4 bucks here in Michigan today...
If I remember correctly, last time the retail price was this high, crude was going for $150.00 a barrel...If that's true, the profits for the refineries and suppliers has gone well beyond robbery...
MI=56.1 cent per gallon tax
currently:
CA=66.1/gallon
NY= 65.6
HI= 64.2
CT= 63.6
IL=61.2
I think you are missing the point. These massive "profits" are inflated dollars that don't go any further than your dollars go at the grocery store.
The robber here is the US government and the FED. Not the producers.
Gasoline should be at most $2.50 a gallon.
The rise in oil (and thus gasoline prices) and food prices is a DIRECT result of the Federal Reserve QE2 program.
"Hot money" from the Federal Reserve is going to re-capitalize the insolvent Too Big To Prosecute banks (Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc.). This money ends up in commodity speculation (i.e., oil & foodstuffs).
My prediction was that we could take 8 weeks of 2008-type gasoline prices before the ordinary consumer crumpled, because when gasoline was $4.00 a gallon in 2008, food prices were VERY LOW. Now, food is HIGH, and the consumer can't pay for the double stealth taxation in gasoline AND food.
The current gasoline prices jumped over my beginning threshold ($3.50 a gallon) in the first week of March.
It's now been about 6 weeks. Yesterday, The Federal Reserve tapped Goldman Sachs (The Vampire Squid) to lower the price of oil, because my prediction was coming true.
They're still not out of the woods, because I don't think they really understand how bad it is (they believe their own propaganda about "The Recovery").
Remember, the oil companies are giving you and me an ACTUAL PRODUCT that we can use to produce, whereas The Banksters are selling us debt, and giving us 1% on our saved money, while they're getting back 12%+ on credit cards, and more on "bank fees & charges".