[Doc Mercer]

There are reports that the refineries are absorbing the cost of high oil prices right now (and some of them have hedging contracts in place to mitigate this high price), but within a few months they’ll be passing this burden on to the consumers. Oil prices at the pump could very well hit $5 and if this trend continues, it could hit $8/gallon.

Due of course to the outrageous oil costs, which are more than double what it was going for this time last year.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.
The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.


Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

Of course, that’s what they’re paying now in Europe. Fortunately for many Europeans, the choice of easy public transportation is available as well, unlike much of our country


* NEVER FEAR KIDDIES!!! ..... Georgey has things under control !!!!

In 1999, Candidate Bush Attacked Dems on Gas Price at $1.64, Demanded Clinton ‘Jawbone’ OPEC - But Now as Price Heads to $4 Bush Does Nothing

In 2000, the Republicans used the spike to $1.64 as a campaign issue to bash the Clinton administration and Democratic candidates in the election that year, especially Al Gore:

In June 2000, Republican politicians urged President Bill Clinton to fire his energy secretary, Bill Richardson. Richardson, Michigan Sen. Rod Grams explained, was presiding over an “energy disgrace.”


In 2000, George Bush, the failed oilman, quickly piled on in the criticism of Gore and the Clinton administration, as CBS News pointed out in 2004:

Mr. Bush was critical of Al Gore in the 2000 campaign for being part of “the administration that’s been in charge” while the “price of gasoline has gone steadily upward.” In December 1999, in the first Republican primary debate, Mr. Bush said President Clinton “must jawbone OPEC members to lower prices.”


As gas topped a record level of $50 a barrel this week [Sept. 28, 2004], Mr. Bush has shown no propensity to personally pressure, or “jawbone,” Mideast oil producers to increase output.