Juggs, have you ever heard the capitalist economic phrase, "what the market will bear."?
It's a reference to the notion that when a company sets it's price for a given product in a given market, it will try to set it as high as it can in order to maximize profits, but not so high that they make it impossible for consumers to purchase it.
What Exxon-Mobil and all the other huge American oil companies are experts at doing is setting prices at the pump at "what the market will bear".
There is no reason whatsoever that those companies, once they get consumers trained to tolerate a certain pricepoint at the pump, will lower prices unless they absolutely have to in response to public outrage or big businesses that ship a lot of stuff, or congressional pressure or whatever.
They are doing a great job, obviously. They've convinced you that they must be struggling because otherwise, why would prices at the pump be so high for you and me, right?
Well, obviously, they AREN'T struggling, because they keep reporting entirely
obscene profits every quarter.
It is basic corporate behavior, juggs. If you sell gasoline, you have the whole country by the nuts. They're going to squeeze 'em hard and we'll cough up.
They do it becasue they can, and the president and the formerly Republican Congress never said "boo" to any of them.
Why do you think that is?