Gas Prices Not Buying the Excuses

Because China is on track to be the World leader in fuel consumption.
And of those 247 million vehicles, only100 million are on the road.
Your link was a Perfect example, Your link showed only
12 million vehicles in China as of 08/23/2004
As of 03/10/2008 China has 56.97 million cars,"as of Today 60 million" thats an increase of OVER 1 MILLION new cars in China a Month over a 4 year span, and it will continue to climb.

http://www.chinacartimes.com/2008/03/10/car-ownership-up-32-in-2007/


And it's not just China, look at India and Malaysia's growth while your at it.

 

attacks attacks attacks. all character assassination attempts and lame ones at that.

grow up dude. learn how to debate in a mature fashion.

 

Because they work according to a time-table. That's why. Their agenda to destroy the Middle Class and bring in their totalitarian system is now in full force, and we can see it on many fronts. The up and down nature of the prices is to acclimate the public. It will go up, then back down again (but only temporarily). Then when it goes up again, it will go up even higher than before and most people won't question it because they are now used to it. It's the game they play. $3.90 would be considered cheap gas now, but what were you paying five years ago for gas?

If you think it has anything to do with standard economics, you are more clueless than I thought. The entire system is rigged. I took economics courses in college and have thrown out the window everything I was taught because it's a lot of BS. Everything in this system is set up to benefit the few that are in control of it. Supply & demand is a farce. The oil prices have NOTHING to do with that.

 

Lame? like your lil comment how bout join in or stfu ?

of course you didn't notice what those "attacks" were a response too, did ya?
lil fyi. my "attacks" usually come after 4 or 5 "attacks" from the same person.

i'm sure you missed the dim-wit, and the pepik's boyfriend comment,

 

Hey Gardner:

Would reckon that Chineese demand has more to do with manufacturing processes that use petrol ( plastics) and with energy consumption in manufacturing and power generation. Military and public sector.

The bigger point is just wait untill more vehicles hit the roads over there we will see even more demand for petrol and more pollution.

Demand has shot up all over the world.

 

Yes ! Nixon was President. Wage and Price controls. WIN ( whip inflation now) Twas a failure.

 

....................................................................................................
Supply and Demand rule the world. The Whole Housing bubble was fueled by demand of individual speculators and investors.
Demand was fueled by easy financing at historicaly low interest rates.
It was irrational exuberance at its most illustrative. Yeah there are plenty of individual speculators out there practicing thier freedom to speculate.

The more complex answer is that we need a tax structure to chanel all of that speculate cash into productive investments in say manufacturing, energy hi tech ect.

The easy money policies of The Federal Reserve Board of Govenors ( Hi Matt ) have put out some fast money into the econony that fuels these bubbles. A tighter money supply would curtail this somewhat.

Inflation has pushed up gas prices. Everything else has gone up why not petrol ?

 

I buy it. I mean the US has some of the lowest prices in the world. We need to just stop bitching.

 

Anybody on here could become a speculator by phoning a commodities broker and purchasing an oil furures share, or a US dollar future share or anything else. One could bet on prices going up, or prices going down.

A person could place a wager on a football game or on the winner of a US Presidential election. Everything is for sale; the transaction merely awaits the agreement on price between a willing buyer and willing seller.

 

We buy crude oil and refine it in the U.S.; since the refineries always do their work at the same consistent pace (and we haven't had a new one for how long?), the amount of supply really isn't the issue.

 

The twelve million figure was for personally owned vehicles only. You are mixing apples with oranges. For 2007:

All of the numbers seem skewed to me. I wonder how many are driving in the earthquake affected sections of China today. None of the charts seem to jive with earlier charts. In this age of computers isn't it strange that we can't account for government and corporate owned vehicles. They don't use fuel or pollute?

But even using your figures Chinese vehicles compared to the number in the US are only 04.4% how can that possibly affect the price in the US fuel market almost every couple of days. It appears to me that it's being overstated as a causitive agent.

 

But what about the US Oil Reserves, who paid for them and why aren't they being used to stabilize the price? It's almost like the fix is on.

 

Exactly. What the western world is told is that due to the growing prosperity in China fuel consumption is up. Leading us to believe that the working Chinese are driving around in slick little machines, truth is consumption is up because multinational corporations outsourced their consumption to these areas. They are using the fuel not the common Chinese, Malaysian, Indian citizen.

 

Please explain how it failed. I lived through it and it wasn't pretty, but it was nothing like today's fuel and food price increases.

 

Just a couple of thoughts to add to this.

Ask yourself how much people like bush and cheney (and their friends and family), are invested into oil. Why would they be bothered by rising prices?

As for the oil companies themselves (no matter who controls them), they are out to make as much profit as possible. The 60's and 70's, were a bit of a wakeup call to them. They saw that if they we're not careful, people would find alternatives to oil and oil products. So a lot of money was invested in keep the price of oil down.

Today, the situation is a little different. People are already investing into alternative sources of energy. No matter what happens with the price of oil, the age of oil dependence is coming to an end in the near future (and no that doesn't mean it will disappear completely). Forget about the idea of conspiracies and manipulation and so forth and look at this from their point of view if you want to see what the future holds.

Right now, we use more oil then we ever have, tomorrow, we will use more. This is not going to last though. The oil companies know this, so after years of keeping the price of oil down to where people wouldn't invest in alternatives, they have now switched tactics. They are now finding out what the maximum price is they can charge for their product today, because tomorrow (not literally) they won't have the opportunity.

One of the main ideologies of a free market society, is "What the market will pay", Well, they are going to push that for all it's worth, from now, until such a time that we have viable alternatives in place. At which point the demand will start going down and the prices will eventually follow.

That isn't a look to the future it is brighter, because we are going to see chaos and suffering like we never have, before this is over.

As for what is driving the 'free marker value' of oil right now, it has nothing to do with china , india, iraq or any other countries growing demand. Except where it comes to peoples perceptions of what is happening. The price is skyrocketing, because investors (speculators) are full confident that the price of oil, will be higher tomorrow then today, so they by it, which increases the market value. The supply and demand theory (as most people think of it) is only valid when market speculation doesn't exist.

Did Katrina raise the price of oil? Not by anything noticeable. What raised the price was people thinking it would. Katrina hit, the speculators all woke up and said, wow, people are going to panic and run the market on oil, and jumped on the bandwagon. It started a cycle that won't end as long as they can make money doing it. You want a hint of when that will be? Find out who are the biggest investors in oil futures.


The way to fix this problem is the same way to fix a lot of problems like this...

Take the necessities of life (as defined by our societies), out of the speculation market. Want to go a step further? Stop taxing those necessities as well. When it comes to food, shelter, energy and communications, how does it make sense that people are profiting off them that have nothing to do with their production and distribution?

You see a lot of things being tossed out lately about price caps and windfall taxes and so-on and so forth. What needs to be done (beyond the anti-speculation market and tax issue), is there needs to be a cap put on companies profit margin and an equalization of salaries between executives and blue collars. This isn't as simple as it may seem though, as things are now, any company that is in the top 1000, can shift numbers around to suit their particular need at any time. So to start, establishing a guideline for calculating what a companies profits really are, would be necessary.

There are other things that can be done as well... but none of it really matters to you and I...

What matters now, is that you find a place to hunker down and wait out what is coming... because it isn't going to be fun or pretty...

A couple of other points I noticed that I want to comment on;

" I buy it. I mean the US has some of the lowest prices in the world. We need to just stop bitching."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-19-world-gas_N.htm

The price in the US may be low in comparison to a lot of countries, but it is definitely not in the category of 'some of the lowest prices in the world'

"it'll be back to those levels at some point."

Not before it matters to any of us. If you think the price of gas is high now? lol just wait...

"Yes, this makes perfect sense, even tho a hurricane can change fuel prices overnight. "remember katrina"?? some places seen a $2 increase the very next morning."

That wasn't Katrina that did that, or oil companies, or any such thing. That was gas station owners seeing an opportunity to increase their profits. Gas stations do not buy gas when they sell it to you. Depending on how busy they are, they buy gas anywhere from every couple of days, to a couple of times a month. The price at the pump, should only change after a delivery of fuel comes into the station at the higher price. To anyone who may feel like arguing that they have to charge more for the old stock to afford the new stock. Believe it if you wish.

 

Petroleum prices in North America and the Western World have been deflated for a very long time compared to what third world and developing countries have been paying for decades.

 

(if we are talking simply gas)

yah that eleven cents Venezuela pays is real steep.

Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are hit pretty damn hard too (under $1)

 

Venezuela imports 0% of petroleum.

You see, higher world oil prices makes domestic consumption more affordable for oil exporting countries, like Venezuela. Export oil countries are flooding their profit money into their GDP and markets and rising the living standards in their countries. Look at Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. They're building indoor ski-resorts and shopping malls in the desert.

By artificially deflating the price of petroleum within export oil countries, people are able to participate in an energy-based, consumer driven, oil-dependent goods economy.

The USA and other Western oil-producing/net importing cluster of countries have been doing the same thing for decades. By artificially deflating the price of oil domestically, a country is fully capable and in their best interest of exporting their oil for a higher price. I mean, that's common sense and an easy way of improving the lives of your citizens and thus winning their vote.

The problem in Venezuela is that as an export country, they will have rapidly rising consumption so their oil production is going to peak, and their exports will decline far more rapidly than their oil production.

They call the phenomenon the Export Land Model

 

Somethings do not belong on a wild west free capitalistic commodities market. There is a place for regulation and that is where infrastructure and the well being of society is impacted.

We aren't talking about the competitive price for a cup of coffee or a pair of jeans. We are talking about life and death. Somethings should be off the table.

Next they'll want to control the water, after that they'll charge you to take a dump, and when we all can't hold it any longer they'll really stick it to us.

 

ATT just bought SBC and here in California my phone bill just went from 5.82, which they list as my lifeline rate up to 14.82 with ATT charges attached. I am not receiving anything extra, when deregulation was promoted we were promised lower rates and more choices. Now we have only one landline choice and we have to swallow this. How did deregulation benefit me? And to make matters worse I never opted out of MaBell. This line has never changed in the 50 some years it's been connected. I prefer a little regulation when it comes to my utilities. I saw what Enron did to PG&E and Governor Davis.