What's Going on with Gas Prices?

Yesterday I passed a gas station and suddenly the price had jumped another dollar. A month ago it had jumped a dollar as well -- to around $2.50/gallon back then, wasn't it? Now it's $3.50 (give or take a dime or a quarter, which when you collect all that, not to mention all those extra dollars, it's a huge amount of money.)

What's going on? Supply and demand? That's what we're told, isn't it? That's what rattles around in my head without having to be told anything, even though I drive a Prius (by the way) because I'm from Hollywood and that's the coolest car to drive. We're supposed to be green here, a lot of talk, but then there's also a lot of talk about flying first class (Lear Jets seem to be a bit out at the moment) -- first class seats sure use a whole lot more fuel than the ones in back. I would maybe be flying first class too, still, except I hit a financial wall and now only fly economy, even when I work on a TV show or whatever, I get them to divide the first class ticket up into a couple of cheap tickets. It's still a hell of a privileged life, I'd say. But none of this explains the jump in the price of oil. Any thoughts out there? I heard Goldman Sachs, the guys who made the largest profit in their history last quarter have gotten into oil futures. But they're the good guys, aren't they? (They have "gold" in their name and Sachs is sort of like that store on Fifth Avenue, which I always thought of as classy. Also I had always understood that they were the smartest guys on the block -- a lot of pundits were saying that just this past month.) But is it smart to make a huge profit while the rest of us pay double for gas, or even triple? Maybe if they're so smart and all and they made so much money in this last quarter, they could come up with some smart way to pay for a new health care program for all of us, like maybe use some of their money, sounds like they got plenty of it. Any thoughts out there?