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Originally posted by Stazi:
I don't see ANY shortages ANYWHERE so I don't buy that argument - even the Hurrican Katrina induced gouging was unjustified as it happened THE DAY the hurrican hit, when the gas was already sitting i the tanks at the stations!
A bottleneck in the overall supply chain doesn't immediately mean that shortages are happening NOW; it simply means that there is a general tightening of supply that sends the price up. Combine this with ever-increasing demand that also tends to drive the price up: double-whammy.
Originally posted by Stazi:
This new formulation has barely even an effect on the normal formulations we use today - we can you even BUY these new formulations?????
Depends on what state you are in and what season it is; there's a bloody patchwork of gas formulations that are sold all across the US and in some regions that's responsible for further hiking the price above already high levels...
Originally posted by Stazi:
There's MANY oil producing nations to offset bad blood with Iran and Venezuela - this is another moot point
Moot point my white ass; apart from the REAL concern that their reserves are at risk from being witheld from the markets that the US commonly buys from, the threat of this sends speculators into a frenzy and it's frenzied specualtors that are the folks that SET the price of oil and gas in this market. Futhermore, Venezuela is the BIGGEST oil producer in South America if I remember correctly and Iran is one of the top monster-producers in the Middle-East. OPEC has already come out and said that for the most part, they are pumping flat-out, so there are FEW if ANY others to take up the slack as you suggest...
Originally posted by Stazi:
Way to just create another oint using the above points, which I have rebutted.
What can I say; I'm fond of repetition and compounded points. As to a rebuttal, try again, because I'm simply not seing one here.
Originally posted by Stazi:
Last time I checked, no one goes through 20 gallons or wine, beer, or milk a week, not without dying - that comparison is ridiculous!
Fair enough; I just get surprised with folks that scream about $3/gallon gas when other items they purchase hold FAR higher price-points/gallon and give their manufacturers MUCH migher margins that what the oil companies are seeing.
Gouging is gouging, no matter what the price-point or what the commodity, so if people think it's going on with gas, it begs the question to find out what they think about alcohol or even other seasonable perishables that are priced via a speculative market...
Originally posted by Stazi:
Margins are one thing - actual profit is another - not one industry comes close to the profit that Gas companies are creating! This is because gas is sold in such large quatity, compared to a copy of Windows or a bottle of antibiotics!
Margins are what LEAD to profit if the business is managed carefully and properly. They are unequivocally interlinked. Period.
Originally posted by Stazi:
This although true, does not JUSTIFY the sudden 300% increase in gas over the last 5 years!!! The last time gas went up 300% it took 20 years!
Yeah, we also didn't have India and China going through the Second Coming of the Industrial Revolution, either. Nor did we have the supply concerns or refining restraints that we do today, either. Market dynamics are ENTIRELY different today than they were 20-40 years ago.
Originally posted by Stazi:
Their are more wealthy sheiks then there are "Bill Gates", once again due to the VOLUME of PRODUCT being sold and the number of sheiks who sell said product comared to the number of big software companies.
My point was that there are NO big oil execs sitting in the billionaire's club today; most of the money is heading towards the Middle-East and not lining the pockets of oil CEO's...
Originally posted by Stazi:
Screw you....it's out and out gouging and I hope Congress uncovers it and we get back to sane pricing.
Bulls**t; single-digit profits are about as non-gouging as one can come across and that's EXACTLY what they are making today. It's basic bloody math and accounting, people. I'm neither for or against oil companies; I AM for cutting through the sensationalistic BS that the media perpetuates on this topic, though. All that is happening now is that Bush is "pulling a Clinton" and bowing down to public pressure because his numbers are low, so inquiries are conviened to give the appearance that the US government is "concerned and alarmed" by the price of gas. What a crock of s**t; it's a waste of taxpayer money as they damn-well KNOW that there is no gouging going on.
Originally posted by Stazi:
PS which gas company do you work for? 
None; which sensationalistc media outlet cuts your paycheck at the end of the week?
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Originally posted by jerseycat10:
Good thing JaTo came in here to talk us down, otherwise, this thread would be less than perfect.
Shame on me; it's so much more fun to knee-jerk hypothesize and fantisize about getting anal-banged by oil execs out of ignorance than going through dreary math and basic macro-econ...
My bad; carry on.
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Originally posted by TC'd Swazo:
Corn and soy beans could give us E100
Good luck buying E100 at the pump.
I have noticed a lot of talk around here (Utah) lately about E85 saying how it will save us and blah, blah, blah. All this talk never mentions that the vehicles will get worse mileage, have less power and probably throw a CEL because the average (non-flex fuel) car cannot adjust to handle the Ethanol's optimum air/fuel ratio. They also dont mention how most of the vehicles produced pre-90 cant handle ethanol and it will eventually eat the plastics in the fuel system.
One state, MI IIRC, is forcing E20 by either 2008 or 2010. Wonder what the automakers will this of this for the US? It should be an easy transition with the higher E ratings used elsewhere in the world.
Im not arguing with the benifits of Ethanol. Do I see it as a way of saving the world? No. Do I see it as a viable power source that we as a country could benefit from using more? Yes. Do I think it is a cheap experiment to see if I can make the car boost more? Sure. Its a hell of a lot cheaper then the 100 octane race gas.
FWIW, the Volvo seems to like it in low doses (E33). And the ~96 octane rating, in theory, lets me boost more before the ECU says no more. Fuel mileage drop is minimal so I am good with that also. 
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Originally posted by sigma:
Originally posted by TC'd Swazo:
Why not look to our farmers to provide our fuel? Corn and soy beans could give us E100, or we could even produce our own 100% US E85 and we could make our own bio-diesel.
That would also mean that we would not have to subsidize the farmers at all, we'd be pumping billions into OUR economy.
Other than the fact that the lobbyists have their arms crammed so far the politicians asses, I simply do not get why this isn't an option for the United States. Brazil did it, why can't we?
If we didn't subsidize the farmers, E85 would be outrageously expensive. There's nothing cheap about growing corn to produce fuel. Even worse it takes 1.5 gallons of E85 to take you as far as 1 gallon of gas. So it costs alot more to go the same distance. The cost difference coupled with the efficiency difference means that ethanol costs twice what gasoline currently does to move your car the same distance.
And to grow enough ethanol to replace our gasoline, we'd have to turn over 70% of our farmland to growing corn. Obviously not gonna happen. We could only afford to turn over a few percent of our land to such an alternative use.
I think you both need to read up on your ethanol facts. Brazil uses sugar cane to make their ethanol. You get higher returns from sugar cane than you do from corn.
If the US converted ALL of its farm land to ethanol producing crops their still would not be enough fuel to power every vehicle on the roads in this country.
It is true that you cannot go as far on a gallon of ethanol as you can on gasoline if your engine is left the way it is, however if you increase the compression ratio to around 12:1 or so you can get just as far on a gallon of ethanol as you currently do on a gallon of gas.
There are other ways to produce ethanol from any celluloid (plant) matter that are rather expensive right now. Bush's famous switchgrass stuff falls into this category, as do wood chips, corn stalks and husks, old newspapers (seriously), and so on. As development furthers, costs should come down (but who knows if they will). Also, leftover plant matter from these processes can be burned to produce more than enough energy to power the ethanol production.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Ethanol looks like it could be a good way to ease the reliance on foreign oil, however it doesn't look like the US can get off of it completely. Here are some good links...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel Long, but mostly good.
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/index.html You can make your own.
http://www.e85fuel.com/index.php The official ethanol ra-ra site.
http://www.turbomustangs.com/smf/index.php?topic=47094.0 Wow!
Almost forgot, ARRRRGH!!!
Last edited by BloodyTomFlint; 04/28/06 12:22 PM.
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My main point is that I'm not satisfied to just go "Oh well I guess I'll just pay $3 a gallon and not question it"...to me it not fully justified. When I cam to the US 6 years ago gas for $0.98 a gallon and in 6 years it is not 3x that - tell me what intelligent person wouldn't question that??? Maybe I am not as heavily invested into the economic data available to fully appreciate the possible explanation for this price increase, but my engineering brain just say "somethig aint right here - let's find out why" which cause me to look at root-cause-analysis. I'm not happy about paying this price for gas and I want to know why...and the excuses I heard so far aren't "doing it" for me...
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There is definitely something wrong and it's a combination of things, but what it is not is a royal screwing by the oil companies here in the US. Congress has looked at this before and found nothing and there has been TONS of oversight in the energy industry since Enron came tumbling down( Sarbanks Oxley compliance has been a Hell of a meal-ticket for me); let's just say that most companies messing with electricity, gas, oil and other energy sources have been walking around on tiptoes for some time now. The US media is spouting ignorance and well over half the population is buying into it and letting anger instead of logic rule the day; oil and gas company exec's aren't idiots and they realize that any further uplifts in price that they realize in processing, delivery, exploration, extraction, etc., etc. (which will usually be reflected in the price at the pump) will have to be backed with SOUND and IRONCLAD financial reasoning.
The fact is that most of the reason the price has currently gone up are for reasons outside of their control.
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I heard on the radio this morning that Bush is considering giving a $100 rebate check back to people that make under $125 grand a year.
Originally posted by Chickens:
Religion can't do much for ashholes (unless you are an alterboy)
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Originally posted by XKontour98:
I heard on the radio this morning that Bush is considering giving a $100 rebate check back to people that make under $125 grand a year.
That's one tank of gas for my pickup. Hmph.
BrApple-its all in the way it is presented...but everythign on my resume is all me
TexasRealtor-I hope you spelling improves on your resume.
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Originally posted by XKontour98:
I heard on the radio this morning that Bush is considering giving a $100 rebate check back to people that make under $125 grand a year.
I'm really getting hacked at Bush; that's probably the most idiotic idea around. It's utterly meaningless, apart from a political ploy to get sagging ratings up.
JaTo
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Originally posted by JaTo:
Bulls**t; single-digit profits are about as non-gouging as one can come across and that's EXACTLY what they are making today. It's basic bloody math and accounting, people.
here's some bloody math for you....
exxon, just ONE of the companies, "only" had a 7% increase in earnings.
how much did that amount to? $588,000,000. say it with me.... five-hundred and eighty-eight MILLION dollars in ADDITIONAL PROFIT... thats just an increase... just in one year... just for ONE company.
those poor companies are only making single digit gains...
again, your argument is crap, JATO.
it's looking like a load of rhetoric. and i thought you were better than that. 
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