Alexei Miller, CEO of OAO Gazprom, the world's biggest natural-gas company, said oil would hit $250 in the "foreseeable future." Option traders are already making bets. At least 3,008 options contracts have been purchased giving owners the right to buy oil at $250 in December, according to Bloomberg.

From 2004 to 2006, the top 27 oil companies tracked by the Energy Information Administration saw their tax bills nearly double, from $48.4 billion to $90.4 billion. Check out ExxonMobil's 2007 tax bill: sales, excise, and income taxes totaled $102 billion on $390 billion in sales. Think that might affect gasoline prices a little?

Legendary oilman and billionaire T. Boone Pickens called our imports of foreign oil "the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind" – from the U.S. to oil-exporting nations.

In an interview with Oil and Gas Investor, Pickens said we pay about $700 billion per year for imported oil, a figure he predicts will rise to $10 trillion within the next 10 years. America is increasingly at the mercy of oil-producing