[cool][#0000ff]Here's a[url "http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gas-prices/2011/03/18/ABaUtbQB_story.html"] LINK[/url] to a writeup in the Washington Post about 5 myths for why gas prices are so high. Good reading even if you don't choose to believe them. Like most crotchety old %#&$& I still have my own opinions (and solutions).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]What's yours?[/#0000ff]
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Cool link. I think that high gas prices result from a variety of sources...all of them being ran by fear. Some of that fear is rational, yet much of it is unjustified. I do not have a viable solution to the problem, but I hope that something happens soon.
If anyone invents a car that can run off of time spent fishing.....I am set[
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Biggest cause recently is oil speculation. Companies like Goldman Sachs are again making billions at our expense as they did in 2008. This makes the economic recovery a shakier proposition as well. But the have the billions so they give to politicians so the can continue to screw us.
http://www.thenation.com/article/159078/...peculation
I think there was also a good article in the SL Trib recently on this- not sure may have been somewhere else I read it
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[cool][#0000ff]The commodities traders always have for more to do with the prices we pay than the old traditional rules of actual supply and demand. The gas we are burning now is from the same oil we have been drilling and producing for years. The costs of drilling, pumping, shipping, refining and trucking to gas stations are no higher than they were several years ago...when gas prices were a third of what they are now. In some cases oil companies have totally recovered their expenses of original development and their costs per barrel are much less than they used to be. But, because of speculators the prices per barrel keep escalating in spite of actual costs.
One of the things that really frosts me is that whenever the "speculatory" price of a barrel of oil jumps a dollar, we see it in the price of gas the next day...even though the refineries will not be
getting the higher priced oil for weeks or months.
But, if the price of oil drops $2 per barrel it is weeks or months before that shows up at the pumps.
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Right on Dude!
I've always wondered this: They say the price goes up due to lower supplies on hand. How the he-- can it cost producers more to produce fuel when they've only got a million barrel supply than it does when they've got a gazillion barrel supply? We're gettin' hosed an' about all we can do is pay up & shut up.
Another question while I'm on my soapbox here. Not too many yrs. ago diesel fuel was roughly half what gasoline cost. Now it's more expensive. I know for a fact that diesel is cheaper to produce. My thinking is this - probably 99% of diesel users pay whatever it costs or go out of business. They can recoup some of the cost through higher freight charges which pass down to us all. Now, gasoline buyers on the other hand can cut back on their driving and do if gas gets too high. So, the producers push the diesel price because they can get away with it.
Thoughts?
PS. Pat, I ain't tryin to hijack your thread but this situation just gets my hackles all up.
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[quote TubeDude][cool][#0000ff]Here's a[url "http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-gas-prices/2011/03/18/ABaUtbQB_story.html"] LINK[/url] to a writeup in the Washington Post about 5 myths for why gas prices are so high. Good reading even if you don't choose to believe them. Like most crotchety old %#&$& I still have my own opinions (and solutions).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]What's yours?[/#0000ff][/quote]
I miss the old days when there was a set price on Gas and the dealers had to go with that. Funny how Utah is right on schedule to raise Gas prices if not rush the gun a bit, But they are the LAST to drop them and have admitted it.
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Geezer,
I figured out diesel pricing. After years of wondering why it is now higher despite costing less to refine even when taking into account the newer low sulfur requirements. It's simple they priced it based on miles per gallon. Since you get better gas mileage with diesel they charge you more to offset any cost advantage. It's totally unrelated to cost at all[pirate].
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Gots to argue my point further. Look around your house, job, store or wherever. How many products do you see that weren't handled by a diesel truck at some point between the producer and where they are now? Those freight companies are being held very firmly by their cajones. Who's holding them? The oil companies. The freighters either pay the price or shut down. How long can America last without trucks if they did that? I'll bet the grocery stores would be out of perishables within just a few days and the rest of the shelves would begin to look like the pictures we used to see of the store shelves in the old Soviet Union. The price of gas wouldn't make squat of a difference. There wouldn't be any to buy anyway unless some enterprising souls started buying gas powered trucks hell, maybe even horse teams to pull gas wagons.
In the end the American consumer winds up paying for the inflated diesel cost every time they buy anything. I dunno what the answer is. Aint smart enough.
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Yeah I'm like everyone else. I hear "Libya has a crisis so for that reason alone we are going to pay higher gas prices."
Sounds "logical" and there are always "reliable sources" that say this and that.
We get oil form Venezuela as well, I believe Texaco gas comes form Canada. They all have raised their prices.
Oh heck.....what I don't understand is why burn up all the oil when we need it for national defense( ha ha), instead we just pump and pump and pump and pump.
I suspect higher prices for the very same reasons as last time....big bucks for the oil companies. The last "oil crisis" we had was not because of a lack of oil, why? Because Forbes magazine reported a banner year for the oil companies, they made more money than ever.
I read TubeDudes link and yeah its all myths.
Big bucks for the oil companies.[:/]
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