Congress is upset! Cross-armed and pouty lipped, both sides of the isle are fuming mad about the oil company's profits! "How dare the oil companies raise their prices during this war on terror and aftermath in the south!" and "We should do something" can be heard as they slam their fist onto the pulpit! We should subpoena their records, punish them with fines, and pass new laws against this!
This hardly sounds like the free market system we claim to have and smacks sorely of the former Communist states of Russia. Making a profit is an economic crime in communist/socialist/fascist regimes....The United States is no exception. For a nation that follows all of the planks to the communist manifesto, we are making Marx smile in his grave. His dream has been realized and our are being crushed.
So why the spike in oil prices? Who is really guilty of economic crimes? Not Exxon, not Shell Oil, or others. Look no further than the pouty lipped fist pounders that passed the Energy Bill last summer that forces us to use ethanol in our gas. Or the seasonal effectiveness fuel blending that gas makers have to do that disrupts gas flow and there for raises demand. Economics 101 tells you that demand goes up, so does price. It is the free markets natural response to conservation for example, you buy less gas, car pool, ride a bike because the prices are so high. This is because there is so little gas. When you need gas in an emergency it will be there because of this conserving action that a free market produces.
I am getting off my point. If anyone is guilty of "Economic Crimes" then the guilty party is the Demlicans and Republocrates. Their Federal Reserve system has devalued our currency to a mere shadow that it was 60 years ago. Their IRS system takes 60% of our earnings through direct and shadow taxation, leaving the economy in a crippled state. Their deficit spending as us hemorrhaging money and we have no hope to pay it back.
If any one is guilty of criminal behavior look no further than the "D" and the "R" on the ballot box.