Here is an idea that might help stabilize oil prices. Allow individuals to buy gasoline at todays prices for delivery in the future. Gasoline Futures for everyone.
People on the East Coast can pre-buy home heating oil and lock in a price. Why can’t we do that with gasoline? Economist could probably predict the effect on the price of gasoline? Both in the short term and in the long term.
People could buy coupons or credits on their credit cards for a specific number of gallons of gasoline at some specified or unspecified future delivery.
I believe that futures markets tend to stabilize prices. An easy test would be the heating oil price fluctuations in various markets versus the percent that is pre-sold all compared to the fluctuations in gasoline prices over the same period.