Gas Price Ripoff

Yes, they are, but made a fortune while it was climbing to $150.
However, they could buy long term contracts now at current prices and just bank, hold off what contracts they have, no? So, perhaps they are just loosing the opportunity cost of what is invested in those fuel contracts that may pay off handsomely in the future

 

People have very short memory for gas prices Unless the deals were too good to pass up? But even then, the gas prices will continue to climb and they have to pay the piper; then, stand by for the complaints.

 

That is sad, no? Or, your friends have so much $$$ that it is of no consequence to them?
Good thing you mentioned the 60% tax

 

It's sad for the environment.
The car is reasonably priced here as well, compared to other similar sized cars.
Our tax system is based partly on HP. The more power, the more environmental tax.
This tax is more than half the price on the sticker, so it kinda matters.
No, the reason they don't understand why I bought this thing is they think it's butt ugly

 

An interesting thing about the oil tax in Norway is that Norway is an oil rich country. Obviously they understand long term thinking better than we do here in the U.S.

Tom

 

Well, it may not win a beauty contest, nor will it win the 'ugly' contest in my book
I guess your friends want you to conform to their idea of beauty.

 

Interesting article in the paper today "Gas Prices float Higher" by Kahn and Porreto, AP.
The NY Mercantile Exchange lists the price of West Texas Intermediate, that is the price in the papers and business channels.
Unfortunately, that oil pretty much stays around that area as there are no cross country pipelines Other lesser oils like the North Sea, etc, are as much as $10 more, and that is what gets into most of the gas stations.

 

I was waiting to see who would nail this little understood disparity in oil and gas prices widely quoted in the news. Good for you CharlesJ, you get the award for understanding some of the industry fundamentals. Sort of an advanced application of practical economics.

Kind of takes the wind out the "Nationalize Now!" argument, eh?

 

Thanks, I think But, I didn't realize this until this article, nor that to get oil to refineries, it is not an easy deal in some cases, like that Texas crude. Nor knew that there was so much price difference between the oils of the world. , except that low sulfur is more preferable.

 

When you read the media stories all telling us that the price of gas should go up when the price of oil goes down, remember that those were the same reporters who told us repeatedly that there was no speculation behind $147 a barrel oil.

 

Did you ever notice that ALL oil companies bring their product to market through the very same pipe line(s)? It only reverts back to being 'theirs' when they take delivery of it and add all those additives (techron, etc). So of COURSE there's no competition. For our gluttonous / wastefull use of fuel (60% or more which is imported), we pay what our lovely buddies in the middle east charge us. And they charge what ever the WORLD market rate is. Now since neither you or I own refineries, nor do we pay for their manitenance, how do you figure we should know what a fair price is?
Well, we ask congress of course. And after what, a DOZEN or more 'investigations' what has it yielded? There you have it. ZIP. Now, can we please move past this conspiracy and look at John Kenedy, or whether Elvis is still alive, or how 'bout those big headed aliens at area 51

Gawd, we're not still doing the conspiracy thing with speculaters are we? Did you see all of congress running to the aid of speculaters who lost their shorts when fuel prices crashed? There you go. Once again, no harm, now foul, no conspiracy from either the high side or the low side of markets. Again, it's simply supply & demand folks. Like Darell said, if you think the price is too high (besides moving to Europe where fuel is between 2 & 3 times more pricey) have everyone simply buy less.

Am I the only one who noticed that when the credit crisis finally boiled over (folks loosing jobs, homes, life savings, people stopped vacationing in RV's & 4x4's & quads, and jet skis & boats, and flying all over the country, etc) and that resulted in our nation using less fuel, that the cost went way down? Wow! amazing.

 

You're not the only one; I noticed that, too!

 

That statement is not entirely true.
Not ALL oil companies have their oil come through the same line.
A majority may, but not all. That statement is too general.
In my area Kwik Fill brand comes from a different source.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Refining_Company]United Refining Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Interestingly enough, for those who get on the bandwagon of boycotting "Citgo" brand because of Hugo Chavez. The Citgo stations in the East get their oil from Canada..........not Venezuala.

Also in my area, (near Buffalo, NY) I buy fuel from an independant station on the Indian reservation. He gets his gas from United Refining as well. Trucked in from Warren PA.
And several other stations in my area get their fuel from Canada, from a Canadian refinery.

On top of this, there are, more than one of these pipelines, serving a different refinerys.............Yes, one refinery may produce several different brands, but their additive package differs from one brand to another.

 

Supply was up; demand was down; the US was in recession. If you believe supply and demand control prices, oil prices should have been going down: instead they went up at unprecedented rates.

Charts 2 and 3 in "The 2008 Commodities Bubble" show Energy Information Administration data that shows increasing supply from Q4 2007 to Q3 2008, and decreasing demand in the same quarters.

For an indirect view of demand statistics, see the US Federal Highway Administration's Traffic Volume Trends data, particularly the moving 12-month total. In contrast to pretty much every year up to 2004, travel was flat compared to the previous year through 2006 and 2007, and declined hugely through 2008, starting before the oil price peak.

The reason is supply and demand of futures contracts, not of actual oil. There was huge demand for commodities futures of all shapes, leading to bubbles in wheat, oil, corn, etc. The corn ramping was explained as ethanol fuel demand; it (largely) wasn't. Everything has now fallen back at even more unprecedented rates. Even now it can swing 4%, 5% up or down in a single day. Is there really 4% more supply than yesterday? 4% less demand? 4% perceived change in future supply or demand? No. Price speculators see that the price has started to go up and buy in in the hope of riding that wave; when their short term profit goal is met they sell out again.