Gasoline could drop 50 cents/gallon by spring

President Carter did exactly that. And he was the most unpopular president in my lifetime. He told us we waste more energy than we import, and the public hated him for it. Of course, the Iranian hostage crisis pulled him down even further. But his telling the truth about energy and attempting to do something about it made him the most hated president I can remember.

Of course that's an important factor. I was responding to someone who didn't think speculators were a factor. There are many factors determining the price of oil. There is supply and demand, there is the semi-monopolistic nature of the industry, there is speculation, there is the existing transportation infrastructure and urban sprawl which make fossil fuels necessary, there is the political clout of Big Oil in an environment of political corruption, there is the integration of the automobile industry with the petroleum industry so that car makers have a strong disincentive to build electric cars, etc., etc., etc.

I was simply raising one factor which has been widely overlooked.

I don't know about your econ class, but when I took a course on economics from The Teaching Company there was ample discussion of free markets vs monopolistic and quasi-monopolistic markets, as well as the effect of whether the commodity in question is a necessity or a luxury.

OPEC has regular meetings in which each country is given a production allocation. Sometimes some countries violate their allocation. Meanwhile, non-OPEC countries have the same interests as OPEC and informally control their production.

Oil is a finite resource. A country has a perfect right to limit its production in order to maximize the total income generated from its available resources. Producing it all at once so that the present generation can burn it all, and pay less for it, would be criminally irresponsible for the government of an oil-producing country.

 

LOL... LOL... :lol: ROTFLMAO... :rofl:

How is that theory working out for you... :der:

 

It looks like the Saudis agree with you. In a recent article from "The Financial Times" Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister stated that they have no plans to invest in additional production capacity. King Abdullah was quoted as saying: [FONT=&quot]

“I keep no secret from you that when there were some new finds, I told them: ‘No, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it’.â€

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Now I think that he is lying and Saudi Arabia is not choosing to limit production and sit on new finds but instead is doing everything they can to maintain current production volumes as their ancient fields peak in production. I'm interested to see what the official Saudi line will be as their production drops from th current 9 mbd to 8 to 7 to........[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

Like wise. Those fools have done nowt with their vast resources. They should be one of the most advanced societies in the world. Instead, they're anything but... what a waste.

 

On the contrary. They have done what every dictator does with his country's resources: They (the royal family, which was installed in power by the West) have made themselves all billionaires, and they have spent their money on woman and toys, just like most billionaires do. Is it foolish to live the high life on vast stolen wealth?

Now if you'd called them criminals, I'd agree with you. But fools? Hardly!

 

As long as corporations (who demand all the rights of the individual, but none of the responsibility) run our government there will be no answer to your question. Indeed, there is no one home to even read or react to your question. Certainly no monolithic 'corporation' cares about your question or the hypothetical person behind the question. The corporation has no soul, the CEOs of the corporations only care about making obscene amounts of personal enrichment, and the lowly workers are pedaling as fast as they can and can't hear your question. This will remain so until corporations are denied 'personship', taxed on windfall profits, by law CEOs are limited to, say, 10X the salary of the lowest paid worker, and corporations are outlawed from determining political policy.

OR

Your hypothetical family bans together with others in similar situations and TAKE BACK their fair share beginning by holding CEOs and their families hostage as is regularly done in many countries (do we really want to go there? I don't).

Country
Ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay
Japan
11:1
Germany
12:1
France
15:1
Italy
20:1
Canada
20:1
South Africa
21:1
Britain
22:1
Hong Kong
41:1
Mexico
47:1
Venezuela
50:1
United States
475:1


***www.cab.latech.edu/~mkroll/10_papers/fall_05/Group6.pdf

LOOK AT THE ABOVE CHART and tell me again why the US worker is in such a mess. The above numbers are MISLEADING in the 1) category because most of the people in the :1 are workers in countries where medical, education, childcare, paid vacations etc. DO NOT HAVE TO COME OUT OF THE :1 since it is part of their birthright unlike US citizens which must make their :1 stretch even further thereby reducing their quality of life.

And you who pull the 'over taxation' card/whine every time, please tell me how a US CEO, even if taxed at 89% could possibly be hurting. That would STILL PLACE A US CEO's net income higher than ANY OTHER CEO in the WORLD!!! (at 52.25%:1). Yes 'overtaxation' whiners, I know you can play with statistics and numbers and negate my exact numbers, but THE PREMISE REMAINS TRUE. The top earners in this country are bending JOE USA over the pool table and having their way with us like a party in a gay bar and we don't scream in pain unlike what you would hear in that bar.

Any presidential candidate who can't make corporate and CEO-pay reform a major plank in their platform is just more McNeocon, no matter what side of the aisle their chair is on.

 

shhh! We don't want to upset the applecart.

 

Besides not wanting to go there, it would not work. For one thing, the corporations and the cops and soldiers who they control have more guns. For another thing, CEOs are so ruthless that if you kill one, someone else will take his place and nothing changes.

People have tried to change the state of affairs. They were viewed as such a threat that the entire propaganda machine of the state was devoted to making the name of the opposition a word so dirty that merely accusing someone of it would ruin that person's life. Such people were then and still are called communists.

Communism, at its heart, is merely the idea that people who do socially useful work have a right to benefit from the product of their work. This is as distinct from capitalism, which is the idea that the owner of capital is the sole owner of the product of the workers' labor, and the worker has no right other than to sell his labor in a market where he most often has no bargaining leverage, and must choose between accepting the wage offered or starve.

Communism, I should note, prevailed in most tribal societies, but has never been tried in a modern nation. Russia was no more communist than Henry Ford.

 

Great post, MarinJohn!

... Brad

 

Your ideas are so scary its not funny

 

The CEO pay-differential post is very interesting, yet the Middle East oil-source nations were not included. I have no idea how to obtain such data, but I got an email the other day about a Saudi prince's diamond-covered Mercedes. Even among billionaires, this seemed unusually ...um... lavish.

Maybe the joke's on him though. Anybody know who are the most prominent 'middlemen' in the global diamond market? Shhh, don't tell.

 

Who's ideas? Scary because of their reality, or scary because somebody believes in them while you don't?

Hop into the handbasket. We're going for a ride.

 

Almost as criminally irresponsible as holding the price of gasoline down so as to make it easier to consume.

 

Whose ideas, and why are they scary?

... Brad

 

Is the first stop East Hell or West Hell? :evil:

 

I did say "...and pay less for it..."

 

This is an express basket. No stops! Straight downtown.

It needed more emphasis, and separation from the "producing" part. We import AND try desperately to keep the price down.

 

Back on topic, this weekend is Memorial Day weekend - I paid $4.099 for regular unleaded yesterday (although it is possible to find cheaper, the Sac ave is $4.05 per gasbuddy.com).

Historically the price drops after Memorial Day, but all bets are off with the price of crude oil above $130/barrel this week.

Nowhere in the US is the price anywhere near $2.50 or even $3/gal.

 

Oh I just meant some of the political leanings, I don't share some of the Ideology of some here. But I don't think that makes them wrong, I am not into arguing about it. I am here and buying a Prius (i would buy a EV if they made one a normal person could afford) because I do care about the environment as well as keeping more of my money in the bank.
But what can I say sometimes I see people write things that just aggravate me, sorry
All the Best

 

First many mid level engineers, doctors, programmers etc make more than 10x the lowest paid worker. i.e. $70+ an hour. Are you suggesting that the CEO make less money than their mid level workers? or should the government tell everyone what they should make, to make it fair?

Second, look at that chart and tell me which country most people would rather live in? Keep in mind we have an immigration problem not an emigration problem.

On the face of it I agree with your premise but I don't see the solution. Agreed, corporations don't care particularly about the consumer and in the wrong hands tend to put them at risk. However windfall profit taxes end up being a pass through to the consumer and capping every CEO salary wouldn't add much to everyones pocket.

I am very much open to legitimate solutions but so far I have seen very few that wouldn't stifle progress and invention. I don't see a mom and pop shop building very many hybrids. It generally takes the financial muscle of a large corporation to invent something new and useful and then build and distribute that something on a massive scale.

Honestly changing the culture is more likely to create the results you want. It's the "I had better get mine before you get yours" attitude that has created a class envy culture that is to blame. When everyone (the poor and rich alike) stops begging, barrowing and stealing every dollar they can get their hands on and starts thinking of the common good, (how can I help out my neighbor, my community and my country) that is when the problems you enumerated above will be solved.

For my part I:
work hard
help my neighbors when I can
teach my kids not to envy what other people have and to work hard for hard work's sake and not in pursuit of the dollar.

Respectfully
Greylar