On May 8, 5:07�pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On 8 May 2007 10:45:56 -0700, Chuck Gould
wrote:

The oil companies have a right to earn a profit. We don't have any
right to cheap oil. The frustration is in being so blatantly
manipulated, and a minor amusement is hearing the programmed
apologists offering the freshest round of big oil excuses for the
various refinery emergencies that just happen to occur during the same
strategically beneficial period each year.

OK, so let's assume this is all true and that US petro consumers are
being manipulated to death and taking it in the shorts.

Where else in the world other than Venezuela and a few other big oil
producers can you buy more cheaply? *If the oil companies were having
trouble selling their product, prices would drop in a hurry. *Is that
supply and demand, or is it manipulation?

We're *exporting* refined products from refineries in the Pacific NW
and then justifying some of the highest prices in the nation 'round
here based on "shortage of supply". So the answer to your question is
really both. It's supply and demand, with a manipulated supply side of
the equation.