What’s wrong with someone getting rich?
I assume you would like to get rich?

I'm so not defending the oil companies but does higher gas prices really change your life style?
I do admire your convictions tho. I myself have given up the opportunity to make money at the expense of others. Just doesn’t seem right.

I believe that threshold has already been broken my friend. We'll never see those prices again.

I don't know what you do for a living but it sounds like you have money coming out your asshole. These high oil prices will affect millions of people. Maybe you live in Florida or California but for those that live where it actually gets cold in the winter it will matter.

Not to mention what trouble said about it affecting almost all consumer goods. It takes gas to deliver goods as an example.

oil went up in the 80s due to a supply side issue (problems in Iran and with OPEC). After that was settled, prices went back down.

This time, they are not ever going to come down, and will continue climbing. I wouldnt be surprised if we saw $3 gas by mid 2006, and then up to $4 by 2010.

Reasons the prices are going up:
-Inflation
-War in Iraq, supply safety issues and less than maximal investment there
-Exponentially increasing world demand for oil/energy, particularly from china and india. They have just begun to industrialize/modernize, and they will be growing exponentially for quite a long while. More demand = higher prices (econ 101). Demand is also growing exponentially in the rest of the industrialized world, as electronics proliferate and populations increase.
-Lack of possible exponential supply: it is impossible to increase the supply of oil exponentially. While there is a good amount of oil left in the world, it becomes exceedingly more expensive for oil companies to explore new fields, and especially to get oil out of existing fields at a faster rate. This amounts to a slowly growing linear supply of oil to face a rapidly expanding exponential demand for oil.

The main reason is world demand. I would plan long-term around gasoline (and natural gas along the same lines) being $5-6 a gallon, i.e., live closer to your job if possible, buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, etc.

2.80 in NJ? I saw 2.35 on the turnpike 2 or 3 weeks ago.

2 or 3 weeks ago is the key statement.

A couple of stations like to rip people off around here. Those are the ones that have 2.79 for super. Not counting the cheap gas stations that serve up water, the prices here range from 2.50's-2.70's for regular through super. That's based upon my observations yesterday and today.

A simpler solution would be to tax the purchase of SUVs, or give credits to cars with better fuel milage. The latter is being considered, and I beleive was just implemented into law on a small-scale with Bush signing his energy bill.

We need to create market-based incentives to converse power and gasoline, and they need to be drastic/quick. I am not saying that will solve the problem, only that it can only help. If no strong action is taken, barring a technological miracle, this situation we find ourselves in has only one eventual logical consequence: severe, destructive, worldwide depression like the world has never seen within the next 3-4 decades.