Gas Prices Not Buying the Excuses

Thats local calling only? right ? Damm its a cheap rate.

I have a whole drawer full of postage stamps that don't amount to enough postage. Seems it goes up by a penny once or twice a year.

 

Hey Gardner !
I've only got my recolections. Admittidly it was a foggy period back then but that Nixon supported by John Connaly of Texas put out wage and price controls. the term economic malaise became popular during the Ford presidency the term stagflation became popular during the Carter Presidency. Regan campagained on the misery index: inflation plus unemployment. But Carter had already appointed Paul Volker to be Chairman of The Federal Reserve Board of Govenors and he was crankig up the discount rate. In 1980 regular FNMA mortgage interest rates were upwards of 14% this was holding down the value of homes but cranking up the cost of shelter. We had those gasoline shocks in 1974 and 1979.
I remember when I pumped gas, the price shown on the gas pump did not go above $9.99 for a full tank. When the shock hit we had to add the additional amount in our head.
Our friend The Shah of Iran was leading the charge for higher oil. Republican haighography portrays Ronnie's tax cuts and the ending of wage and price controls as the pick-me-up that sent The 80's roaring. Truth be told; the Volker stabilization did not really take hold until '82. Saddams invasion of Iran resulted in both nations pumping out oil to the maximum to earn war funds.
Perhaps if Shah Reizza Pavhli had been more accomodating we might have tried harder to keep him on the peacock throne. The Iran - Iraq war kept the heat off Israel. by 1985 home mortgage interest rates had dropped to the nine percent range they kept on dropping.
When I started working (1973) the minimum wage was $1.65 per hour. By coincidence a six-pack of Budwisser was also $1.65 the two commodities have roughly moved in lockstep since that time. Call it the gas jockey economic index. A pack of cigarettes was 50 cents. The NYC subway was also 50 cents. A 30 Yr old cape Cod home was at $50,000 in North Jersey
Same house went to $360,000 recently but has dropped back since then.

 

Why are the price of gas much higher in Europe?

 

Ask their governments. Are you proposing that prices should be the same for everyone. I'd go along with that if regulation was in place to prevent price gouging.

 

Yeah I was buying Coors at that price then too. So who is controlling the prices now? It's not natural disasters, or limits on already discovered supply. It might be about who owns the supply and how they can manipulate the price by limiting the supply. I don't even think it has anything much to do with religion. You have to wonder why the petroleum companies reaping huge profits for the last decade haven't invested some of those profits in research, discovery or refinery. Or are the taxpayers supposed to pay for those things and also higher prices?

I buy Keystone now. And I pay 2.69 for the cheapest rankest cigarettes out there. My question: Who's getting rich...it ain"t me.

 

If we allow drilling off California and Alaska who controls that oil? I think that's important to know.

 

Give this a read,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#Tax_rates

 

Why do you keep repeating that even tho you know its not true ?

unless

= ALL of those profits, you're wrong.

you should grow your own, it's easy and way cheaper.

 

Ya. Everyone is in anguish about the high prices of petroleum products and the resulting inflation coursing through our economy.

Folks are looking for speculators and inside dealing as the blame for the high prices.

Perspective can be gained by looking back to the headlines of last winter when Hanna Montana was on tour. There was a controversy in our area when the shows were sold out. Lots of people were angry at missing out and had to go to scalpers and pay big bucks.

Families who had shelled out $30 to join the Hanna Montana fan club in anticipatation of preferred availability of the tickets were pissed at being shut out. They claimed fraud.

Seems that Disney’s young starlet hit some peak demand with the popularity of her TV show. Brittany Spears suffered a lifestyle implosion and bequeathed this huge and growing market down to the younger Hanna Montana. Disney had not booked enough shows to meet demand. They wanted to protect the Starlet from overwork and overexposure. It was charged that Disney had acted in bad faith.

Newspapers featured stories of high powered attorneys launching lawsuits because their little darling could not get seats even with membership in the Fan Club. Explanations were given about the sub-teen market tickets usually going in a foursome for mom and dad to go too; and not the typical pair as for a rock show.
Seems the scalpers had found a way to game the computer program that was selling the tickets. They had found a way to bypass the controls limiting sales to individuals and to zip codes. Disney was innocent after all it was those scalpers who had loaded up in anticipation of big profits.

A wave of nostalgia cascaded over me. Remembering The Seventies and how those scalpers used to corner the market for Dead Shows. Those scalpers could charge huge premiums for shows in small venues like The Fillmore, Beacon Theater, Capitol Theater and other venues. Garcia and The Dead were pissed that scalpers were raping the fans earning huge premiums making more money than The Band itself on a per-ticket basis. They decided to do something about it to protect the fan.

First they moved the shows up to larger venues to hold the growing fan base, then, they would add contingency dates just in case. Remember the tours when three shows would go on sale, they would be snapped up by scalpers; then The Band would announce additional dates. Supplies of additional tickets would hit the market. Scalpers would be defeated. I remember The Dead selling out six shows during a stand at Madison Square Garden. Six shows at about 16,000 seats per Garden show for a total of 96,000 tickets. Scalpers had to pound salt. Plenty of customers saw multiple shows; a few saw all of them.

Point is that peak demand does not have to mean that a conspiracy is going on. Scalpers and speculators will always be with us; if our markets are in harmonious balance then there is only a limited damage that they can do. Constrict the supply and wham. Scalpers are the indicator that demand exceeds supply and it is time to do something to the supply side.

 

As the price of gasoline keeps going up demagogues on the right are blaming taxes and environmental regulations. Demagogues on the left are blaming greedy oil executives and speculators. The truth is that taxes and environmental regulations are the same as they were during the 1990’s when gasoline was cheap in the United States. Oil executives and speculators, while greedy, have not become greedier than they were back then.

Here are several boring facts: more Chinese and Indians are buying cars and consuming gasoline; the world supply of petroleum is declining and what remains is more expensive to drill; the United States consumes one fourth of the world’s petroleum; we only have 4% of the world’s known reserves within our borders.

Get used to the rising price of gasoline. There is nothing anyone can do about it.

 

"If the United States had to supply its entire demand of 21 million barrels per day (3.3×106 m3/d) without resorting to foreign imports, existing US reserves would last only three years at the current rate of consumption."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves

We can't drill our way out of this problem, folks. We will have to change the way we live. The American dependence on automobile transportation is a national problem.

 

The reserve was instituted to offset emergencies in the oil market not be a long term solution. But to not use it when there is obviously a problem and it is at a record level, just demonstrates to me why petroleum companies are calling for more permissions to drill and control our resources when their productivity is running at only 88.5%. Why is that with skyrocking profits and rising price of oil why are they holding production at that level. That's the question that needs to be ask.

 

It's all about the money folks.

http://stoptarsands.wordpress.com/2...ing-out-on-the-benefit-of-soaring-oil-prices/

Giving the multinationals leases on new resources isn't going to give us a price break, it's only going to give them an increased abilitity to leverage prices, by drilling and capping when convenient. It's a con by organized multinational fat cats.

 

Scribe was referring to US oil reserves, not the US Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

How could it help, you have said (more than once) that the fuel prices have nothing to do with supply and demand ? Yet, you think increasing supply is going to help.
And a very small increase in supply at that, 4.4 million gallons per day for 37 days, MAX.

Who's holding production at 88.5% ?
What should it be 100%-110% ?


that's a total of 3 questions Gardener, which i'm sure is over your limit, but i still try .

 

Agreed. As ChronicTom points out (on page 4), speculation is determining price, not reality. Furthermore, given that oil is a limited resource, the oil industry can be expected to profit all they can from it while they still can, particularly in the deregulated market we have now.

And if you think an administration whose constituents are in bed with the oil industry are going to aggressively fund the exploration of greener energy alternatives, think again. They'll only do what's best for their bottom line in a deregulated oil economy, so what incentive do they have to promote alternatives? None. Sure, they may throw us a bone once in a while to make us think they're working on it, but they're not.

Now they're using high prices as an excuse for off-shore drilling, when the experts are saying off-shore drilling will have no impact on prices. It's just another excuse to provide the oil industry free reign over the environment. Furthermore, the oil industry already has access to millions of acres of land for drilling they're not using, so the obvious motive for pursuing off shore drilling is to explore the least expensive places to drill, regardless of environmental impact. It's disgusting.

 

Doesn't seem to take much to cause a dip in the commodities market. And consumer demand has now declined 3%, can we then forcast lower prices? Just what exactly does the US taxpayer have to do? Subsidize multinational companies, grant them control over more of our resources then stand back and let them manipulate the price to whatever level they find appropriate?

The multinational companies already holding leases on resources they are not tapping.

At the record prices and profits accrued by the oil companies who are benefitting from federal subsidies it should be at the max or even to the point of exceeding maximum output in the interest of national security. After all most of us are sacrificing our children in wars to protect their assets.

Think I've answered them all.

 

Heres how you know supply and demand is a farce,,,,alot of Americans believe it.LOL. Capitalism,free enterprise etc. when "not" regulated is just as bad as Russias old fashioned version of communism.Different yes,but just as bad.

 

kinda vague there, i'm guessing you don't have a link, just a suspicion.

ugh,

First, you have to prove they are (only) running at 88.5%.

Yea, fuck the lives of the platform-oil workers or anyone living in the vicinity of a refinery, storage facility,pipeline. not to mention the environment disasters you would cause.
Yea, lets put in on max overdrive and see what happens.
Lets bring all the single lined oil tankers back out of retirement and fill them to the rim.
You haven't defined "your" definition of "max" yet.

 

Yes I've made that sacrifice, and I am not willing to make any more.

I want to see big petroleum operate at full capacity with existing leases. Are you threatening oil spills and environmental concerns? Then that's another reason not to offer multinational companies free reign with national resouces.

Why aren't they? Record profits, but they can't operate at capacity? Why is that?

 

If the leases that the petroleum companies hold aren't currently worth drilling then they should release them so that others can investigate the potential, before other leases are granted. With the curent state of the US economy we could then try and remarket those leases. Think they'd be agreeable?