In the last 30 days, gas has risen almost 5o cents a gallon (which is a 15% increase), the fastest climb in a decade. Meanwhile, in this same 30 day period, oil has dropped $4 a barrel (which is over a 4% decrease). 'Splain that one to me.
Like I said earlier, I don't deny that taxes and EPA restrictions play a decent portion in the cost of our fuel (it's around 20%). But they don't change drastically like this most recent spike. Something else is going on. And if you're crazy if you don't think it's the speculators and oil companies that cause these wild spikes in prices.
The speculators 'see' some incident in the future might happen [emphasis on 'might'], buy up [almost] all of the futures in oil, thus hopefully driving the future prices up. Meanwhile, the oil companies see this [potential] increase in price, hold onto their crude, and wait to refine it when the price is higher so that they can sell it for that much more money. And it's a win-win for all the sellers involved. If the 'incident' the speculator was counting on happens (Syria goes to war, or there's an earthquake in Asia, or some Arabian prince tweets about Iran [true story], whatever), the prices actually go up, and good for him. But if the 'incident' doesn't happen, then whooppiddeedoo. Being an inelastic product, we, the consumers, are going to buy it whether it's $3 a gallon or $4. They don't lose a dime on it either way.
I'm really looking forward to the day when there is a real, economically-viable alternative to oil. Because when people have the choice of whether or not they buy oil, and they actually stop buying oil, THEN we will see true supply and demand economics in the oil market. And the price will fall like a brick back to reasonable levels.