09-01-2005, 01:45 PM
rocco79 Wrote:Are you seriously backing up these prices????!?!?!?!!?
Do you think telling me how much pespi is a gallon should justify price gouging??? You must be kidding!!!
And last time i check it the squeeky wheel that gets the oil (pun intened) I think we should alll rattle the cage!!! Dave do you HONESTLY believe that one natural Disaster should be able to basicly destroy the us ecomomy????
How bout this dave, do you know that alll municipalities are paying 1.50 for gas. That doesnt seem fair to me, why is it the tax paying consumer that should shoulder the increase??
And building a refinery would cost those who build it little in lost profit... Do the math one barrel of crude = 71 dollars right.... 71 gallons of regular right know would be almost 200 hundred dollars. Thats almost a 3 fold!!!!!Not to mention almost all bi-product of refining are sold.. Asphalt,diesel,kerosene, ect..... Id think in a short time that plant would be turning a profit.
Maybe not everyone can AFFORD a brand new hybrid car... When i bought my car premium was 1.55 a gallon . I didnt see a 3 fold increase in as many years. And unlike the airlines i cant call ford credit and tell them ill be paying them less this month because fuel prices too high. I cant ajust due too fuel costs.
Roc, I give you other consumer products that sell for at an increased price when compared to their cost of goods to manufacture. That's call profit margin.
Now I am not an economics major and I suspect you aren't either, but I am pretty sure we can all agree that an oil refinery doesn't run on farts and sunshine. You don't simply roll a barrel of crude in the door and have gasoline magically appear from a pipe in the wall. The energy that goes into refining crude oil into all of its refined products is great. There are people (most likely Union people) working those refineries. The sell price of all of the resulting products that come from the barrel of oil less the cost to produce them is profit. Without it the business fails. You don't work for free, do you? Neither do I. A resonable profit is needed for any business to survive. If oil supply is reduced, and refining capacity is lowered, companies are going to see lost profits. In order to protect their shareholders, they can and will increase prices to generate revenue and profit to make up for the shortfall. While you may not like this fact, it is a fact of supply and demand economics. If you can, stop driving. Enough people do this and prices will fall as a excess inventory on the market will drive down prices.
If your complaint is that you think oil companies are unfairly price gouging, you can always buy stock in Exxon. Then you too can be one of the raping oil barons that takes advantage of natural disasters to line their pockets. There is nothing stopping you from being a capitalist. While we're at it, buy Nicor stock and cash in on the natural gas increases just around the corner this winter.
As for municipalities paying $1.50 for gasoline, that's nothing I know anything about. If oil companies subsidize the operation of my community with lower fuel prices to police, fire, and emergency services, then I applaud them for keeping taxes lower in my town. It's quite generous to do so. Maybe they should charge a fair price for their product, not give it away.
As for your choice of cars, you decided to drive what you drive, whatever it is, when you bought it. If fuel costs make the cost of operation too high to justify the vehicle, then sell it and get something that matches your needs and budget. And in fact you can tell Ford you will be paying less this month, just call them and ask. They will gladly work it out for you to extend your loan rather than default. They don't want that used car back. They just want YOUR MONEY, just like the gas guys.
In closing, if you think rattling the cage is the solution, you are the one who is kidding. There aren't enough people that would give up driving for one minute to make a bit of difference. And if they tried, they could keep it up. The "Don't buy gas tomorrow" idea and the "Buy from someone besides Exxon until they lower their prices" idea, jsut don't work, do they? We live in a county that uses gasoline! And the guys that make it and sell it to us have us in their stranglehold.
The future ruin of the US economy will more likely be the exit of manufacturing jobs to China, not the price of gasoline.