Gouging At The Pump

Yes, I believe they are.....
In three different ways.

Nationwide, there is an average of 46 cents added to the price of each gallon of diesel or gasoline....added by the various governments with their hands in our pocket. This is the average, your state may tax you more, or less. And yes, I know most of that money goes towards roadbuilding.....but not nearly enough of it. The amount collected is staggering, and it should all go towards roadbuilding.The various governments charge a huge handling fee. We'll call it that, but we all know what it is.

I make my living on the highways of America, so I know some tax is needed, but not this much. I drive by a huge road construction project 4 times a day, and it amazes me to see the awesome machinery of capitalism working so magnificently. It is amazing to watch roadbuilding. Companies like Haliburton invest billions of dollars in specialized machinery just to get gasoline to us at a reasonable price, (check out the price of fuel elsewhere, say Europe) and the road building companies invest billions in specialized machinery, used only for roadbuilding. I for one am grateful for big oil, and big construction. BIG OIL....I'm glad they are big, we all benifit, and the 10 cents they make on each gallon of gas I use, is a fair profit margin. All of you wishing to punish the big oil companies are not very bright....any burden you place on Big Oil, will be paid for you at the pumps....DAH

LikewiseI am not advocating abolishing the tax on fuel, but it could use some careful auditing.

On the average the oil companies that put up the capital and take the risk (think hurricane damage, etc.)make a profit of 10 cents a gallon. I am not going to argue semantics with you, so we'll just consider the 10 cents a gallon profit is gouging.

So I am hearing people moaning to the government about the profits made by the oil companies. Bizarre, you want the biggest gouger of all, to punish the gouger in third place. Any more government involvement in the free trade of this industry will result in long lines, high prices and you will only have yourself to blame. It is already over regulated and has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in forced compliance to enviromental rules, but again we the consumers paid for them. Those enviromental rules have helped us all, so that was a good investment. I am glad that this industry is watched closely, and that we have learned to extract, and refine oil safely, and without damaging the Earth. Not all nations can say the same. The Persian Gulf Countries are not as good to the Earth as we are. All in all, I think Big Oil does an excellant job of getting gasoline to consumers. Of course there is nothing we can do about the price the OPEC charges us for crude, and we use more and more each year. Funny thing, I don't hear many people railing against the OPEC countries that are the second biggest gouger. I don't think there is political will to end our dependance, I think Washington likes to have a scapegoat to blame. We have a refining problem that will not be solved until Washington puts the envirowacko's in place. No we don't want the Government to take on Big Oil. When they take over something they make it worse. Everytime...every single time.

Here is the list of the gougers, in order.
1. Governments
2. OPEC
3. Big oil

The first two on that list do nothing at all to bring gasoline to your neighborhood 7-11.
They produce nothing, but you pay dearly to them.
OPEC is only the owner of the deposits of oil, it sells it's oil in the ground, so it does nothing but make money. They would never think of getting their white robes or soft hands dirty.

Yes, I'll join in the calling for action against gouging, in this order, Government, OPEC then Big Oil.