The Three Card Monte of gasoline prices

Three Card Monte is a bait and switch game. A 'shill' pretends to play along with the 'mark' to cheat the 'dealer'.

The 'mark' in our case is the American consumer.

The 'shill' is the oil industry.

And the 'dealer'? The Future Contracts of oil. The 'speculators'.

The oil industry says it needs to explore and open new markets and all the while getting Billions of dollars from the Government - i.e. the taxpayer - i.e. the consumer in subsidies to help pay for that exploration.

The speculator moves paper (literally) around and makes Million and Millions of dollars and as this is 'capital gains', gets taxed at a flat 15% rate.

The consumer, having paid taxes that go to the oil industry as subsidies and actually working for a living 'gets' to pay a higher rate of taxes then the speculators.

There is an old saying 'Defication rolls down hill.

Three guesses and the first two are wrong as to who out of the oil industry, the speculators or the consumer is at the bottom of the hill.
See : http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/21/139521/once-again-speculators-behind.html