I can remember when I was a teenager and it was time for me to start purchasing gasoline for my own vehicle at the fuel station. Gasoline prices barely ever seemed to change back then. Weeks would pass by and the price posted at the fuel station would always be the same. When there did happen to be a price change, it was just a few cents difference. Those days of consistency are well behind us now.
             It seems like every time I drive to the gas station to fill my vehicle up with more fuel the price has increased or decreased from the previous time. Sadly enough there is more increasing of prices than there are of decreasing. How can this be right? Are we getting ripped off just because fuel is an everyday necessity? You would think that with the ability for us to recycle petroleum that prices would at least stay about the same.
             I have heard many reasons as to why prices change as often as they do, but how many of them are really legitimate? I tend to think that greed has a lot more to do with it than some petroleum companies are willing to acknowledge. The majority of people living in the United States are not pleased with this constant increasing price of gasoline. We have been emptied of our wallets for too long. We need direction and understanding as to why this happens. Because gasoline is central to our economy and our way of life, we are understandably concerned about the price of filling our vehicles' tanks.
             Gas prices have always been a sore spot for consumers. To the average person, it probably seems as though there is little rhyme or reason to how gasoline prices are determined. When you pump twenty dollars into your tank, that money is broken up into little pieces that get distributed among several entities. Gasoline is just like any other consumer product with a supply chain and several groups who are responsible for setting the price of the product ("How Gas Prices Work"). The media can sometimes lead y...