Gas Prices

[StrictMasterD]

As EVERYONe in the World know, Gas Prices are WAY out of control, all or most of the Repbulican Candidate that were runnig for the White House were always tellingus, that if elected they would lower the rpice of Gs, Newt Gringruch ever went so far as to say he would lower to the Price to $2.49 A Galong upon taking office
Most peole do not know or or are unaware that Oil Price are a worldwide issue not just a US issue
My questoin, is, is ANY Candidateruunig real Capable of or able to lower the Price "Over Night" or so you believe it whe Obamam says therei s no silver Bullet for thisissue as it is a world widei ssue based on World Wide demandand not just a United States Issue

[Stealth694]

I seriously doubt a Politician could or for that matter Would put his neck on the chopping block.
Oil Companies contribute HEAVLY to both parties and make sure if these parties want contributions they will leave the oil companies alone.
Also Commodity Speculators contribute to the high oil prices. The only way to control gas prices is for the Govt to take control of the oil industry and thats a scary idea

[StrictMasterD]

Newt Gringgrich has said during many of the Past Debate we would lower the price of Gas to $2.49 a Gallon witinn the first few months he was in Office so there are some who wil stick there necks out

[Thorne]

Newt Gringgrich has said during many of the Past Debate we would lower the price of Gas to $2.49 a Gallon witinn the first few months he was in Office so there are some who wil stick there necks out
Politicians say a lot of things in an effort to get elected. That doesn't mean they can actually DO those things. Yeah, maybe he could have a short-term, temporary effect on the price by flooding the market from the strategic reserve. But then the prices would skyrocket when he started trying to replenish the reserve.

The only real way to cut your gas bill is to reduce your consumption. So far there are damned few people (myself included) who are willing to do that. Reduce other peoples' consumption? Sure! Reduce mine? Anti-American!

[StrictMasterD]

Politicians say a lot of things in an effort to get elected. That doesn't mean they can actually DO those things. Yeah, maybe he could have a short-term, temporary effect on the price by flooding the market from the strategic reserve. But then the prices would skyrocket when he started trying to replenish the reserve.

The only real way to cut your gas bill is to reduce your consumption. So far there are damned few people (myself included) who are willing to do that. Reduce other peoples' consumption? Sure! Reduce mine? Anti-American!

Thorne,
My ONLY reason for posting my reply was the person above me hadsaid no Politician woyld be dumb enough to make a promise like that and I simply wanted to remind them that Gingrich already has thats all

[denuseri]

If you continue to allow the so called 7 sisters (the 7 major oil companies that have an unofficial stronghold on the entire oil market) to dictate things through pay offs via lobbyists and outright own politicians...then no...there is no quick fix.

Take the power away from them and things will change real quick. Especially since once you factor government kickbacks in close to 45% of the price one pays at the pump is pure profit for them and them alone. (about only 12% of whats taxed actually makes it into the governments hands the rest is used for obfuscation)

Unfortunately they pretty much own the politicians who could do that very thing.

[IAN 2411]

The UK gas prises have gone up again and I cannot see them coming down again until there is more research into shale gas.

Be well IAN 2411

[denuseri]

They would do better to promote the proliferation of bio-diesel.

[StrictMasterD]

If anyone knows, thisi s a question, not a trick one meaning I know the answer but wantto see if anyone else does
Can ANY Presieent through Executive Order, force Oil Companes to Lower Prices on Gas? I know trhis may sound funny but does ANY Presidenr or even Congress have this Authority?

[Thorne]

If anyone knows, thisi s a question, not a trick one meaning I know the answer but wantto see if anyone else does
Can ANY Presieent through Executive Order, force Oil Companes to Lower Prices on Gas? I know trhis may sound funny but does ANY Presidenr or even Congress have this Authority?
Well, if they can't right now, just give them a little while to somehow tie it to terrorism, then they can do whatever the fuck they want.

[denuseri]

If anyone knows, thisi s a question, not a trick one meaning I know the answer but wantto see if anyone else does
Can ANY Presieent through Executive Order, force Oil Companes to Lower Prices on Gas? I know trhis may sound funny but does ANY Presidenr or even Congress have this Authority?

If it doesn't it should.

[thir]

As EVERYONe in the World know, Gas Prices are WAY out of control, all or most of the Repbulican Candidate that were runnig for the White House were always tellingus, that if elected they would lower the rpice of Gs, Newt Gringruch ever went so far as to say he would lower to the Price to $2.49 A Galong upon taking office
Most peole do not know or or are unaware that Oil Price are a worldwide issue not just a US issue
My questoin, is, is ANY Candidateruunig real Capable of or able to lower the Price "Over Night" or so you believe it whe Obamam says therei s no silver Bullet for thisissue as it is a world widei ssue based on World Wide demandand not just a United States Issue

Fact is fuel is about 5 times more expensive here in Europe. A lot of it taxes.

What's the problem? As far as I know, the ideology of capitalism says 'whoever has the pig, sets the price'.
Live with it.

[thir]

The only real way to cut your gas bill is to reduce your consumption.

Correct! It does not say anywhere that we are entitled to use as much fuel as we please. Resources are limitted, as everybody knows.

A god idea would be to start using other kinds of fuel.

[thir]

They would do better to promote the proliferation of bio-diesel.

Absolutely!

[leo9]

They would do better to promote the proliferation of bio-diesel.
Alas, not the easy option it seems. Far too much bio-diesel is made from palm oil grown on rainforest land, with appalling environmental consequences, to say nothing of the devastation and, in some cases, extinction of indigenous tribes.

I'm lucky enough to have a factory down the road that makes biodiesel from waste cooking oil, so I can drive with a clear conscience. (And save a pound a gallon over the price of rock-oil - a rare case of virtue rewarded.) But I'm well aware that I only have that option because most people don't have the brains to use it: they're already sold out half the time, and if it catches on in a big way, they'll only be able to supply their industrial customers.

[leo9]

If anyone knows, thisi s a question, not a trick one meaning I know the answer but wantto see if anyone else does
Can ANY Presieent through Executive Order, force Oil Companes to Lower Prices on Gas? I know trhis may sound funny but does ANY Presidenr or even Congress have this Authority?Aren't price controls un-American? Whatever happened to the free market?

Of course it's not a free market, it's a highly organised oligopoly, but so is every major industry and that never stopped them invoking free market economics to justify their gouging.

[Stealth694]

Bio-Diesel, alcohol, electric, there are so many alternatives to gas its pathetic, its just that to get these alternatives going would mean investing money and losing profit. The oil companies are not going to give up their profits for the future generations. They are only concerned with how much money they have when they die. Just like the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh's

[Punish_her]

no politician can do anything about it. no single entitty can. gas prices (as well as rising food prices) are primarily the result of skyrocketing demand from emerging economies. It's not speculators or oil company greed, its a relatively constant supply mixed in with huge demand increases.
the only way for americans to alleviate the high gas prices would be to drastically reduce the tax on diesel gas and then buy diesel cars, as they do tend to be more fuel efficient.

[leo9]

no politician can do anything about it. no single entitty can. gas prices (as well as rising food prices) are primarily the result of skyrocketing demand from emerging economies.

And every futurologist worth the name has been warning us for fifty years that this was inevitably coming, but people went right on as if every gas price hike was a passing blip. Because any politician who told the truth about what had to be done would have been out of office before the mobs had finished yelling in the street. Now reality is knocking at the door, we have to try to do in a year or two what we should have been working on for decades, and it's not going to work.

Same as global warming: when the sea laps over Long Island people will ask the government "Why didn't you do something?" and the answer will be "Because you voted against anyone who tried."

[Punish_her]

there isnt anything a politician really can do, it's just scarcity. its not a bad thing, it just happens and you need to deal with it

[js207]

Same as global warming: when the sea laps over Long Island people will ask the government "Why didn't you do something?" and the answer will be "Because you voted against anyone who tried."

Actually, unless Long Island is already within about one foot of sea level, by then all current politicians will be long dead from old age even if nothing at all gets done - most lay people seem to be greatly overestimating the rate of change (approximately one foot per century, with the outer limits of predictions ranging from just over three inches to just under three feet).

I think it much more likely our current bunch will be hated for squandering fortunes on windmills and empty vanity gestures, rather than researching better power sources like fusion and deploying the ones we have now such as fission.

[Thorne]

Same as global warming: when the sea laps over Long Island people will ask the government "Why didn't you do something?" and the answer will be "Because you voted against anyone who tried."
"The more things change, the more things stay the same."
I can pretty much imagine the people of Rome acting the same way as Hannibal came through the passes from the Alps. And the answer would effectively be the same. "Soldiers or Circuses? Give us the Circuses!"

[StrictMasterD]

Bssed om some of the replies to this Post, I pose this question to you, IF there is a Quick which which there isn't since it is Based on WOLRLD Supply and Demand, why has this "Quick Fix" bot been implimented yet?

[Thorne]

Well, if there WERE a quick fix, everybody would want to make sure that THEIR side got the credit. Republicans wouldn't want such a fix during the term of a Democratic President, and vice-versa. More importantly, though, any kind of quick fix would most likely negatively impact the oil company profits, and no self-respecting (about the only thing they DO respect) politician would want THAT to happen!

[denuseri]

The quick fix hasn't been implemented because as I previously stated...the 7 sisters (the big multi national corporate oil companies that have the vast majority of the oil supply in their control) lobby quite effectively against that very thing.

Not just in America either...follow the money. Bribes and pay off's go to politicans world wide.

[Punish_her]

There is no quick fix
Assuming that is a vast conspiracy of international oil companies, it doesn't matter because none of them are based in the US or under any sort of US authority. they are state owned foreign companies, so they dont have to lobby america for shit. China National Petrolium Corporation does not give a hoot what the US thinks, and the US can't tell it to do anything. All US oil companies make up less than 10% of the market, so there's no US policy that can work.
If you want to put a price control on oil, someone still has to buy it, and again, they're buying it from people who will set a price, whether it is fair or not, without regards to what the US wants. You can force Shell to sell gas for 2.50 a gallon, but if the price of a barrell of crude oil is 150 dollars, Shell is going to go under very fast. The only solution then is to have the gov't buy it directly at a loss, in which case, the people are still paying for it in taxes, and nothing has really changed except whho you write the check to.
Back to this 7 sisters business, I don't buy it that there is some global conspiracy to set the price on oil mainly because the 7 international companies are from countries that do not like one another, and they are state owned so it's not a matter of greedy businessmen. Saudi Arabia and China do not get along, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are at odds all the time (Iran's threat to mess with the Strait of Hormuts would be a serious blow to the Saudi economy).
However, you can't dispute the fact that they're big companies, and again, they became big because they are all either 1) independent oil producing countries (Brazil, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Arabia) or 2) they have huge demand increases (Brazil, Russia, China, Malaysia). Compute that in with the fact that India and China are growing at a double diigit rate, and have been for the last 20 years, and you have literally half of the world population competing for the same amount of reserves.
Supply and Demand

[StrictMasterD]

That my Point, The Oil Companie OWN the Repulican Party, and it scars me to no end to think of what MAY happen to pricesif the Republicans take over the White House as long a The Oil Companies own theRepublican Party no major Quick Fixeswil ever happen, in the same regard as long as the NRA own the Party their wil neverbe changes in Gun Control laws in this Country
My queston is what happens if the Son, Daughter, Neice, Nephew ect of a REPUBLICAN Senator, Rep etc where ever killed with an UNREGISTERED GUn, would theREpublicans blow tha off to due to the prssure of Lobbiest from the NRA?

[Punish_her]

I suppose you could repeal the federal gas tax, which is 18 cents a gallon.

[Thorne]

I suppose you could repeal the federal gas tax, which is 18 cents a gallon.
You could also reduce prices by allowing drilling of oil in those areas which are currently off limits. (A temporary fix, to be sure, but fairly quick, too.) Problem is, that might inconvenience some caribou or polar bears or something. You could also start building many more nuclear reactors, then give people tax incentives to switch their home heating systems over to electric, saving plenty of oil. But, "radiation! Bad, bad, bad!"

The real problem is that people want to have their cake and eat it too. The real world doesn't work that way. You have to pay something for everything, one way or another. TANSTAAFL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch).

[Punish_her]

You could also reduce prices by allowing drilling of oil in those areas which are currently off limits. (A temporary fix, to be sure, but fairly quick, too.) Problem is, that might inconvenience some caribou or polar bears or something. You could also start building many more nuclear reactors, then give people tax incentives to switch their home heating systems over to electric, saving plenty of oil. But, "radiation! Bad, bad, bad!"

no doubt in my mind that nuclear is a far more efficient way to go

[denuseri]

There is no quick fix
Assuming that is a vast conspiracy of international oil companies,

Its not vast or a conspiracy...just 7 major companies ( four of which used to belong to the Standard Oil before the Government stepped in and broke its original near monopoly) sitting down once in a while to shape policy in a steering committee...they have been doing it rather openly since the 1950's too.

it doesn't matter because none of them are based in the US or under any sort of US authority.

(flat out wrong...most of the 7 at one time or another evolved directly from Standard Oil...and as evidenced by the results of the BP oil spill -not to mention half a dozen other instances in history- the respected governments of any given country can quite easily step in and stop even a multi national company dead in its tracks if they wish)

they are state owned foreign companies, so they dont have to lobby america for shit.

Wrong again.

The lobby mainly to the Republicans (some democrats too when it suits them)

They dont just lobby in America...they outright buy rulers in many countries.



China National Petrolium Corporation does not give a hoot what the US thinks, and the US can't tell it to do anything.


Yet our big oil owned government backs our continued military and commercial intervention against Chinese oil interests around the world and especially in the oil corridor of the middle east.

All US oil companies make up less than 10% of the market, so there's no US policy that can work.

Again your missing the point and apparently either misinformed or flat out trying to obfuscate things. In the past before the oil lobby took over we can and did give them a good spanking and could again if we desired.

Look at what we did to BP for its mistake in the Gulf for an example.


If you want to put a price control on oil, someone still has to buy it, and again, they're buying it from people who will set a price, whether it is fair or not, without regards to what the US wants. You can force Shell to sell gas for 2.50 a gallon, but if the price of a barrell of crude oil is 150 dollars, Shell is going to go under very fast. The only solution then is to have the gov't buy it directly at a loss, in which case, the people are still paying for it in taxes, and nothing has really changed except whho you write the check to.

With around 45% of the price of gas we currently pay in the USA being entirely "profit" (that's in the pink above and beyond expenses) for the oil companies (and or its affiliated distributors)...I see plenty of room for lowering the price.


Back to this 7 sisters business, I don't buy it that there is some global conspiracy to set the price on oil mainly because the 7 international companies are from countries that do not like one another, and they are state owned so it's not a matter of greedy businessmen. Saudi Arabia and China do not get along, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are at odds all the time (Iran's threat to mess with the Strait of Hormuts would be a serious blow to the Saudi economy).

Historical note for your information...Four of the "7 sisters" companies sprouted directly from Standard Oil, (one came from the UK) and none of them are from China or any Opec nations.

However, you can't dispute the fact that they're big companies, and again, they became big because they are all either 1) independent oil producing countries (Brazil, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Arabia) or 2) they have huge demand increases (Brazil, Russia, China, Malaysia). Compute that in with the fact that India and China are growing at a double diigit rate, and have been for the last 20 years, and you have literally half of the world population competing for the same amount of reserves.
Supply and Demand

Oh a point we can agree on...?

Maybe...I agree peek oil was reached long ago and that with the increase in demand we will have to find an alternative fuel source. Only the asshats who make the real money in the OIL companies (the ceo's etc) have no desire to seek alternative anythings. All they care about is how much their own personal cash out is going to be when they finally check out.

Its wise to also take into account that they purposefully reduced the number of refineries specifically to max out their profits and make shortages whenever they wanted...they have known the shortages were coming too... and the oil companies are going to gouge prices to maximize profits...left unrestricted it will only get worse.

Not a wink of this is in any way a conspiracy theory either hon...its well documented history. Just too boring for most people to bother with and usually never covered at anything other than the graduate level.

[denuseri]

That my Point, The Oil Companie OWN the Repulican Party, and it scars me to no end to think of what MAY happen to pricesif the Republicans take over the White House as long a The Oil Companies own theRepublican Party no major Quick Fixeswil ever happen, in the same regard as long as the NRA own the Party their wil neverbe changes in Gun Control laws in this Country
My queston is what happens if the Son, Daughter, Neice, Nephew ect of a REPUBLICAN Senator, Rep etc where ever killed with an UNREGISTERED GUn, would theREpublicans blow tha off to due to the prssure of Lobbiest from the NRA?

Coughs...perhaps the gun thing should be covered in its own thread huh?

I wouldn't go so far as to say they outright own the Republicans (though I will admit they lobby more heavily there whi9ch I think has to do more with which states happen to have predominately republican leanings and oil distribution interests than anything else) nor suggest that they are the only party that the oil companies have their hooks into either. I would say the oil companies are equal opportunity exploiters.

Just look how Obama is doing exactly what the Oil interests have wanted ever since he got elected. Prior to that he was saying all sorts of things he realistically had no intention of accomplishing or was just inexperienced enough to actually believe he could change. Note the war in the middle has pretty much followed to the letter Cheney and Rumsfeld's original plan first introduced to Bush Senior during the First Gulf War and rejected only to be dusted off and re-presented to Bush Jr and accepted once conditions made it more appealing. Once finished in one area it just moves to the next...Iran is up on the chopping block after Afghanistan. Though personally I think Bush the elder rejected it because he actually fought in a war himself and didn't want to see us go into an open ended "war" for global domination of the oil corridor against India and China.

[Punish_her]

2011 produced the most oil in history

And the 7 sisters you speak of have been out of the game for a very long time
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/471ae1b8-d001-11db-94cb-000b5df10621.html#axzz1tp3cbvTI

China National Petroleum Corporation (China)
Gazprom (Russia)
National Iranian Oil Company (Iran)
Petrobras (Brazil)
PDVSA (Venezuela)
Petronas (Malaysia)
Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia)

again, us based oil companies own less than 10% of the market.
times, they are a changin

[Punish_her]

this 7 sisters notion was pioneered in the mid 50s, before opec, and before iran did its own thing, and before russia produced oil

[Punish_her]

oops almost forgot . . . another historical note: before standard oil, it cost 26 cents for a gallon of kerosine, by 1885 (the apex of standard oil), it cost 0.452 cents per gallon. historically, monopolies LOWER prices drastically

[denuseri]

And where do you buy your fuel? Where do you fill up your car or truck's tank today? Exxon?...Shell perhaps? A station owned by BP? The sisters are not out of anything darling.

[Punish_her]

gee I don't know . . . maybe its possible that it buys it from another country?
exxon buys more oil than it produces,and it buys that oil at a market price, which, as I have already shown evidence of, has an 88% chance of being bought by a previously mentioned national owned foreign oil company
the facts are all there: western oil is small potatoes, western oil buys from foreign oil
until i see actual published evidence elsewhere, i don't see what else can be discussed

[denuseri]

Western oil is still marking up the cost so that it gets a 45% profit margin above board at the pomt of sale (the gas station).

That's not cutting anyone any slack and its well above what the market price would dictate. (which is also set by them) Its charging the maximum amount the statisticians have determined Americans are willing to pay without crippling outright the interstate commercial cargo transportation industry.

[Punish_her]

Western oil is still marking up the cost so that it gets a 45% profit margin above board at the pomt of sale (the gas station).
That's not cutting anyone any slack and its well above what the market price would dictate. (which is also set by them) Its charging the maximum amount the statisticians have determined Americans are willing to pay without crippling outright the interstate commercial cargo transportation industry.

where is that number coming from? everything i read says they make on average between 5 and 8 cents per gallon from the gas station with gov't (local and federal) making about 30 cents.
also, once again, a 10% share of global reserves is not market power to set prices

[leo9]

no doubt in my mind that nuclear is a far more efficient way to go

Much doubt in many people's minds. There is a reason why no private company wants to build nuclear power stations any more, and it's not political: they've realised that the government won't shoulder all the real costs by disposing of the wastes, compensating the victims of planning blight, and cleaning up after accidents.

Japan is seriously considering not restarting any of the reactors they shut down after the earthquake, because they've discovered the hard way how much harm those things can do. And this is a country that has no fossil fuels to mention and bet most of its energy policy on nuclear; doing without it would cost them dear. That's how scared they are now.

[leo9]

Its charging the maximum amount the statisticians have determined Americans are willing to pay without crippling outright the interstate commercial cargo transportation industry.

Funny that, diesel in europe is about five times the price, and yet somehow our trucks keep on rolling and our goods don't cost more in the stores.