It makes perfect sense that all of this would be caused by the war in Ukraine though. Fossil fuel production was already tight prior to that happening, and Russ

It makes perfect sense that all of this would be caused by the war in Ukraine though. Fossil fuel production was already tight prior to that happening, and Russia's invasion and the resulting sanctions cut off a bunch of supply on top of that. That meant that there was not enough available on the market to fulfil demand at the previous prices and it took a substantial price increase for consumption to drop enough that demand could actually be filled. That money didn't just disappear because money doesn't do that, it instead ended up as profits for oil companies. Similar problems have been caused before by producers artificially limiting output, but all indications are that the world's oil production genuinely is at its limit with current infrastructure or near enough to it as makes no difference. (Partly because the push for net zero, the risk of government restrictions, and ESG campaigns that made it hard to get funding all discouraged investment.) This means that there's no easy fix in the near future. In particular, confiscating those extra profits and handing them out to people in the hope they'll be able to afford stuff again just won't work - the reason they can't afford as much is because the supply isn't there and no amount of moving money around changes that underlying cause.