>CB: When you say scandalously cheap, I understand what you are
>saying, including your description of the history of the prices.
>Then I think, well, perhaps from an environmental standpoint the
>"externalized" costs are not in the price. Is that what you mean ?
Yes. Environmental costs as well as social ones (social isolation induced by solo driving, spreading hideousness in the built environment, etc.)
>However, somehow on the straight price issue, I can't help but be
>suspicious that the oil companies are squeezing out extra profits
>and using the complexity and bigness of it all to hide behind.
Well of course. They're capitalist pigs, what else do you expect?
> And doesn't oil play a key role in general inflation ?
Sure helps, yes.
Doug