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<p>Yes. I have a friend who works for an oil company who has already cashed in for $10 mil. (no kidding!) off of his stock options during the past year. Nice guy but COME-ON…and he isn’t even the head honcho.</p>
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<p>You bet I thought that. What this administration has gotten away with is amazing, appalling and scary on so many levels. I just don’t understand it.</p>
<p>“can any conservative here explain why prices are so high, and acutally say it with a straight face”</p>
<p>I am not a conservative, but let me take a shot.</p>
<p>(1) Greed
(2) YOU - the gas guzzling public with SUVs, Hummers, F150s and motor homes.
(3) YOU - who don’t maintain your car
(4) YOU - who does not want to change driving habit.
(5) YOU - who did not want a refinery in your back yard.
(6) Tight supply
(7) Traders in Chicago, NY and London
(8) Ethanol Conversion</p>
<p>i want a conservative to explain the price increase to me…I call it price gauging, ever the President is considering that a possibility</p>
<p>So, those that defend business ad nausem, explain to me plese</p>
<p>I fail to understand why people are so stunned that oil has reached a record price. So has housing, automobiles, and most other things. </p>
<p>The last cycle that drove it to a record price wound up with it selling at a third of the peak price reached.</p>
<p>And simba’s reasons aren’t all that bad a shot at some analysis.</p>
<p>with companies have record profits, how can it be?</p>
<p>i mean, think about it…</p>
<p>If my husband, a contractor, has to buy his supplies, and the price goes up, he will pass that along to his customers, he makes the same profit, not tons more</p>
<p>So, if it is truely costing more for companies to get the gas, wouldn’t they be at the same profit level?</p>
<p>If you are a resturaunt and your fish costs you 10% more than it did last year, you raise your prices 10%, then you are maintaining, not making more money</p>
<p>So how are they making huge PROFITS if there’s all these expenses</p>
<p>Supply, that is hogwash, anyone else live in the 70s during the gas crisis?</p>
<p>Giving 100.00 to the public is doing nothing but to depend even more on foreign oil. $100.00 is absolutely nothing when it comes to filling the gas tank, perhaps a weeks worth at best. </p>
<pre><code>Instead of the government handing us free $$$ stereotypical of liberals, congress and the Dubya need to be pumping billions of dollars on alternative fuel. I say this because Middle Eastern oil is limited. Oil does not regenerate itself, but only decreases each day. I would encourage congress to get moving on less expensive Hybrid vehicles; for the average american is not going to pay 45,000 for a Prius.
Another pet peeve of mine is that so many americans whine about paying $60.00 at the pump for their Hummer or F-150, yet have no problem spending the SAME amount at a restaurant for dinner. In the end, something must be done in regards to alternate fueling, or else it is to the bicycle for me.
</code></pre>
<p>Also, conservatives have nothing to do with the price increase. It is Amid of OPEC who is gaulging us incessantly, not DUBYA. Back in the dark of ages of America when Clinton was president, I remember gas prices were rapidly increasing. Times change, y’all, move aside for a little thing called inflation.</p>
<p>God Bless George W. Bush, and a third term as president of these United States!</p>
<p>"
God Bless George W. Bush, and a third term as president of these United States"</p>
<p>why settle for only 4 more years?..let’s go all the way - president for life. We could have half a dozen more wars.</p>
<p>
[quote can any conservative here explain why prices are so high, and acutally say it with a straight face quote]
</p>
<p>Greetings liberal! First off, George Bush is not intentionally raising said prices; it twas not in his control! OPEC determines the oil prices, not congress, not Dubya! Also, have you heard of inflation before? For example, Joe Bloggs back in 1950 probably paid fifty cents for a gallon of milk. Today, milk costs $3.50 a gallon. You do the math, thats a sharp increase in prices due to inflation. So is also my example relevant in terms of gas. Lets not cast the first stone, y’all at George. He is not omnipotent and ominiscient.</p>
<p>We could have half a dozen more wars.</p>
<p>Simba, yes indeed, George is a war monger and loves to see carnage. I bet if he were pres for life, he would declare war on Canada too. Gee, George is evil, Bill is good. Have a nice day, Hilary, err, I mean Simba!</p>
<p>
How do you figure that? Average American drives 12,000 miles per year, according to AAA. If a car gets average gas mileage, say, 25 mpg (and if you get substantially less than that, I don’t feel badly for you in your SUV), that’s 4 gallons for every 100 miles driven; 40 gallons per 1,000 miles; and 400 gallons per 10,000 miles. Therefore, the average American will buy approximately 500 gallons of gas in a year. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how you get from 500 gallons of gas to $1,200 extra, unless you think that $1,200/500 = $2.50. Therefore, we’re being overcharged $2.50 per gallon of gas; as gas is $3/gallon, you, CGM, think that gas should be a mere fifty cents a gallon.</p>
<p>I’m calling you out on that one. </p>
<p>Justinian - please realize that the $100 is not to cover the cost of gas. Y’all are completely irrational. If the price of orange juice goes up from $3 a half-gallon to $3.10 per half gallon, and the government, believing that Vitamin C is a good thing, decides to rebate me my additional cost, they aren’t going to give me $3.10 per half gallon. They are going to give me $.10. That’s the additional cost. The government isn’t trying to fill up your tank for you at $3/gallon; they are trying to give you the difference between filling up at $2.50/gallon and $3 gallon. Is it that hard to understand? </p>
<p>By the way, if you’re spending $100/week in gas, that’s 33 gallons. At 25 mpg, that’s 825 miles per week. That’s the equivalent of driving Boston to DC and back - every week. Perhaps, instead of complaining about the inadequacy of the government to fund alternate fuel sources, you should scale back your driving habits to something reasonable - something that isn’t 150+ miles every work day. </p>
<p>Also calling every environmentalist out on this one. The prices are skyrocketing because of the ethanol switch. Ethanol burns more cleanly than MBTE gasolines. If you care about the environment, why protest the change and the associated prices? If we didn’t switch over to ethanol and kept prices low, every single liberal on this board would be up in arms over the destruction to the environment. Y’all want it both ways. Face it: drivers, who are the ones doing the polluting, are the logical people to pay for the cost of not polluting. </p>
<p>So the gov’t is changing from a polluting fuel to a cleaner fuel and then giving rebates to people (reasonable rebates, CGM) to cover the increased cost, which is, in proportion to income, disproprionately born by the working class… and y’all are up in arms. Oh, wait… that’s because it’s a conservative government that cannot, in your minds, do any right. </p>
<p>Adding to the energy crisis list… how about not having any nuclear power? </p>
<p>Also, the silent culprit: over-ACing your home during the summer. It takes four times as much energy to cool something as it does to heat it, but people only complain about heating bills.</p>
<p>you should scale back your driving habits to something reasonable - something that isn’t 150+ miles every work day.</p>
<p>Well, then I suppose I meet a conundrum. The typical bourgousie citizen around where I live commute to the city daily which could account for 100 to 150 miles a day. Of course, they are doing so to feed their family, not to meet a luxury of driving. I suppose these people could work at a Mcdonalds close to home, but most did not attend college to work at an eating establishment.
It is quite difficult to “cut” back on driving when you have a working life to live. I do agree, however, that we need to “cut” back on purposeless trips like to Outback steakhouse or the movie theatre. Doing so will save you some MAD MONEY!</p>
<p>By the way, I am staunchly conservative so I am on your side ariesathena. I made a joke once that Hillary Clinton and Al Gore must post here</p>
<p>This is mostly about CGM’s question(s):</p>
<p>The force behind the high prices isn’t a cabal of buisnessmen but the nature of the market. If you want an analogy, it’s similar to why people at Woodstock and other venues can sell bottles of water at $20 bucks a pop, even though that’s clearly an obscene profit margin. The customers know they’re being screwed, but it’s a captive customer base and they’re going to have to accept rip-off prices if they really want (or need) the product. And with high, inelastic demand and a very controlled and limited supply, oil is clearly a seller’s market.</p>
<p>Now maybe you think the oil companies and the traders should have a soul or something and not sell oil high simply because they can. That would certainly be nice, but business-wise, it makes perfect sense for these companies to charge whatever the market will begrudgingly bear. They’re still going to sell all their product. It may not be nice and it may not even be moral, but they can easily do it without any shady tricks.</p>
<p>I agree though that the Senate’s proposal is incredibly stupid. It’s not going to fundamentally change anything, and Congress might better spend its time finding ways NOT to blow through enormous wads of cash it doesn’t even have. All the bandaid proposal does is give money to taxpayers so that they can then give it the oil companies, making the taxplayers glorified middlemen.</p>
<p>75 miles each way in a car? Yes, there are people who do that. But it is their decision to live in a bigger house, with a bigger yard, or a nicer, smaller town. I really detest the idea that we should just keep expanding the suburbs until we’ve have coast-to-coast traffic. No one, however, wants to give up their 1-acre lots or live in a crowded place. It’s a choice. Rare are the people who genuinely have no other option aside from living 75 miles away from work. Do the math - they spend more on car depreciation than they would on increased housing costs, and it’s not building equity. It’s all about living where you want to.</p>
<p>Returning to $100/week of gas; that’s, if I can do my math, $5k/year. That’s just gas and does not cover wear and tear on the car. Gas, depreciation, and other car costs are assumed to be $0.345/mile or so. Do the math - you lose thousands of dollars every year by living far away from work. It’s your choice to spend it in traffic, clogging up the roads, and burning fuel instead of spending it on a more expensive or smaller home that is closer to work.</p>
<p>I really have no patience for people who insist on living that far away from work and then complain about the cost of gas. You take the wrong approach; you say they could work at the local McDonalds. Try this: they would live local to work. </p>
<p>There are plenty of cities in the US with affordable housing, reasonable commutes, and little traffic. Smaller cities would love to have talented workers - and the pay is not very different than it is in big cities. Similar pay, lower cost of living, barely any commute - what’s the issue? Delaware, Charlotte, Manchester, or Portland aren’t snobby enough? If you live in LA or Atlanta, you know what you’re getting yourself into. Hard to sympathize.</p>
<p>NYC, by the way, is the most energy-efficient city in the country. I think LA is one of the worst, but would have to check on that. Living local to work, living near public transportation, and being able to walk or bike to the grocery store are the ways to cut down on energy usage; those who choose to have the big house in the suburbs pay a price at the pump.</p>
<p>bergrudingly bear</p>
<p>during wartime its called profiteering and is not patriotic, at a minimum</p>
<p>these companies are not good patriots, as the good republicans keep reminding us we need to be</p>
<p>“you lose thousands of dollars every year by living far away from work.”</p>
<p>“more expensive or smaller home that is closer to work.”</p>
<p>Thats fine and good until you have to make that 15000.00 a month mortgage payment on that 1,000,000 home in Washington D.C. I know this from personal experience, friend. We know some people who live in Northern Virginia who have to commute into Washington D.C. Although they would love to live closer to their occupation, housing prices are astronomical in D.C. If you want anything with indoor plumbing, you are going to have to pay close to $800,000.00 for a small apartment. The average Joe is not able to afford such a price tag and is forced to move miles away elsewhere.</p>
<p>You may say, “Well, it be cheaper gas wise if you lived closer to work and more energy eficient” Yes and no is how I reply. What is cheaper? Having to pay a $15000 mortgage payment a month in D.C. or pay $5000 a month on gasoline and commuting? I believe the latter to be more economical. Plus, a million dollar residence in D.C. gets you very little, perhaps a 1 bedroom apartment in the hood. </p>
<p>“and it’s not building equity.”
I beg to differ. The suburb areas of No Va have have increased in value by leaps and bounds. </p>
<p>All in all, people who commute 75 miles a day are not idiots. They do so for a reason, weighing the pros and cons of living farther area, often time finding more benefit than detriment. Have a nice day!</p>
<p>“Simba, yes indeed, George is a war monger and loves to see carnage. I bet if he were pres for life, he would declare war on Canada too. Gee, George is evil”</p>
<p>Amen</p>
<p>“The typical bourgousie citizen around where I live commute to the city daily which could account for 100 to 150 miles a day. Of course, they are doing so to feed their family, not to meet a luxury of driving.”</p>
<p>Have they ever heard a word called car-pooling?</p>
<p>cgm, what are you smoking? Have you ever taken a class on economics? Geez, you blame everything on conservatives - literally, everything. Gas prices are high, yes. But that’s in large part due to demand. Yes, oil companies are making large profits, but they’re corporations in a free market economy. How do you blame this on Bush? Is he supposed to micromanage the economy? I just don’t understand your viewpoint on things and your odd style of posting.</p>