You also forgot that lots of Americans think it's "NORMAL" to live 50 miles away from where they work. Ask a European what a "Bedroom Community" is, I don't think they'll have an answer for you.

So, we have had many threads asking "why are oil prices going up"?

I have noticed two things that most of the original questions (the ones that start the thread) often have in common.

The first is that the "reasons" offered usually hint of some sort of greedy conspiracy. Are oil prices rising because of greedy speculators? "Greedy capitalists"? Greedy Saudis? Etc etc.

The second is that the question makes it sound like there is something unnatural, weird, or wrong about oil prices going up. Like the OP here asked, why is this "fundamentally wrong" thing happening?

Maybe I'm reading too much into the tone of the questions, but anyway here is my point -

In the US we are conditioned to think that oil prices should be low, gasoline should be cheap, and otherwise there must be a conspiracy and things are all wrong.

Time to come to grips with reality.

There is no global conspiracy to make oil prices high, and nothing says that low oil prices are the natural and right state of the world.

This was all predicted years ago............all part of the plan to make loyal bushies richer than rich.

Some fear a global recession if the shooting starts in Iraq : War talk shakes up oil markets
By Eric Pfanner
Published: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2002

http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/09/12/jitters_ed3_.php
The world fears that Bush (and maybe McCain if elected) has another stupid war up their sleeve on top of the Civil War in Iraq now going on.

I didn't ask why gas was high, fuel oil, plastic. I asked why oil prices were high.
I'm going to simplify this, for me.
I have a garden full of peppers, bushels full! You want 10 bushels of peppers. I sell you your 10 bushels for a price. I don't care if your pepper refinery is down, your customer is 50 miles from his pepper fix, or the pepper futures look gloomy, that's your problem. I'm selling the peppers to you for an agreed upon price. What you do with them is your problem. Now, you come back tomorrow and want 10 more. I still have enough yet I raise the price of my peppers. Why?

OPEC has the same amount of oil they had friggin' 50 years ago, I mean there's plenty.
I know I'm not being a realist here and there's more to it but it just all seems a bit weird to me.

YIKES, it's gone from $30.00 to $130.00 in 5 1/2 years???

I agree 100%

A better question may be, "why was the price of oil so low for last 20 or 30 years?"

There's an interesting article in BusinessWeek (I think) this week. It talks about he decreasing R&D expenditures by the big 5 oil companies vs increased R&D by all the rest.

It also discusses the volitility of many oil producing foreign countries and how they don't release there production or consumption numbers. They said the big one is China. We don't know for sure how much they're using, but there are companies whose sole purpose is to count tankers going in and out of ports to try to figure out what is going on in the rest of the world.

I read in National Geographic that China's oil imports increased about 650% from 1996 to 2006 :o

I think if you chart that low price 20 or 30 yrs. ago against American and European, even Japanese outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing to 3rd world countries over the last 20 years, and you'll see how the price increase of oil was more than inevitable.

World oil producers do not have much spare capacity, oil is a finite and diminishing resource not a renewable one (like peppers), and there is no agreed-on price for oil.

So it is more like - I have a warehouse of peppers. That's all the peppers I will ever have, there is no pepper garden. My peppers don't go bad but I can't replace them once sold. So every pepper I sell this year is a pepper I won't be have available to sell in future decades, when I could sell them for $???.

Last year I sold you 10 bushels of peppers for $1.00 per. I can pull and pack only 10 bushels this year with not much increase expected for next year. You and your neighbors together want 10 bushels this year, but you're loving peppers and looks like you'll want 11 bushels next year, 12 the year after, etc.

Plus, you and I don't negotiate the price directly and I have no contract to sell to you for any set price. Instead, investors are watching us, they trade peppers among each other, and they bet on future pepper prices. Those investors see their other investments losing money and their US$ going down in value, but they think my peppers will go up in value so they are betting the price next year will be $2.00 and they are trading peppers for $1.50 today.

By the way, you and I are not close friends or even neighbors - I'm a Russian / Saudi / Iranian / Venezulan / Nigerian / etc and you're a Japanese / American / Frenchman / Chinese / etc. My primary interest is to maximize my lifetime profit.

So, why would I sell you peppers for the same $1.00 price that you got last year?

It is #2.
There is plenty of oil to go around. We are not using too much of it.
The supply has kept up with demand just fine and the price has doubled.

Some folks here actually think (misnomer) that the oil companies set the prices at the pumps for fuel, they don't. the owner or manager of the station does that.
the oil companies do not set the price of oil either. They get as much as they can, just as always.
The ONLY reason oil is so high is because investors are using it as a tool to make money. If people think it will go up, it does. self-fulfilling prophecy. That is what is going on. The big investment boys are jacking it up, the smaller fish jump on the bandwagon, and they continue to pump it beyond all sanity. Shenanigans.
it will fall and fall hard and I will have no sympathy for those who lose their butts on it.

Man, I'm lost. I thought the oil companies owned the refineries, no? And yes the stations set their prices but they do only make pennies on the dollar.
As far as the peppers go... I've got a HUGE warehouse!