o boy im goin to have fun with this one.
the following statements are NOT in anyway intended to be taken offensivly...
i must say that the majority of you are rather uneducated in this matter of oill prices, while many of your statements are true, your intrepretations on them have large errors and missunderstandings. please let me atempt to clarify. i only reciently (today) obtained my own education on the matter in my Economics class, we spent the whole 40 mins discussing the matter and i tool notes.
the main reason for the skyrocketing prices of oil recienely is due to the ever increasing demand comming from China and India, China with an aprox population of 1.3 billion people and India with aprox 1 billion are generating the demand for oil equal to the US'S demand in 2001 (verry high) and in accordance to the laws of supply and demand, as demand increases, price increases, but also supply increases (according to the laws of supply and demand) but in recient years the supply has not been able to rise very much due to the, believe it or not, the LACK of demand, only with this recient rise in demand thus causing a price increase have there been enough profits by the oil companies to make it economical/profitable to drill for oil in new areas. and you all are right that there have been restrictions on where we are allowed to drill, but its not caused by the "tree huggers" its caused by the verry people we elect to office, CONGRESS, its congress and is beurocracies(SP) which are set up to manage these things. but reciently some new oil wells have been found...while the USA has strict restrictions on drilling in the Gulf of mexico, mexico does not and has found a verry large well in their portion of the gulf and plan to start drilling very soon, Indonesia has found large wells of oil and plan to drill, canada has found many oil wells but i dont know if they plan to drill or not. all these other countries have found oil on their land and have readily decided to tap it, WHILE in AMERICA, CONGRESS is turing down bills which would allow us to drill in areas of american soil, mainly...alaska, we know there is oil in West colorado, Utah, and south wyoming yet our congress denies use the right to tap it, then our govt states that there is an oil crisis.
and now CONGRESS AND BUSH have passed a bill which will allow them to 'investigat' the huge profits the oil companies are making, when its these profits which the companies will use to drill in new oil spots.
and now they are discussing TAXING these huge profits, and what is the purpose of this TAX, nothing, it serves soley to fatten up the govt spending. btw, the govt already makes many times more the money from the oil imports than the companies themselves.
so in conclusion, who do you realy have to blame for the oil prices...
CHINA, INDIA, AND OUR CONGRESS!