"OK. I suppose it was just a matter of time. In Thailand, a clever thief drilled into car’s fuel tank to steal the gasoline. In the United States, people are complaining about the fuel cost of $5 a gallon. In Europe, they sell it by the liter. In Europe, when on par with the United States, one gallon is now running for $10 a gallon. With the model projecting that we can see oil run-up to over $200 in 2023, we are looking at crazy times in energy which may come back as protests and civil unrest?"
Why would you expect that? What evidence is there? The historical record says something quite different. During the Arab Oil Embargo, gas prices shot up. The reaction? People paid it, just like they're doing now. For the short term. Eventually, American society reacted by employing energy saving efforts throughout, including better use of insulation, taking advantage of mass transit, and (eventually) cars that were more fuel efficient. It's this last one that is the rub. While gas prices are definitely subject to supply and demand, they're not perfectly so. There is a lack of elasticity; it's hard for people to change their consumption to reflect higher prices. You live in the home you have, you drive the car you own, etc. But over time things can get better. Or, if prices drop back down, we get the Hummer all over again. I'm amused by the effort to hang all of this on the president's head, as if he had anything to do with it, or could do anything about it. But America doesn't seem to get that, so Biden will pay a huge political price for it. Because of increases in household income, people are spending about the same proportion of their household expenses on energy that they used to. But you can't turn your head without seeing today's gas prices thrust into your face, so people fixate on that. Demand is very high right now, which drives up the price. Supply is steady, which supports the price increase instead of mitigating it. But it's not "price gouging." It's charging what people will pay--people who could make some choices immediately if they wanted, and will make changes over the long haul if this persists. Consume less. And don't steal.
I tried to make it non political, didn't blamed our president or current administration. This is why posted in off topic section/forum and I hope you are right. I think more can be done by the government to help the Americans at the gas station. As to comparison to 70's, I didn't reside here then, so I may be wrong but to me it appears in US people in the 70's were more tolerant and less mob mentality. "In the last three years, more than 1 million barrels a day of refining capacity has been taken offline because of the pandemic and extreme weather. As the pandemic began to ease, demand for fuel shot up, and there were fewer refineries to meet the need. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a double-whammy for fuel prices. International sanctions barred many companies and countries from buying Russian oil, which sent the price of crude higher. As a result, the remaining refineries in the U.S. are running at more than 90 percent of their capacity and reaping record profits. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a research note that refiners “have the kind of opportunity they wait decades for.” Trade groups said the administration’s focus on climate change and environmental issues is one of the obstacles keeping the industry from investing in refineries. “Refiners do not make multi-billion-dollar investments based on short-term returns,” the trade group chiefs, Mike Somers of API and Chet Thompson of AFPM, wrote. “They look at long-term supply and demand fundamentals and make investments as appropriate.” And even if more refineries open, retail fuel prices won’t fall unless there’s more oil production, Somers and Thompson wrote, reviewing their long-standing complaints that the Biden administration doesn’t do enough to promote domestic energy." Still, high oil prices and high margins are likely to continue into 2023, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.
