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198 Comments
- inactive, on 04/28/2008, -5/+49Part of the reason it is so high is the value of the dollar falling off.Even if we were to finally build refineries and allow for domestic drilling that would not stop the falling dollar which leads to higher prices.
If the oil companies make a smaller profit than the government I think something is wrong. They have invested money and the taxation on a gallon of fuel does not stop at the pump because the point of sale tax is only one part of the big tax picture. They have a tax on the building and property and a tax on the utilities it uses and a tax on the truck that brings the fuel and every replacement part on that truck is taxed when it wears out with special excise taxes for tires and batteries and such. Then you have the driver who is taxed and the road use taxes and it goes on and on.
Congress has eliminated all possibilitiy of building a refinery here in this country and the Democrats in particular are being stupid about this situation. They control both the House and Senate and all taxation and spending bills originate in the House. Part of the reason Congress has such low approval numbers can be found in the fact they have done nothing substantial since they took over and the increase in minimum wage was immediately eaten by the rising cost of food and fuel.
FTA:" New York State average of $3.736 for regular. Dougher added that the rest breaks down as such:59.6 cents a gallon goes to state and federal taxes -- of which Uncle Sam gets 18.4 cents a gallon, and the remainder goes to Uncle David in Albany; 26.2 cents a gallon pays for refining crude oil; and another 11.2 cents a gallon goes to distribution and marketing. And, yes, except for the taxes, each of those items includes profit for the oil industry, Dougher said. Last year's tally was about $123 billion. But the industry, including Dougher, hastens to point out that those numbers represent a rate of return of only 8.3 cents per dollar of company revenue ..." - TheInformer, on 04/28/2008, -6/+46So let's see here....
- can't drill for oil in ANWR
- can't drill for oil off the Florida coast
- can't develop oil shale
- can't build nuclear reactors
- can't build refineries
- must have 15 different blends of gasoline
- can't build wind farms because birds might get hurt
Of *course* the reason prices are high are because of greedy oil companies. At least the companies are earning their money. What does government do to earn what they forcibly add to the cost of each gallon?
Until we're ready as a nation to do what it takes to become energy independent, we're going to continue to pray at the shrine of the middle eastern countries. - inactive, on 04/28/2008, -1/+28It's good to know where our money is going, but we know one thing for certain: It's not in our pockets!
- blankoboy, on 04/28/2008, -0/+19Living in Tokyo and only a 2 minute walk away from the train station (to which I can get to anywhere in the city within 30 minutes), my gas $$ stays in my pocket! No car for me thanks.
- lndmn01, on 04/28/2008, -3/+21FTA:
"New York State average of $3.736 for regular."
"But the industry, including Dougher, hastens to point out that those numbers represent a rate of return of only 8.3 cents per dollar of company revenue"
"59.6 cents a gallon goes to state and federal taxes"
So the companies that do the actual work, risk millions to drill new wells, build refineries and make sure your local gas station has fuel make 8.3 cents per dollar while the governments (local and state combined) make 15.9 cents per dollar.
Perhaps we should investigate the government and the profit they are making on oil instead of the companies that are working to bring the oil to us. - h3smith, on 04/28/2008, -2/+18I agree it is price gouging, $0.60 a gallon going right to the government! that IS gouging!
- lschofield, on 04/28/2008, -11/+25I am amazed that this sort of price-gauging is allowed. And it IS a monopoly of a handful of companies, can't something be done about this?
- inactive, on 04/28/2008, -3/+14Nice rant, Cashman. All good points.
- Harbinger67, on 04/28/2008, -0/+10"and another 11.2 cents a gallon goes to distribution and marketing."
Marketing? Really? MARKETING? Who the ***** needs gas ADVERTISED to them?! Who is still unaware of gasoline? P.S. Oil companies, unless your commercial can make your gas station closer to me at any given time, I'm not buying your gas no matter how good your ads are. - Mohonri, on 04/28/2008, -0/+10That's kinda hard to do, since the members of OPEC are a bunch of sovereign nations, not a group of US companies. True, they kinda do fix prices, but there's really nothing we can do about it unless we find our own enormous oil/gas reserves.
- andy594, on 04/28/2008, -7/+16I filled up at £1.179/litre yesterday
1.17900 (British pounds / litre) = 8.83986508 U.S. dollars / US gallons
Count yourselves lucky. - fuckingusername, on 04/28/2008, -3/+12I can remember the day 5 us dollars would get you 4.5 gallons lol
mission accomplished - TherealObadiah, on 04/28/2008, -2/+9But, but, Nancy Pelosi PROMISED that if we elected Democrats in 2006 that they would solve the problem of high gas prices! So many suckers in this country actually believed her.
- thinkart, on 04/28/2008, -1/+8quit being happy about it! anything above $2 is nothing to be happy about. remember a couple yrs ago when everyone was freaking out about $2.50? notice that you are being conditioned and stay outraged.
- Berkana, on 04/28/2008, -0/+7In San Francisco, regular is already over $4.
- Aahz, on 04/28/2008, -2/+9Yeah but isn't the minimum wage in the UK like £5.50 (almost $11.00)
Ours is still $5.85 I think. (almost £3.00) - saigumi, on 04/28/2008, -0/+7100 hours.
They had 8 main things they wanted to happen. They succeeded in 1, raising minimum wage, and that was only after giving themselves a pay increase. - consoneo, on 04/28/2008, -2/+9You're forgetting the biggest part of this rising oil price picture: Speculation. Speculators are buying up oil like it's going out of style. It will hit it's apex some day here and will start to come down. I only hope it is sooner rather than later.
- OfNumbers, on 04/28/2008, -0/+7The only people that can afford oil stocks that can pull profit are already shareholders.
- silverleaves, on 04/28/2008, -1/+7How many people are cutting back on driving around? I plan my trips. Try to go for the shortest route. Every day the prices edge up. $4.35 for regular gas near San Fran. I'm sure it's way higher in the City.
Just awful! Why don't I hold oil stocks? - Mohonri, on 04/28/2008, -6/+12Nice try, but you're way off the mark. First of all, it's not a monopoly by a handful of companies. ExxonMobil, the biggest of the majors, only controls about 3% of the market. And nobody's price-gouging, either. If you RTFA, the 8.3% profit margin the oil companies make on gasoline is nothing to get excited about. The reason they're making tens of billions of dollars in profits isn't because they're jacking up prices, it's because they sell a whole frickin' lot of the stuff.
- Mohonri, on 04/28/2008, -2/+7Really? Then what about the tolls, registration fees, inspection fees, and property taxes I pay? A lot of taxes are supposedly destined for one or another cause, but they all just get dumped in a common fund.
- shauncorleone, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5Not only did they promise to lower them, they claimed they already had a plan formulated. Where is it? Funny how the media doesn't cover that.
- BrapAllgood, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6Most stations are $4 around here now. I think $3.789 was the lowest I saw in my (rare) excursion out yesterday. I sometimes miss how much I used to drive (LOTS), but not so much at these prices.
- Mohonri, on 04/28/2008, -2/+7If their profit margins are double what they were before (which they're not), then they were making about 4% before, which is far below industry average. If we want to complain and penalize the oil companies when they're successful, does that mean that we also have to subsidize and support them when the market is down?
In actuality, the profit margins haven't really changed. The cost to produce oil has also gone up significantly. Everything from the price of steel and the cost to rent a drilling rig has skyrocketed in the last few years, eating into oil company profits even as gas prices increase.
On a separate note, the oil companies are going to sell their oil to the highest bidder. It's a commodities market. If the US government were to put a cap on gas prices, the oil will simply be sold elsewhere, and we'll have shortages here in the US. Don't believe me? That's exactly what happened in 1973. Ask your parents whether they remember the gas lines back then. - TheInformer, on 04/28/2008, -2/+7Neither does Michael Moore, Alex Rodriguez, or Barack Obama. Why not criticize them too?
- Berkana, on 04/28/2008, -5/+10- ANWR will not provide enough oil to significantly impact our usage, and would take about 15 years to start production
http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300001
- Florida makes more money from tourism; drilling would hurt or risk hurting that on almost a permanent basis to provide a temporary supply of oil.
- oil shale is a sham; it is so energy intensive to extract oil from shale the money may as well be spent on renewables that don't require tearing up the earth and polluting the land, air and water.
- nuclear reactors won't power your cars because GM and big oil killed the electric car.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricca ...
- not wanting refineries is a NIMBY problem; they end up being built in poor neighborhoods.
- we don't need 15 blends of gasoline. Do we have that many blends to begin with? I just see three grades typically.
- most of the sites where wind is opposed don't actually hurt birds as much as detractors claim; only wind farms on migration routes and on hot air currents used by hawks really pose a threat to birds. Newer Savonius turbines such as those introduced by Tera Moya Aqua four or five years ago don't kill birds at all, and have some of the highest efficiencies out there. Rich folks who oppose off shore wind farms (such as Cape Wind in Massachusettes) because they get in the way of their yacht routes and other nonsense like that often falsely claim the bird kill threat even though the threat is not significant off-shore.
You failed to mention the huge solar projects being started and coming on line. Newer solar-thermal systems can even store steam from the day to power night time needs.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/05/21/sevilles-solar ...
California is mass-deploying solar cells on warehouse rooftops which currently do nothing but bask in the sun. This has the added benefit of bypassing the aging grid to deliver the power right where it is needed. The panels easily produce far more energy than went into making them.
http://www.thebizpress.com/news/stories/BP_News_Lo ...
This could and should be done throughout the sun-belt. There's also the massive Stirling-dish farms being built in the desserts of California; they plan on installing something like 800MW:
http://www.stirlingenergy.com/projects/solar-one.a ...
The sun imparts more than enough energy to power all of humanity many times over:
http://1366tech.com/v1/content/view/16/33/
We can become energy independent. The sun-belt can easily provide the energy needed to power the entire nation. The problem is that established interests have twisted our political leadership to keep the gravy train headed their way. If we had taken even a significant fraction of the amount of money we've spent on trying to conquer Iraq for its oil and spent it on deployment of existing solar technologies and popularizing electric cars, we would not be facing this problem today. - pbd1637, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6Please READ the article. Mohonri is correct.
"Dougher, hastens to point out that those numbers represent a rate of return of only 8.3 cents per dollar of company revenue -- a rate lower than those of the beverage, tobacco, pharmaceutical, computer, electronic and chemical industries."
The profit is 8.3 cents PER DOLLAR, not per gallon. And second, oil is a commodity. If an individual made a ton of money buying avocados at a low price and selling it high, we would be amazed at his luck or intelligence. But we blame the oil companies for price gouging?!
We need to blame our elected officials and the environmental wackos who want us to live in teepee's and wear loin clothes and eat nuts and berries. - TheInformer, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5Using an article from Mediamatters for confirmation? Well, they're known for not having any bias :^) . Check out http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_22_ ... for a counterpoint.
Floridians wouldn't even see or know the platforms are offshore. People saying that tourists would see the platforms is nonsense.
You only "see" three grades at the pump, not the chemical composition of what is in the gasoline. Do you think that gasoline is just gasoline and nothing else? Gasoline is a blend of chemicals along with the actual gasoline. Did you know that California requires different blends (notice I said 'blend', not 'grade') of gasoline depending on what time of the year it is?
My comment on wind farms was meant to highlight the silliness of some of the environmentalists. "We must use clean power" is the cry, yet in at least one case when it is going to be used environmentalists rallied against the windmills because they would harm the birds. They're talking out of both sides of their mouth.
I'm all for solar. Let's get it done. I always wondered why all roofing shingles sold weren't also solar cells. - inactive, on 04/28/2008, -4/+9I own stock in Conoco and Exxon. So my gas money is going to me in the form of appreciation and dividends. Instead of railing at the oil companies why don't you work with them? Buy oil company stock. It will change your views on the gas 'crisis'.
- AlwaysAwake, on 04/28/2008, -4/+9So, above is the governments cut. Then there's the distribution, shipping, and refining costs and profits all along the way from the oil producing source. Also some broker's fees. And finally back in Saudizuelaco, they are getting a price of about 7 or 8 times the cost to produce it.To imagine this, it's like a vertically integrated bread factory wholesaling a loaf that cost $0.20 to produce, for $1.60 each, and more customers and orders than they can satisfy.Some of that money goes to the natives, so they don't get restless, and strangle the golden goose. Some of it goes to trouble makers to guarantee they make trouble elsewhere.Some of it goes to monumental construction projects, and investments to generate more profits. some is spread around in the markets to ensure "stability" there. Some for palaces, planes , travel, cars, wardrobe, and entertainment, etc. And finally a whole bunch is parked in Switzerland and elsewhere for a rainy day, past history being what it is, with all the wars and revolution rainy days.
- Berkana, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6. . . or if we "bring democracy" to them.
- 9bpm9, on 04/28/2008, -2/+7St. Louis rocks. We are at like $3.56.
- Mothrog, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5Probably because the strategic oil reserve is there for emergencies, not for when a bunch of morons decide they don't want to pay a certain price for gas.
- speel, on 04/28/2008, -4/+8Bike prices skyrocket!!
- Mohonri, on 04/28/2008, -2/+6Another option would be for Congress to allow drilling for domestic oil and gas supplies. We have an awful lot of oil in Alaska and off the coasts of California and Florida, but the NIMBY idiocy is preventing us from getting that oil.
- WoollyMittens, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5Why don't you forget to mention how much a train-ticket costs there.
- fotoman, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4Yea, but the UK is like smaller than 31 of the states in the US. It's about the same size as Louisiana :o If I were confined to a space that small, pretty sure I'd drive less as well :)
- TheInformer, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5Why do the strong "need" to bear the burden? What a "fair share" of taxes? To whom is it "fair"? These are philosophical questions that won't be answered here.
To reiterate: the profit the oil companies make goes into stocks, retirement accounts, mutual funds, IRAs, pensions, etc. The people who participate in the stock market, have retirement accounts or pensions, etc - regular people - for the most part are the true recipients of the profits. - GRANDPAMUNSTER, on 06/11/2009, -1/+5That's what they want, you to get used to paying $3.50, and then you will get used to paying $4.00 and so on.
- jetsetsc, on 04/28/2008, -7/+11For the most part, up into the atmosphere as CO2 emissions.
I for one welcome higher gas prices. Until it hurts to drive, Americans will continue to buy dumb, gas guzzling vehicles. - TheInformer, on 04/28/2008, -2/+6How much of the tax revenue received is actually used for roads, and how much is spent otherwise?
North Carolina has a higher state tax on gasoline, and the rationale for it is "paying for roads". South Carolina has a much lower rate. I've driven in both states extensively and can tell you there isn't *that* much difference in road quality. Governments say the money is going to be used for reason "X", but it's all about taking money (i.e. power) from you. They are notoriously money hungry. - life38, on 04/28/2008, -2/+6Record profits of oil companies is due to the fact that most of the oil is bought on the exchanged and goes to the highest bidder. The safer the oil looks to be able to be delivered the higher the price. If one company Exxon made a 40 billion dollar profit, just image what the oil companies combined made. The best avenue to lower the cost is to become less dependent on oil, expecially from foreign oil. Have Congress pass a standard that requires the reporting by each company of where the oil has been produced from. This will allow each of us to vote with their consumer dollars.
- cbartlett, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5It's only physically possible to withdraw 4 million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We import 12 million barrels a day though. So it wouldn't do much good.
- ccxftw, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5Long Island, the biggest rip off on earth. (I can say that because I live there.)
- oldgal, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3and then it will be called the bursting of the oil bubble requiring government bailouts
- designer, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3More knee jerk liberal hate. Get rid of the tree hugging dirt worshipers who stop all progress and gas prices will come down. More supply + less regulation = cheaper gas.
- jbmcb, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3There is plenty of demand now - that's why GM is coming out with the Volt in a few years. There wasn't in the 90's when gas was $1.50 a gallon.
I saw the documentary with a few people who work for GM. They were laughing at it. It's ridiculously simple - if people will buy it the car companies will build it. They don't make money from oil company investments, they make money from selling cars. GM never sold out of their original stock, and the percentage of people wanting to buy their EV-1's was in the very low teens. That wouldn't even start to cover the costs of development, much less continued production at a very expensive factory (Lansing Craft - where relatively complex cars were mostly hand-built, or experimental assembly line configurations were tested) - pbd1637, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3If the Iraq government is failing to meet the benchmarks, then we are not getting their oil on the market. If we could get all that oil into the market that it would cause the price to go down, not up. Oil is a traded commodity; The greater the supply the lower the price. It looks more like Bush is trying to move things along and LOWER the price of oil in the process.
- shredswithpiks, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3min wage varies by state, doesn't it? (also please stop increasing the minimum wage past inflation it hurts everyone)
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