We're looking at $0.73/liter here for regular right now. This does not surprise me at all.
Ever since I watched the documentary The End of Suburbia back in early 2005, I have been aware of Peak Oil, the point where global petroleum extraction maxes out and begins its inevitable decline.
Since the United States passed its own peak back in 1970, its domestic production has declined by half from a maximum of 10 million barrels per day while daily consumption in the United States now stands at about 20 million barrels per day, about one quarter of global production capacity. Some other oil producing countries have likewise passed their production peaks, and some former exporters have become oil importers. In others increasing domestic consumption leaves less oil for export.
The major oil companies "own" a relatively small percentage of global petroleum reserves. They do not control the price of a barrel of oil. The oil that exists within other country's borders does not "belong" to the United States but may be available to the highest bidder be that China, Japan, or the EU. There is also the factor of market speculation that can cause prices to rise and fall regardless of supply and demand.
So, why isn't an explanation of Peak Oil on the evening news every night since it has such wide ranging repercussions for civilized life as we in the West have come to know it? Ever count the number of SUV commercials during the news broadcasts? That should give one an indication that an economy geared toward consumption and continuous growth cannot accept a future without cheap energy.
As author James Kunstler put it (http://www.kunstler.com/):
Independent researchers studying the global oil situation -- including retired geologists for major oil companies -- have established a pretty firm consensus that we are already in the zone of the global oil production peak -- meaning that whether we are just past, passing now, or passing imminently, the effects are already thundering through the complex systems we depend on to maintain advanced industrial societies. For instance, the crashing of Mexico's Cantarell oil field (60 percent of Mexico's production) means that inside of five years the US will receive no more imports from what has been its third leading source. Being in the zone means that the world's oil exporters in the aggregate will see their exports drop seven to eight percent this year -- because nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and even Norway are using more of their own oil and have less to send out. Being in the zone means that new pricing arrangements will be made, taking the power away from the spot futures markets in New York and London, and shifting that power to long-term deals made by nationalized producers like Russia and Iran, who may decide to embargo consuming nations who don't dance to their tune. Being in the zone means that people in poorer nations will starve because so much of the corn grown in North America will go to ethanol distilleries instead of the dirt-floor kitchens in the Third World.
The more interesting point in all this, for the moment, is that the media has still not put together the collapse of the housing bubble and the permanent oil crisis. These events will be happening simultaneously. The housing industry, so-called, will never recover because the oil crisis spells the end of the suburban build out. The cycle is over. The big production homebuilders will go down and never come back. We won't need any more retail, either. We won't be building anymore WalMarts and Target stores, and the thousands now running will die off just as the giant Baluchitherium of the Asian steppes crapped out in the early Miocene epoch.
The end of the suburban build-out will be a stupendous trauma for the United States because, unfortunately, we have made it the basis of our economy for a generation, as well as our living arrangement. Not only will incomes and livelihoods be lost on the grand scale, and never come back, but, as the global oil predicament deepens, the existing fabric of our vast suburbs will become increasingly useless and worthless. The people stuck in them will lose whatever wealth they have accumulated and our arrangements for daily life will become increasingly nightmarish.
This is the part of the story that the mainstream media still can't put together. Peak oil and the housing bust are a mutually-reinforcing clusterf***.
So, instead of looking for someone to blame for high gas prices, do some research into the situation.
Dave