Gas Prices

[inteller]

I'll say this, if gas dips below $1.50 this country is going to be in really big trouble because it points to larger economic problems.  Whether we like it or not gas prices are a good indicator of economic activity.  While I'll love filling up for under $1.50, I'm not interested in a depression.

[Jeorge]

Dr. Paul Burns has done extensive studies on wind energy since he was approached by Airtricity to lease a portion of his ranch in northeast Brown County off U.S. 183 between Blanket and May. Burns warned those in favor of the wind turbines that Texas is the prime location because "there are no real regulations in place" regarding wind energy.Texas

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

I'll say this, if gas dips below $1.50 this country is going to be in really big trouble because it points to larger economic problems.  Whether we like it or not gas prices are a good indicator of economic activity.  While I'll love filling up for under $1.50, I'm not interested in a depression.

I dunno what is going on. They say gasoline fell to $1.37 a gallon in Missouri near St. Louis. It's funny when gas prices fall real fast from $4.00 a gallon to $1.40 a gallon in only  3 and a half months  no one talks about greedy oil companies or  ask congress to check into the fast falling gas prices. If the gas prices shot up from $1.40 a gallon to $4.00 a gallon in under 4 months everyone would blame the greedy oil companies, when it's reversed they don't say nothing..  Those greedy oil companies and their record profits!! Talk about things getting worse, Obama wants to tax oil companies profits like what Jimmy Carter did in 1977 and that resulted in long lines at the pumps and dry gas stations and the odd/even ration days for drivers remember those days. I'm surprised that some states still have gas prices around $1.90 a gallon. Here in Ohio we are close to $1.49 a gallon[xx(]

[inteller]

rapid price deflation is NEVER good.  We're headed for a depression.

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

rapid price deflation is NEVER good.  We're headed for a depression.

Its good for those who have protected piles of money and assets. They get to live even cheaper. Its hell for the rest of us.

What is the defining point between a deep recession and a depression? The 1930's saw up to 25% unemployment. Is that the criteria?

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by inteller

I dunno what is going on.  Talk about things getting worse, Obama wants to tax oil companies profits like what Jimmy Carter did in 1977 and that resulted in long lines at the pumps and dry gas stations and the odd/even ration days for drivers remember those days. xx(]

You're wrong on both counts. Obama was on record during the election when gasoline was skyrocketing as possibly favoring a (temporary) windfall profits tax. That's entirely different from what you said. Doubt he is considering it now.

Secondly, there were long gas lines in 1973-75 before Carter ever took office and without any windfall profits tax. I sat in some of those lines. In fact, oil companies were doing quite well in spite of the lines, which turned out to be more of a distribution problem that they exploited to raise prices. Good for them. Sugar later did it as well as other commodities. They profitted handsomely because the new higher prices were for older, lower drilling cost oil, but reported to the government smaller margins based on newer costs to avoid scrutiny. It created lots of jobs in the industry. And lots of new regulation.

No, hardly anyone complains when fuel prices drop. But yes, people have a hard time justifying price gouging and look to government to protect them. Why are you arguing against nature?

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by waterboy

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

quote:Originally posted by inteller

I dunno what is going on.  Talk about things getting worse, Obama wants to tax oil companies profits like what Jimmy Carter did in 1977 and that resulted in long lines at the pumps and dry gas stations and the odd/even ration days for drivers remember those days. xx(]

You're wrong on both counts. Obama was on record during the election when gasoline was skyrocketing as possibly favoring a (temporary) windfall profits tax. That's entirely different from what you said. Doubt he is considering it now.

Secondly, there were long gas lines in 1973-75 before Carter ever took office and without any windfall profits tax. I sat in some of those lines. In fact, oil companies were doing quite well in spite of the lines, which turned out to be more of a distribution problem that they exploited to raise prices. Good for them. Sugar later did it as well as other commodities. They profitted handsomely because the new higher prices were for older, lower drilling cost oil, but reported to the government smaller margins based on newer costs to avoid scrutiny. It created lots of jobs in the industry. And lots of new regulation.

No, hardly anyone complains when fuel prices drop. But yes, people have a hard time justifying price gouging and look to government to protect them. Why are you arguing against nature?

We had two gas line peroids in the 1970's. The first in 1973 was a result of a Arab oil embargo.(We were importing much of our oil and today we still import tons of oil since we can't drill for our own) The second gas crisis happened in the late 1970's under Carter and his tax on oil company profits. That lasted until 1980- when Reagan took office the gas lines went away. Obama wants to do the same thing as Jimmy Carter, The oil companies have record profits. Obama said he wants to tax oil companies point blank. We did that in 1977 and the result was bad. I don't think we'll get a different result this time[B)]

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

and today we still import tons of oil since we can't drill for our own)

No, we import lots of oil because we can't produce enough to satiate our demand no matter how much we drill. Oil wells are not magic, you don't just get every last drop at the flow rate of a gusher.

And you're misremembering the cause for the gas rationing, but why should anybody expect better when you can't even grasp that our oil consumption outstrips any production rate we could possibly attain.

A tax makes things more expensive, it doesn't cause them to be in short supply. All not selling something due to high taxes when demand for a product still exists does is reduce the amount of money you make. Only idiots play that game, and oil companies are a lot of things, but they aren't run by idiots.

[waterboy]

You're simply wrong Sauer. I worked for Cities Service during the 73-77 period. We did in fact have tankers floating in the Gulf that we couldn't offload because of disruptions in storage, refining and distribution pipelines. It has to be in balance or "shortages" appear. It had almost nothing to do with the embargo except that demand spiked over fear created by it. We made a 10% ROI that year and management was not satisfied.

As far as taxes you can read the Obama website, listen to Nathan or continue to spread your misunderstanding willy nilly. Even your mantra of 'more drilling" as a solution is a popular misconception that gets people elected but is patently foolish.

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by nathanm

quote:Originally posted by sauerkraut

and today we still import tons of oil since we can't drill for our own)

No, we import lots of oil because we can't produce enough to satiate our demand no matter how much we drill. Oil wells are not magic, you don't just get every last drop at the flow rate of a gusher.

And you're misremembering the cause for the gas rationing, but why should anybody expect better when you can't even grasp that our oil consumption outstrips any production rate we could possibly attain.

A tax makes things more expensive, it doesn't cause them to be in short supply. All not selling something due to high taxes when demand for a product still exists does is reduce the amount of money you make. Only idiots play that game, and oil companies are a lot of things, but they aren't run by idiots.

We in North America have more oil than they got in the middle east. We have oil shale rock that has over 800 BILLION barrels of recoverable oil. That's all off limits. There is even a ban on importing Canada sand oil because it's ruining the enviroment in Canada, so we say we don't want that. The eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico has tons of oil but drilling is banned there and is only allowed in the western part of the gulf with smaller oil reserves. A big oil find was discovered in North dakota and Montana. There is huge supplies of natural gas under the Gulf Of Mexico enough to last 600 years. Let's drill for that..  Why not build cars to run on natural gas? it's clean fuel I don't understand why congress talks about alternative fuels and won't push for natural gas cars... Natural gas costs about a $1.00 a gallon and you can fuel up at home (if you get a attachment for your home nat. gas line). I understand Natural Gas can also run big rigs instead of diesel or use a combo of both fuels in the big rigs. The fuel shortage is man made. Let's get serious and bust away from OPEC..[B)]

[AMP]

Tom Sewell, who is the co-owner of the Oil Capitol Racing Series which produces races involving 360 cu in Sprint Cars owns Tulsa Gas Technologies in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While they still burn Methanol fuel in the Sprint Cars, Natual Gas is a cleaner less carbon producing fuel which overall is very cost effective alternative to liquid fossil fuels such as diesel and gasoline.   Less oil and comvbustion chamber contamination, and other benifits when burned in a poppet valve internal combustion reciprocating engine.

http://www.tulsagastech.com/

They manufacture re-fueling stations, pumps and equipment for Natural Gas fuel.

[YoungTulsan]

Sauerkraut needs to start two threads of his own instead of constantly derailing others into an anti-Obama drill-now arguement.  This is a thread about gas prices.  I made a thread about oil prices a while back and the same thing happened.

Start one thread called "Lets argue about the need to drill more domestically" and start another thread called "Ask a guy who doesn't know sh*t about Tulsa since he doesn't live there anything"

[Renaissance]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Let me clarify, the cost of oil coming out of the wellhead to the person selling it (not what they charge everyone else) did not go from $30 in '03 to 5x that five years later and then suddenly drop 57% in the last 3 months. In almost every case we're talking about the same well, same pump, and same guy pumping it.

\

Same as for the cost of an ounce of gold coming out of the mine.  Market sets the price on that as well.

[patric]

Gas prices actually went UP yesterday, from $1.34 to $1.49.

What happened, did somebody throw a shoe at the president or something?

[Hoss]

quote:Originally posted by YoungTulsan

...(snipped for brevity).

Start one thread called "Lets argue about the need to drill more domestically" and start another thread called "Ask a guy who doesn't know sh*t about Tulsa since he doesn't live there anymore"

Fixed it for you, but agree completely.  That's going to leave a mark.