2. People are surprised that the oil companies are having record profits. They've been screwing us for decades. We don't have to worry about foreign oil screwing us over, our own gas companies can do that just fine thank you.
Oil companies have record profits because they have very big revenues. Their profit margins are actually lower then companies like Apple. Yet nobody accuses Apple of screwing the consumer because they make more money on Ipods then Exxon does on a gallon of gas.
The retail price of oil is determined by the futures market. If you want to blame anyone for running up the price of oil it would be futures traders. However, they got all the money from the Fed, so I guess that makes it somewhat Ben's fault also.