Thread: Why do people complain about oil companies raising prices?

If you owned an oil company and you could get more money from buyers then you would raise the prices too. I would also like to state that most people complaining don't work for an oil company; if the people selling the oil they have to US oil companies are charging more because they keep supply low, what is an oil company supposed to do? Pay .84 per gallon and sell it for .50?

Yes, I realize they buy their gas in barrels, not gallons. When converted though you can get the price per gallon, which I do not have a current number on. The numbers before are made up and may or may not reflect today's price.

When Exxon/Mobile is posting profits at the rate of $150,000 per second, yes people are going to complain about the price of gas at the pump being at or above $4/gallon. If you look at supply and demand models the price of gasoline in the United States should be less than $2/gallon. What the average consumer is tired of is that every time someone in the middle east has indigestion, the price at the pump goes up because some speculator somewhere interprets his trip to the hospital as an impending decrease in supply. Then when the supply chain isn't affected, big oil says well the price is already up and people are paying it, why should we lower the price? Then they have the nerve to release a profit statement of $150,000 per second for the second quarter of 2008! Yes people have a right to complain and big brother should step in and regulate the industry since the industry is price gouging the American public.

An overwhelming ignorance of fundamental economic principles.

I agree but, oil is the only way we have to run our cars, correct? We protect oil nations, correct? So if oil is the only thing we can use to run our cars and the oil companies know that, don't they have a responsibility to us to keep the prices down and invest in new technologies? Besides there are so many reasons for oil being so high.

why is that old wrinkly white haired dude so creepy?

Why do people complain about anything that is beyond their control? People tend to complain when things aren't as they would like them to be, and even if they are, they'll find something to complain about. Most people who complain about things that are beyond their control, do so knowing that nothing will change as a result of their complaints. They're just venting their frustrations.