Excuse me? IN 1999, gas was about 80 cents a gallon (and over 25% of that was taxes)! After going to a dollar back in the mid 70s (we had deflation between 74 and 99? Gee, imagine that!). DO you think the oil companies were making record profits then? Did you hear a great hue and cry for "oil welfare" because the oil companies were sucking air? And that the largest capitalized companies no longer included ANY oil companies? I was filling up for about $8/tank, and my paycheck was a lot larger than $70!

Sure, 50 years ago, you may have been filling up a gas guzzler for $4 and taking home $35, but then your taxes were a lot lower since you were living in what at the time was poverty. If you applied, I bet you got assistance. Did the oil companies in 99? Want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

Go ahead, and "hurt" the oil companies. And then complain because they cant do anything to solve the energy crises. rely on congress! Sure! They have fixed so many things. Like......name one that has not fattened their coffers!

Selective memory may work when telling stories to grand kids. It does not work in the real world.

So you're saying that oil companies should pay when the price drops (via less money for the oil they sell), and pay when the price rises (via windfall taxes), because you don't like paying more for oil when the price of oil rises? You know the end result of that? You can end up paying more for the oil than before the tax! After all companies won't be as keen to invest in new oil production to increase supply (e.g. in areas where there is a low likelihood of finding oil, and also in other areas where you know there is oil, but it is so costly to obtain it that you need high prices to make it worthwhile), so supply will be lower, meaning higher prices. That's even assuming the companies don't respond to any tax by passing at least some of it onto the consumer (which they might well do) in the form of higher prices.

Also, you seem to think it's wrong for all these companies to make all this money, but who is actually getting the money? A lot of the time it can actually be poor people! The reason is those (post-tax) profits will either be given to shareholders, or reinvested back into the business. Some of those shareholders are likely to include pension funds (unless the US has restrictions on what they can+can't invest and oil companies are prohibited), which in turn will often hold the pensions of countless people on low incomes.

You know Steve, when things like iPhones, PS3's, xbox 360's, blackberrys, starbucks, ebay, amazon.com, etc are still showing profits and large numbers in sales in a country where the economy is suppose to be bad, where the poor are hurting and where jobs are being lost left and right, I think the ones that need to get real are the ones who keep thinking the poor people of this country are living like poor people in Africa, Venezuela, Cuba or even Mexico. People risk their lives crossing the border, making boats are of junk and stacking themselves inside containers to cross the Atlantic or Pacific just to be poor in this country, cause rest a sure they will not become rich 5 minutes after reaching land. But compared to their country, they will think they are.

I am one of those people considered poor by many. Yea, I am poor, I have TV's, laptops, game consoles, a new car, a nice apartment good food in my fridge and pantry, cable, Internet and I even get to eat out from time to time. Why? Because I work for it, because I strive to be more than I am and more than others think I can be and because in this country, anyone can be rich. Just ask Levan Hernandez, Chris Gardner an William Hung.

I look forward to being rich someday, being a Democrat or Liberal will not accomplish that for me.

One's politics is irrelevant to making money. And don't patronise me with the crap about those willing to come to the country of opportunity--that's axiomatic. I'm not belttling this nation, but it has room to improve. How about health care for all as a start.

I have no problem with the idea of health care for all. What I have a problem with is government run health care. Every time I hear people talking about government run health care I just think about how well the government has done running our public education system. Similar problems with that system would crop up in a government run health care system.

Don't get me wrong I don't much care for the current health care system either, it needs some serious reforms, but the government running it isn't the answer.

So do prices. 70 Years ago, a loaf of bread, a Gallon of Milk and a chicken would cost you less than $1. So are we to now go after teh price gouging farmers for their gouging us for the price of food?

And you lived??????