One more thing...

James mentioned the nation "not forgetting $3.60 a gallon"...

Ryan mentioned the fact that oil is a commodity, and is traded as such. It is the commodity market price that is driving the cost of gas so high, not availability or the lack there of... as I know we all understand.

Something to ponder, though...

Let's say that the price spikes as high as $150/barrel this summer, then the market adjusts and it calms back down to as low as $80/barrel by the fall. This is easily something we could see... these numbers aren't in anyway outrageous in their scope.

The above example shows a swing of $70 dollars a barrel from its highest spike to lowest median price over... say 4 months. With me so far?

If we go back only ten years to the month, we find the price of a barrel of crude oil at $11.91. Yes, you read it right... less than $12 a barrel in April of 1998. What that means now is that the imaginary swing I wrote of above... just the swing between high spike and median price... is 6 times greater than the 10 year average increase in price per barrel of crude oil... and that swing is only over a 4 month period of time.

NOW imagine that by the dead of winter, '08/'09... the NEXT spike in the crude oil price takes us to $200/barrel, and the market only adjusts down to $150/barrel 3 months later.

See the pattern?

Then imagine a shooting war in Iran... even if there are no Americans involved. THEN imagine Chavez actually gaining control of Columbia, thanks to Bush's refusal to "get tough" over the recent border incident between the two. THEN imagine Putin Jr. (I can't recall his name) deciding to play hard-ball over Arctic "land" rights, or something just as meaningless and cutting off the tap to all but the EU and China (his biggest buyers now, anyway).

Any ONE of these things could DOUBLE the price of a barrel of crude... what would all three do?

What would then happen to the US economy?

How long do we last as a viable force in the world's economic machinations when oil is going for $300 a barrel?