Poll: Will Gas Hit $5/Gal by 4th of July?

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Frank M

what if they had to pay more taxes, where would it come from? yup the consumer and who wins, the one receiving the taxes.

That's assuming the consumer will continue buying the same amount of gas if the integrateds simply pass the new taxes directly onto the motorist. This is false.
There is a price point where the consumer simply buys less of their of product.

And of course the downstream costs of those higher gas prices show up in other consumer goods. The motorist can not buy the same amount of gas while paying more for the usual quantity of beef, eggs, bread. Partciularly now that consumers do not have a dozen revolving credit card accounts to soak up the deficit in their pay checks. Those credit lines have been slashed drastically. No cash no credit = motorist stays home. The Oil companies will no doubt rack up their biggest profits when crude oil prices hit a new high but it will cost them later. But of course this is limited to the U.S. market. With explosive growth in Asia and commodity rich states in South America they'll have no problem selling their product in other markets. And since this is not Venezuela where private oil interest are nationalized most likely any new oil production here will simply end up in one of the two million gas tanks that China is putting onto the road EACH MONTH.
We have all the coal in the world, although that is a an econlogical disaster in the works, in the short term it will hurt the consumer less than surging oil prices if we can get cars that use less or no oil on the road. the eco considerations are secondary to the practical implications of long term $5 gas. Those who mocked the technology of electric vehicles and plug in hybrids are going to watch those investors of those technologies laugh all the way to the billionaires' bank.