Sure the price of gas is hurting a lot of us right now, but there are some that say $120 oil is actually good for consumers in the long run:
"Nobody at Goldman Sachs wants to see a fuel truck pull up and say "Ok, here's your 60,000 gallons of gasoline,'" said Michael Cosgrove, president of the commodities brokerage Amerex Brokers, which handles transactions for both banks and end users of oil like refineries. "Ultimately, it's the consumer."
Which is one reason why $120 oil is necessary - to limit demand in a supply-constrained world.
"I think the market is working," said Joseph Stanislaw, an independent energy adviser at the consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. "It forces us to make decisions as individual consumers that will change our behavior. It needs to be done."
someguy - if environmentalists were smart, they'd endorse the building of nuclear plants. There's hardly any emissions, and the amount of energy available from the Earth exceeds that of oil.
Seriously, people in Europe pay more for their petrol (in part) because of higher taxes on the stuff. These taxes go on to fund excellent public transportation systems (at least compared to ours). I'd be all for higher prices if the money were being used properly. Instead it's all going to record breaking profits for oil corporations who exist only to make more profits--even if that means the planet has to die.
The USA has huge amounts of oil reserves that have not been tapped for the last 30 years because of environmental concerns. Unfortunately, many environmental activists want to force people to use less fuel for transportation so they like higher gas prices.
There may be a similar issue with the lack of new nuclear power plants in coming years.