Peak Oil

and it did break loose some grey matter and i do remember this from my college economics classes.

I have read the 3 shorter links and will read the long one later today, so my question may be answered, but this seem to apply to commodities and or what I call a necessity. Lets face it although it may be price fixing but if all of the oil companies raised prices to $5 for no reason other than profit, we can't stop driving all together.

So that answers why the prices go up quickly and down slowly, and maybe why they never fall back to the old mark.

But, the double answer, in my examples water heater vs. propane tank, only causes people to question their ethics. Also, some people want to know why if $95 oil = $3.00 last year why doesn't it today, has all the other factors changed so much? (I saw a post on this yesterday)

I could accept the oil companies doing what they do if we were not padding their profits with tax cuts.