I paid 3.14 in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, yesterday. I never cry about the price of gas, it's a world market controlled by supply & demand & market traders. I do know that oil companies use every little excuse they can find to jack it up as often as possible. The best way to bite back is to drive less. Having said that, gas pumps take a much smaller piece of my income than back in the 60's when I paid .40 per gallon while making 1.65 per hour. Almost 1/4 of an hour's wages. Most people I know make from 18-35 an hour know, so gas is considerably less of a hit even at 3-4 dollars a gallon. Lots of people were still making 1.00 an hour & the minimum wage was about .75 cents. The best blue collar jobs around here only paid about 2.50 an hour.
You are correct that fuel prices are a commodity traded on the open market not the refineries. Refineries operate on margins for their profits ( the price difference between the price of crude and and what refined products sell for on the commodity market) oil refineries do not control price. By the way the government makes more per gallon of fuel in taxes then what the refineries make per gallon.
Just like farmers don't control the price of their crops ( commodities traded on the open market).
Biden shut down pipelines and new exploration for oil while approving the Russian pipeline. The US is currently purchasing oil from Russia so essential we are financing the war on the Ukraine people. Not only that but approximately 30% of the fertilizer the US uses is made in Russia from oil. Russia derives 60% of their export income by the sale of oil.
The US is in a catch 22. If we ban petroleum products from Russia the prices will skyrocket even more. If we don't we help finance the atrocities committed against the Ukraine people.
As scooter riders we have low cost transportation to offset the rising prices. Unfortunately food price is affected by the rising cost of oil. From fertilizer, tractors, harvest equipment, transportation to market, distribution to stores all of which take oil.