Gas Price at the Pump Manipulation?

This topic has been talked about often on Dkos over the years.  Normally it comes in the form of "they are manipulating gas prices prior to the election to help Republicans".   I believe that was true in the last election and have not seen good arguments against that.  Here is some background.  I'm a simple man.  I've got a college education but I'm not some great scholar.  I read things.   Throughout my life I have seen no correlation between reality and the price of gasoline.  I live in a port city.  We've got the big oil and gas tanks on the river.  When Katrina hit I was getting a pizza in my local joint and a dock worker was in there and said, "Gas prices are going up $0.40 tomorrow based on the what is on the ships".  I figured he was wrong.  He was more right than wrong.

So, apparently the gas that had been produced well in advance of Katrina and was already on tankers when Katrina just got way more expensive.   Magic?   Now I know the argument about how refineries were damaged, shortages, etc.   I say it was all crap.  How many Americans have waiting in line to buy gas in the last 5 years?  None.  There have been no "shortages".   A shortage implies I can't get any.  I always can.  What I pay for it is a different matter.   Look at these two graphs.  We see how the price of oil and gas both took a nose dive prior to the 2006 elections.   But then look a little further to the right.   Can someone please tell me why in November of 2005 oil was around $60 a barrel and gas was around $2.75.     Now oil is around $95 a barrel and gas is around $2.75.    I might be able to understand this concept if oil only made a small percentage of the ingredients in the soup we call gas but last I checked, if you want the gasoline, you need start with a big bowl of the oil.   And if the market reacted immediately to Katrina, why isn't it reacting immediately to a real market condition?

Why aren't we paying $5 a gallon?   Why is is that whenever prices go up the industry claims that their margins are so thin and that they aren't really making money...blah...blah...blah...but then when their raw material costs go up by 50% they apparently don't have to raise prices.   Anyone?   Beuller?    

One other thing.  Exxon Mobil is the biggest corporation in the world.  They had "disappointing" numbers last quarter.  They only made $9.41 billion.

Irving-based Exxon Mobil earned $9.41 billion, or $1.70 per share, compared to $10.49 billion, or $1.77 a share, in the July-September period of 2006.

How disappointing.