When you hear all the moonbat tinfoil hat gasbag lib's in congress trying to whip up the politics of envy over oil co profits -- remember that the collective fed and state gov'ts collect far more in gas taxes than the net profits - and the tax take is guaranteed quarter in and quarter out --

It's funny. For years, reporters have used the price of milk (and bread) to show that (a few) politicians had no idea what ordinary items cost at the grocery. Now, here we have an editor at a major newspaper who doesn't know what milk costs.

(Full disclosure: Neither did I. But that's because I have lactose intolerance and buy soy milk instead. And I can tell you to within a dime or so what soy milk costs at Trader Joes.)

If the Left isn't whining about Wal-Mart's low prices, they are whining about Exxon's high prices. They need to make up their mind.

Perhaps Vesley overlooked the obvious because he hasn't ENEMIZED lately!

This is one reason why I have to scoff at the Globalists who extoll the virtues of offshoring and outsourcing as "good for the consumer" because we can all live happily ever after on a boatload of cheap foreign goods, all those "savings" from cheap foreign labor being passed on to the consumer. I'll believe that when I start seeing $2000 KIAs on offer at the local dealer.

Suave Shampoo??? Obviously, you don't have any teenage girls in your household. They pay alot more then that for some of the other brands and they would go thru a bottle that size in about 7 or 8 days.

I like high gas prices they are a bargain for me. I generally take the Sounder to work so that I don't have to sit in traffic. It takes me a net of ~1.5 hours each way on the Sounder. The last time gas prices went up to near $3/gallon the roads cleared up and I drove to work for about six months.

It takes me ~35 minutes door to door and costs me about $9/day to drive when gas is ~$3/gal.

I hope the day never comes that having and extra couple hours per day isn't worth ~$5/hour to me.

Those of us that don't live in a dense population area are being hit hard by gas prices.

It costs me about $9 just to go to the grocery store. I spent almost $150 on fuel two weeks ago.

While I work from home my wife does not. She makes $8 an hr. Her 40hr week paid for fuel and medical. That's it. If fuel gets much more expensive it will be cheaper for her to stay home.

He had nothing to say except profits biggest in history, $1000/household, oil evil, bush evil, 400 million dollar parachute, exxon evil. Dick- go sit at the kids table and don't come back until you can spell all 50 states.

I don't care for jim cramer all that much, but he had the most [intelligent] to say regarding ethanol mandates.

I don't doubt gouging, but at the same time getting 8 MPG is a choice most drivers make with free will.

In the computer chip industry in the class of chips were I work on USB, timing devices, MCU etc... we shoot for a gross profit margin of at least 40%.

Other factors contribute to the rising price:
Beginning of the summer demand.
The switch to summer formulations requiring refineries shut down to convert to the summer blend, restricting supply.
A fairly static world supply (can you say OPEC) and increasing demand, China and India.
Uncertainty with Iran and Venezuela.
Speculators on the oil market, driving up oil prices on that uncertainty.
Big Oil companies owning very few of their own wells (industry average 3-5% if I remember right), and therefore having their own oil. They then have to buy oil at the current market prices.

Don't forget the taxes: $0.494 per gallon here in WA.

Anyone with a basic understanding of economics, say junior high level, and more of understanding of world events than you can get on the evening news can see perfectly well that the current situation is being driven by the above mentioned factors.

Vesey further displays his profound ignorance with this :
n the Midwest, they are selling something to put in your car called E85, which means an ethanol content of 85 percent of each gallon. In Washington, the hope was to retail B2, only 2 percent of each gallon from a biofuel such as crushed canola seeds.

E85 or 25 or 15 is an ETHANOL blend.
B2 or 50 or 85 is a BIODIESEL blend.
Apples and oranges. Diesel is a different fraction of crude and has different refining costs. Ethanol is produced by fermenting the corn sugars, biodiesel the oil is extracted and refined. Very different cost structure.

Everybody take a deep breath and relax. If the price the of oil stays at current levels the oil shale and oil sands from Canada down into Colorado become economical. If we really wanted to we can have that up and running in 5 years, sooner if we make it a national security project on the priority of the Manhattan project. The oil deposits in the Rockies are estimate in the 2 Trillion (that's right T trillion half of the worlds' total reserves) barrel range as opposed to the Saudi reserves of 112 billion barrels, while we have 160 billion barrels in our working oil fields. If we used our own oil reserves Saudi and the Mideast as an oil source is round off error.

In other words, we can control the price of gas. If we have the political will and determination to do it. Right now the politicians are too friggin' stupid to do the right thing, $100 gas rebate check!!? Arrghhh!

Historically in the last 25 to 30 years there have been 11 Congressional investigation into oil company gouging and collusion. The results, bumpkis, nada, free market and world events drive the price of gas.

May a barrel of oil fall on the politicians heads and knock some sense into them, and just plain squash media maroons like Vesey with facts.

The windfall from the current cost of gasoline is going into government coffers as near as I can tell. Last I heard, big oil makes $0.09 per gallon profit. So with the state taking almost $0.50 and the fed $0.40 (unsure on that one), a tax holiday on gasoline would save us more than taking away tax incentives for big oil. What the fed does need to do, is make it harder for big oil to hand out 400 million dollar golden parachutes and push harder for re-investment of those soaring profits.

but here are some other per barrel prices

1. Coca Cola : $ 200 (supermarket discount)
2. Dasani Water (yep, the one in the plastic bottles) : $ 563
3. Extra Virgin Olive Oil : $ 1655
4. Starbucks Coffee: $ 2566
5. Head and Shoulders Hair Shampoo : $ 3312
6. Reasonable French Wine: $ 4088
7. Bottle of Veuve Cliquot (Champagne) : $ 5700
8. HP Printer Ink (HP 56 Black) : $ 183,750 *yes, that's right
9. Channel No 5 (ok, Parfume): $ 2,565,000

just to put it in perspective

:-)

At $26.33 per week, here is how the money brakes out:

Fed gas tax $1.46
Fed income tax $10.42
Fed & State Environmental Controls $8.78
Washington State gas tax $2.51
Washington sales tax $.65
Greedy Oil Company profits $.09
Cost of oil, refine, distribute, operations, ECT. $2.42

The supply of gasoline is there. The price isn't actually that much. (Go to Europe or Asia sometime and realize they pay much, much more and have for years.) Why would we ration gasoline?

The profit margin reported by the oil companies is 8%. When you consider that a big piece of the cost of gasoline is federal, state and local taxes, if becomes obvious that if the oil companies dropped their margin to zero, the price of gas would not drop that much.

The only real solution to gasoline prices is moving away from oil based energy sources. Nuclear powerplants (like France), bio-fuels (like Brazil) and wind, solar, geothermal, etc. as the technologies develop.

Rationing won't solve anything.

You are right but we must remember it took Brazil 30 years to develop their ethanol program based on sugar cane and 3 years to make the change over. We must also remember that Brazil’s oil consumption was only 3% of what we use in the U.S.

In Brazil, they had the political will to make change but as long as we have elected officials like “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it”, Kennedy and other liberal WHACK-JOBS were all screwed!!!

Until we get rid of the Bi-Partisan Demagoguery, nothing will ever happen!!!

Huh? That is the most inane post I've read yet on this subject. I don't drive an SUV, but if I decide to drive a monster gas guzzler, it's my choice and the price I pay is the cost of gas to operate the vehicle.

America is still the land of the free!?

Move along, nothing to see here.

Under the new Calif emission rules adopted by WA in '09 this Van will be illegal to sell in WA.

WA is pushing Biodiesel but the Calif emissions puts huge restrictions on passenger diesel vehicles.

You can't buy a VW TDI in CA, 40-50 mpg and VW make a diesel version of the Golf for Europe that gets 65 mpg! You can't buy the thing in the US.

The pols instead of listening to sense are following interest groups and ending up at cross purposes.

Another thing I hear all the time from the liberals is the value of hybrids/electic cars. Again, it makes, at least to me, no economical sense to buy a hybrid instead of a car/suv of the same class because the cost of ownership of hybrids, even with the consideration for the saving in fuel, is significantly higher. Any doubters can go to Hybrids vs. similar all-gas models and see for yourself.

Last time I checked I pay for my own gasoline. In addition, my travel, and my wifes travel combined amounted to 4833 miles last year.

I'm waiting for Stefan to do a post on Gore's new Inconvenient Lie.
The latest in environonsense coming to a theatre near you.

I'll come over and help out my electrical bill by cutting off your hot tub, that extra freezer in the garage or the x-box that wastes so much juice must go. That computer must be rationed so you'll have to cut down on reading commie.com and simplesolutionsthatneverwork.com.

Also call me up for the unlock code on your car's computer after I have approved your next trip to the doctor after making sure your electricity bill is going down. Then I will send the unlock code good for six hours of driving unless you’d like to take the bus…the Ron Sims bus to no where…BBBEEEEEWWWAAaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

BTW your tin helmet is a little off center and the Dick Durbin for Leninist of the Year Awards Banquet is filling up quick so get your tickets now!

Hey jerkiod leftist when is it enough is enough to leave well enough alone…oh right yes when you want to do pot, vote from Joel Connelly’s Whidbey pot shack, add votes, screw interns, give away Los Alamos, encourage aliens to riot in the streets, take all the money and squander it on HOV lanes, build gambling halls instead of levees, blame white folk for everything, buy HAMAS greenhouses, root for Iran and impeach Bush etc. etc. etc. then we need to leave you alone….right sorry….can I come burn down another ski resort with you….that was you right??? What is the best kind of club to carry around? One that can beat opponents, SUV’s and any Hispanic not at the “rally” today. Can ya tell me please!!???

I think the Seattle Times editorial board should one month in ANWR on a camping trip in July when the weather gets above freezing. Of course, then the mosquitoes would number in the billions. I think the allure of this "pristine wilderness" would quickly pall for them.

We need much higher gas taxes to reduce consumption, which in turn will hurt oil-rich corrupt dictatorships, reduce funding for terrorism, and help the environment. Sadly, both parties are too stupid and/or chicken to admit that.

Yo, Peggy forget Vanilla, Saffron is ten times more expensive than an A.P.Indy Foal

Forgetaboutit

That's $1352 per year.

Is there another liquid that most people spend $1352 per year on?

The statement seems perfectly defensible to me.