery requirements and make it retroactive before the country implodes from a recession and inflation.

You're kidding, right? Record profits? Not as a percentage of revenue. Oil companies are entitled to make a profit - that's what business is all about. The free market means that businesses can and should make profits. It's the only way our economy survives.

If you (Doug) think that the oil companies are benefiting from higher prices at the pumps, could you please prove that with some cold hard facts? I think that you will see that even if their revenues are increasing because of higher prices at the pumps, their expenses are increasing as well, so there is no net gain for them.

Although discussing facts is much harder than throwing out statements like "only the oil companies win" and not backing them up.

Yes it is true that the oil companies are experiencing record profits, but they are having record expenses as well. The percentage of profits related to sales is still under 15 percent which is not out of line. Companies in other industries have higher profit margins, will they be next on the chopping block. Since we see the price increases daily, we relate that the oil companies are bad.

Currently, we are unable to drill on 85 percent of our known reserves in this country because of public policy. China is now drilling for oil in 21 different countries for its oil needs. They along with France and Canada will be drilling shortly off of Cuba for there oil needs. But yet we can not drill off the coast of Florida! Increasing our domestic drilling will help to lower the price of gasoline.

Yes I am in favor of tax credit for new forms of energy, such as the hybrid cars. But for the short term we need to drill for more oil in the USA!

Yes it is true that the oil companies are experiencing record profits, but they are having record expenses as well. The percentage of profits related to sales is still under 15 percent which is not out of line. Companies in other industries have higher profit margins, will they be next on the chopping block. Since we see the price increases daily, we relate that the oil companies are bad.

Currently, we are unable to drill on 85 percent of our known reserves in this country because of public policy. China is now drilling for oil in 21 different countries for its oil needs. They along with France and Canada will be drilling shortly off of Cuba for there oil needs. But yet we can not drill off the coast of Florida! Increasing our domestic drilling will help to lower the price of gasoline.

Yes I am in favor of tax credit for new forms of energy, such as the hybrid cars. But for the short term we need to drill for more oil in the USA!

If George w would threaten to do something about the record profits the oil companies are making my bet is prices would come down. But since W is a oil man from Texas he will do nothing and off we go to recession.

A recession that he says we are not in but everyone else says we are.

As usual you have people making comments that show they have no understanding of finance. No one that understands finance uses return on sales/revenue as a measure of profitability. What educated finance people use is return on investment(ROI), Return on sales is a totally meaningless number. The oil companies like to publish this information to the uneducated public to indicate that they do not make unusual profits. As an example supermarkets have a very low return on sales,probably 1/3/% yet they are very profitable.I have yet to see the oil companies publish their return on investmant or even their return on assets which is another measure of profitability but is much lower than return on investment

The refiners have already said they will have to raise rates to improve margins

On Don Gonsalves response, it is true that the supermarkets have a very low return on sales, but it is a volume business which is the model for the industry. It is correct that the ROI is higher compared to the return on sales; however, the ROI for an investment is based on a specific project for a company. It does not include overhead cost but only specific cost related to that investment or project.

The percentage of profits related to sales is what the markets look at in evaluating the company/industry, since it is taking into account ALL expenses.

I know!! Why don;t we start using our own oil. If we did this we could drop gas prices to 1.25...No recession...and I guarantee the prices OPEC is charging will drop. They can say what they want for reasons that the gas is going up but when we have record stores on oil and record profits by oil companies...it just don't add up to nothing but price gouging and when it has to be a decision of buying my babies food or gas being bought to get back and forth to work....thats a preety crappy decision. When a person makes a meger earning and pay is not moving but everything we have to buy is going up. thats not right.

I have read all the previous comments and frankly, I am surprised that no one gets it. Rising sweet crude is going up at a rate matching how quickly the US Dollar is going down due to inflation. Thanks to a number of issues..., financing the Iraq war.., corporate bailouts, along with providing financial support to foreign countries the dollar is reaching a point that it cannot compete globally. I predict 5 dollars a gallon by December. Merry Christmas. But do not blame OPEC.., blame the Federal Reserve for continuing to print money, thereby decreasing the value of the dollar.

"Inflation is by design for the purpose of enslaving all of mankind."

If I drill in Alaska I ain't gonna sell you the gasoline for $1.25. The Chinese will pay more than twice that much, maybe more.

We ride 2 Dahon Foldup Boardwalk 7 speed Bicycles We are in are 60s, We ride around 3 times a week 4 miles oneway to town to Wal-Mart To Post office Groceries store,We have foldup Baskets on the back, We love are Dahon Bicycles The Dahon Bicycles was well worth the money You can put it on the Bus Are a Train, NO OIL NO GAS Why do you need a Car A Bicycles is a car Be Nice More Citys put in Bicycles Lanes Have Fun Riding

Where will these gas prices end? I guess it just doesn't matter to good old George W. with the availability of oil products he has, and the money he has, and the perks of being a president. WE just don't count..two seniors on limited income, one on disability. WE have to buy our gas a little at a time....can't afford to fill it up most of the time. I can't imagine having a job in which I had to use my own car and travel for my job. And the price of diesel...I don't know how the independent truckers are making it. I am sure the families who bought diesel pick-ups are sorry. I blame GWB for all this, starting with the two wars. I certainly hope we have a Democratic Pres. in ,09. I am drowning in high prices..

the almighty say's what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul ,so in saying this MR.bush has a very tough delima he has to decide if he wants to rule his empire like the rest of fallen leaders , still readers please remember the vitims in neworleans ,Lburner 007 Peace

there is a god that even mr.bush and the other proud americans that suck the very lining out of the fabric we call justice , I for one love life , not the expense of it the real prize is in the sky, in my farthers house are many masions , you see humans you will never have the last say,this is all a test for us to bow to the creater and repent of the nasty deeds and disrespect we have shown the creater and oh woman pleaes stop gapping yours lto giv life but only to have a change of heart and kill the one very thing you cannot give which is life and if you are gay keep it to yourself and liers keep it to yourself haters of justice learn what it is this is the true inflation of the problem to solve the these issues will have to adopt the old way of survival car pooling gaurdning and other ways to cut corners you will c later

I honestly don't get, it and probably never will

Some rich fools are offering $10 million to anybody who can create from scratch an automobile that gets 100 miles to a gallon, is none polluting and easy on the pocketbook too. First of all, they are appealing to the superrich already, for the average hard-working inventor like me, can't afford to build that kind of prototype vehicle to win the $10 million dollar cash prize. I would like to ask them with your help whatever happened to that fair play philosophy, where the little guy that’s me. Was given a fair chance to cash-in on that kind of deal?

I have already envisioned several inventive concepts vehicles with no money to bring any of them to life. Creating an inexpensive car that gets 500 miles to a gallon of fuel, would be the kind of challenge I would gladly take-on, if I had the money to do so. Yes I would do it for the working poor, not to make the rich richer. In addition, they already know that if we used our God-given imaginations, perhaps we could multiply that incredible mileage by a factor of +10. It's like inventing that awesome microprocessor and those clear LEDs that have brought forth a king's ransom by enhancing all those crank and shake to charge forever flashlight inventions out there. I have no doubt, whatsoever that with out argument the clear LED is the greatest invention since Thomas Edison stumbled on the incandescent bulb.

In conclusion, many rich dummies will try to invent that kind of cheap car, and they will all fail miserably in the attempt. Yes fail big time . It's now up to the poor people out there to finely help us out by giving we the poor struggling geniuses a chance to prove our inventive expertise. Ontill then, you won't see any cars like that for many decades to come.

Sincerely yours, a self-claiming poor scientist and inventor!

P. S.

The only way to create a car like that is to apply the RPS principal with a power utilization curve into the infinite. (*RPS=T+P=SP< D) you would think that those billion-dollar car manufacturing dummies with all those incredibly naive engineers would have already figured it out by now.

PEACE!!! blacksheep_hellishot@yahoo.com