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floridadiver81

Dont buy gas may 15th!

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>Possibly, but it's more likely that they're not interested in building any new refineries.

Right, that's another way to put it. They have enough capacity now to make record profits, and building more would a) cause greater supply (thus reducing profits) and b) give them capacity they will soon not be able to use. What's the financial incentive for them to build more refineries? To save consumers money? That's not why they're in business.



Bill - you just made a great argument for nationalizing the oil refining industry in the USA. Such a necessity for life as we know it in much of the USA should not be prone to artificial manipulation by a select few.

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>Such a necessity for life as we know it in much of the USA should not
>be prone to artificial manipulation by a select few.

Well, if you want to nationalize that, you better also nationalize these even more critical industries:

Farms
Food stores
Power companies
Shipping companies
Construction companies
Home improvement stores

After all, gasoline is important, but not more important than food, housing, heat or water.

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>Such a necessity for life as we know it in much of the USA should not
>be prone to artificial manipulation by a select few.

Well, if you want to nationalize that, you better also nationalize these even more critical industries:

Farms
Food stores
Power companies
Shipping companies
Construction companies
Home improvement stores

After all, gasoline is important, but not more important than food, housing, heat or water.



WRONG. The price of gasoline affects the price of food, not the other way areound. Every dollar spent to truck food to market is affected by the price of gasoline. Corn prices are rising the WORLD OVER due to the demand for ethanol - depriving the poor of food to fuel cars.

Construction costs increase due to rising cost for gasoline. Shipping costs increase due to rising gasoline.

No other commodity affects so many other products as the price of gasoline, and it needs to be controlled if the business cannot operate fairly - IE driving up costs by conspiring to produce less product/ shutting out other producers/ etc.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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>Such a necessity for life as we know it in much of the USA should not
>be prone to artificial manipulation by a select few.

Well, if you want to nationalize that, you better also nationalize these even more critical industries:

Farms
Food stores
Power companies
Shipping companies
Construction companies
Home improvement stores

After all, gasoline is important, but not more important than food, housing, heat or water.



WRONG. The price of gasoline affects the price of food, not the other way around. Every dollar spent to truck food to market is affected by the price of gasoline. Corn prices are rising the WORLD OVER due to the demand for ethanol - depriving the poor of food to fuel cars.

Construction costs increase due to rising cost for gasoline. Shipping costs increase due to rising gasoline.

No other commodity affects so many other products as the price of gasoline, and it needs to be controlled if the business cannot operate fairly - IE driving up costs by conspiring to produce less product/ shutting out other producers/ etc.



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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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>WRONG. The price of gasoline affects the price of food, not the other way areound.

I'm not saying it doesn't.

But your point was that the necessities of life should not be able to be manipulated by a select few. And food is more important than gasoline. Grocery store owners could artificially drive food prices up - and indeed sometimes they do during off-seasons. If your point is valid, grocery stores must be nationalized (for our own good of course.)

Farms - even more so. Farmers could decide to raise prices on milk artificially. In your typical capitalist society, people would simply switch to juice, or water, or soy or something, but I know you don't believe in that. So we'd have to nationalize farms as well.

And power companies? Without power there's no water. We can't allow greedy power companies to deny us water and heat - so gotta nationalize them as well (again, if your point is valid.)

>and it needs to be controlled if the business cannot operate fairly - IE
>driving up costs by conspiring to produce less product/ shutting out other
>producers/ etc.

If they are breaking the law by colluding with other suppliers, then drag them into court. If they are just charging what the market will bear, they are doing exactly what you would do in that situation - and what every other company in america would do.

If Microsoft could get $1000 per OS, that's what they would charge. What keeps them from doing that? The fear that people will realize Linux works OK and is a lot cheaper (almost free!)

Gas companies charge high prices because they know you will pay it. The day you start refusing to pay their prices (i.e. by using diesel, or natural gas, or E85, or even walking or biking) will be the day they have to change their strategy. Until then, you will pay whatever they ask.

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No other commodity affects so many other products as the price of gasoline



Construction, power, shipping? Last I knew nearly every business and individual in the world used buildings, power, and shipping. That's pretty universal.

Food? Last I knew absolutely every human being ate food. That's the MOST universal thing.

Gasoline is far behind those things.


First Class Citizen Twice Over

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>Possibly, but it's more likely that they're not interested in building any new refineries.

Right, that's another way to put it. They have enough capacity now to make record profits, and building more would a) cause greater supply (thus reducing profits) and b) give them capacity they will soon not be able to use. What's the financial incentive for them to build more refineries? To save consumers money? That's not why they're in business.



Competition if it were real, if not from an existing producer then from a new player who might build or purchase a refinery.

It could also avert government intervention. It is actually anti-competitive and illegal for a cartel to reduce capacity and therefore supply to drive up costs.

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Farms - even more so. Farmers could decide to raise prices on milk artificially.



Milk has seen a huge increase in price - due almost completely to rising costs of CORN(cow food) due to ethanol demand.

Tell me, when has a milk 'shortage' that was created by a milk industry plan to limit the number of cows, ever lead to a dramatic upswing in the price of gasoline?

Gasoline, in my opinion is a very unique commodity, different than food and other non-tangibles. I say nationalize refining now, or at least mandate the construction of a few refineries for 'national security' purposes.

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>Possibly, but it's more likely that they're not interested in building any new refineries.

Right, that's another way to put it. They have enough capacity now to make record profits, and building more would a) cause greater supply (thus reducing profits) and b) give them capacity they will soon not be able to use. What's the financial incentive for them to build more refineries? To save consumers money? That's not why they're in business.



Bill - you just made a great argument for nationalizing the oil refining industry in the USA. Such a necessity for life as we know it in much of the USA should not be prone to artificial manipulation by a select few.



They don't need to be nationalized. They can be forced to sell their refineries, or split them. That leaves more bidders for crude but at least the crude middlemarket already exists. What you need is more independent competition and players refining crude independent of the retail channel where some will choose increase capacity, and if they shut a refinery if it was the only one (or maybe one of two) they operated that would be a hefty incentive to fire that sucker back up.

It is looking like they need to be split up, but it needs an investigation and audit by truly independent folks.

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> Supply and demand doesn't apply to gasoline.



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Of course it does.



Not in the traditional sense. Supply. in the oil market, is artificially controlled - specifically the gasoline supply, through bogus outages and purposefully lacking refining capactity.



Demand is also somewhat artificial in the sense that it's extremely inelastic. The price has nearly tripled and we're consuming just about as much, and the added population means we're consuming more than before.

Gas is different from the other life commodities you list - it's the one where scarcity applies. Milk and corn are not. Power - in CA a lot of electricity comes from oil generators, so yeah, the price of oil affects it.

Were I one of those bastard oil companies, I wouldn't build another refinery either. Terrible ROI, hurts my current marginal profits, and the feds keep jerking me around on the specs. In CA the refineries were ordered to convert to using MTBE (or more expensive ethanol), then a few years later were ordered to stop using MTBE and only use ethanol. The state tried to get the Feds to let the refineries use neither, but Ethanol Fed Bush sent back a hearty fuck you, so at least until a Democrats take over, here we are.

Given such uncertainty and a duty to your shareholders, the course seems obvious.

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>Milk has seen a huge increase in price . . .

So we have to nationalize farms. (Per your proposal.)

> due almost completely to rising costs of CORN(cow food) due to
> ethanol demand.

And the price of gas is going up due partly to oil getting more expensive.

>Gasoline, in my opinion is a very unique commodity.

Why? Ethanol, diesel, biodiesel, natural gas etc are all equally useful. Vehicles exist that will run on all those things, and some are EASIER to get than gasoline. Many houses in the US, for example, already have a natural gas line running to them. This can be used to refill your car at home - and we can actually make natural gas from garbage, something we can't do with gasoline.

>or at least mandate the construction of a few refineries for 'national security' purposes.

If you mean construct a refinery to produce fuel for the military - no problems with that, as long as it makes sense economically.

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And the price of gas is going up due partly to oil getting more expensive.



Gas prices are going up despite falling crude oil prices.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

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Supply and demand doesn't apply to gasoline. They artificially control supply with all of their refinery 'outages'. The supply is more than adequate, given the falling price of crude. The problem is greed, resulting in no new refineries, and bullshit outages that drive up the price.

I'll get on board. Fuck it- what can it hurt? What I remember is that when I pump gas, I am making a futures investment. If I feel the price will fall, I put in less. If I feel gas will go up, I fill the tank.....



Damn Straight! ;)

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"

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In CA the refineries were ordered to convert to using MTBE (or more expensive ethanol), then a few years later were ordered to stop using MTBE and only use ethanol. The state tried to get the Feds to let the refineries use neither, but Ethanol Fed Bush sent back a hearty fuck you, so at least until a Democrats take over, here we are.



sure, :S California's wacky refinery requirements are the fault of the Feds.......

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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>Ethanol,



Nice - burn more net fuel from the world while pretending it nets less. But with the added bonus of artificillay redistributing money to special interest groups. Which was the end goal all along.

Nice bonus, the price of milk (amongst other things) also gets to go up.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

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In CA the refineries were ordered to convert to using MTBE (or more expensive ethanol), then a few years later were ordered to stop using MTBE and only use ethanol. The state tried to get the Feds to let the refineries use neither, but Ethanol Fed Bush sent back a hearty fuck you, so at least until a Democrats take over, here we are.



sure, :S California's wacky refinery requirements are the fault of the Feds.......


Ultimately, yes. It's a fed mandate that ethanol or MTBE be used, even if its possible to refine a gasoline mix that is just as clean without it.

Don't speak to matters you're not fully informed of, even if CARB is a wacky bunch.

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