Congress is going to try to get them to tell their story "one more time" in the next few weeks- maybe this time the numbers will make more sense-last time they told us they re-invested their money into those aging refineries to make them able to handle a much larger load and not disturb the environment by having to build new ones in new areas, as well as give them selves a pretty nice monthly paycheck-which I bet is no where near the $14k/month the members of congress make.
It will be interesting to see if the next round of hearings will produce the same results- since this time they are going to be under oath to tell the truth. I do wish I had the same latitude to raise and lower my prices when ever the wind blows - like 3 yrs ago when we were so busy we worked 7 days a week just to keep up with the work load- would have been real nice to double or triple our prices when all that was going on- but, no, I was too busy to think about that at the time-my mistake that time, not again though ,I am quite sure the lenders charged a premium back then to handle the work load too, they seem to be the first to take advantage of this.
We need to get our prices fixed to the price of the property like aspect of the settlement process, as a percentage ,so that our prices more accurately reflect a fair fee for our work.Then we will be able to adjust with the markets without having to  "raise" our prices. I know that here in Virginia that used to be the way it was- but the attorneys ended that when they lost the monopoly on title examinations- back then they got a % fee for each title-now it has shifted to a much larger percentage of the title insurance premium- a pretty good deal which always adjusts to the price of the product too.