Fuel prices will take its toll on you regardless if you drive a little or a lot. If you heat your home with oil, if you buy food which requires machinery in its production or transportation, if you have anything shipped to your home, if you buy anything that is shipped to a store you will eventually be paying the cost of higher oil prices.

I recently heard an economist talking on the radio about the reasons behind the current high costs and, not surprisingly, it has nothting to do with supply and demand and everything to do with greed.

His claim is that this round of high prices is "fueled" by speculators in the oil markets buying high with the expectations that the price for crude will continue to rise. He said there is no shortage of oil to justify the rise and that oil companies are not using the windfall profits to search for new sources or develop new technologies (as they always claim) since there is no shortfall to mandate it. They are simply living large off the profits, speculators are hoping to soon be living large off their speculations and we are paying for all this.

While the economist said crude could easily rise to $150/barrel, it could just as easily fall to $30/barrel when the bottom finally drops out of the futures market.

Wayne

That's so true, grocery prices are rising at an enourmous rate, and everything else too. It all trickles down to the consumer. My belt is so tight right now I'm suffocating here. How much more can we stand? Somebody's getting rich and it ain't me.