Big oil profits
Funny how no one seems to notice the years and years that big oil companies lose money between the boom times.
I've worked in "Big Oil" for my entire, 25 year career, including companies like Amoco and Standard Oil (now both part of British Petroleum) and Amerada-Hess. The only time I've worked for a PROFITABLE oil company was a brief period at Amoco in the early 80's when OPEC created an artifical shortage and the government attempted to ration the supply. Of course, we didn't get to keep it. The government immediately enacted a "windfall profits tax".
Oh, and there was also a couple of years prior to the Enron meltdown when California tried to rig their natural gas market to fix prices, and we made a bunch of money on the artificial shortage created by that classic piece of government idiocy. (Of course, after the meltdown, Calif. refused to pay their contracts, sued the companies that did nothing illegal for "illegal profits" and nearly put a bunch of NG suppliers out of business)
By the way, if you think this summer's gas prices were high, you must have not been alive in 1983, when the all-time gas price high was set. Adjusted for inflation, in 1983 we were waiting in line to pay $3.20/gallon.