Tempest

I just love how the clueless tend to make fun of "conspiracy" theories.. I really wish some days that I could live in their blue sky universe... Corruption, greed and "conspiracies" are what run the world... If you don't comprehend that then you really don't understand the world you live in...

Don't think the oil companies would collude together to drive up all of their profits? You're delusional.. US history alone is filled with corporations "conspiring" to gouge the consumers... If that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be antitrust laws etc.

Here's one for ya.. 1995 secret meetings in hotel in Atlanta to
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/speeches/212266.htm

The first tape segment captures this lawlessness and the contempt that the members of the cartel have for law enforcement and their victims. The meeting that you are about to see was attended by executives from the world's five dominant lysine producers. As you will see in this tape, the cartel members took steps to conceal their meeting, including staggering their arrival and departure times for the meeting so as not to arouse suspicion by having the entire group enter and leave the room at the same time. The members of the cartel had to be careful because the meeting coincided with the largest poultry industry trade association convention, so all of their customers were in town for the trade show. But, as you will see, the lysine executives laughed at the thought of being observed by their customers or by law enforcement. The videotaped recording of this meeting shows that, as the meeting begins, there are some empty seats around the table because of the staggered arrival times. The cartel members are captured on tape jokingly discussing who will fill those empty seats. One cartel member offered that one empty chair was for Tyson Foods, the largest purchaser of lysine in the United States, and that another chair was for ConAgra Foods, also a large U.S. customer. Another cartel member mocked, ironically, that one chair was for the FBI, and a third cartel executive added that the remaining chairs were for the Federal Trade Commission.

Or how about Roche Holding which participated in an illegal price fixing cartel for vitamins, with BASF and Rhone-Poulenc SA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann-La_Roche

A "Textbook" Example - The Vitamin Cartel. Implementing a volume-allocation agreement to restrict output and maximize the incentives of the cartel members to sell at or above the agreed-upon price was at the core of the vitamin cartel, where agreements were reached on everything from how much product each company would produce, which customers they would sell it to, and at what price they would sell it. As with lysine, graphite electrodes, and other cartels, the vitamin conspiracy was not limited merely to a few products, customers or currencies; rather, the cartel members discussed and agreed upon prices and sales volumes for every major vitamin used for human or animal consumption sold throughout the world.
http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/speeches/3981.htm

or how about
....participated in a conspiracy among certain DRAM producers and their officers and employees in the United States and elsewhere to raise and stabilize the price of DRAM sold to certain OEMs from on or about April 1, 2001, to on or about June 15, 2002.

Or how about the fact that the oil companies are pretty much the source of the US antitrust laws to begin with?
http://www.linfo.org/standardoil.html

Do you truly believe that the current oil companies don't collude together? Seriously?