Ok. So we're all paying more for gas because the price of oil went up. Right! I seem to remember posting something about this a while ago that it was all BS. Turns out I was 100% right.

Read this:
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2005-10-27T164201Z_01_ROB743705_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-ENERGY-EXXON-EARNS-DC.XML

Read it slow, it is the largest profit of ANY company in HISTORY.

But we're paying because we can't produce. Riiiiiight. God, people are so dam stupid it makes me crazy!

If I had the time I'd look for the post I did a while ago about how oil would have to be $100+ to be at the prices they were charging us for gasoline, etc.

I guess my question is, do you think people will EVER wake up or just keep being sheep?

Pete

I remember your post...exactly how do we do anything about it?

I don't believe we are sheep, but the last time we had any say in this was at the polls...and we spoke...TWICE!

So whatever happens as a result, we can only blame ourselves anyway...

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Not really. We can press our Attorney Generals on the matter. If we get all 50 states, or least major market states involved, stuff CAN happen. Look at what Pete Harvey is doing in NJ. It's a hard fight, but is gouging.

You are right, you can look at it as the "we voted twice" issue, (Bush) -- bust at this point, we have to go around him.

I also don't want to turn this into a Bush thread. Do I think there is a correlation between him and the prices we're paying. Yes. But at this point we have to fight it at the state level. How the heck can Exxon/Mobil have the BIGGEST profit of any company in history while we all get humped paying more. It is so obvious, I'm sure even to Bush lovers. Bush lovers or not, nobody likes spending $3 a gal of gas when it should cost 1/2 of that based on oil/refine unit prices.

Oh well... if we keep Bush out of this thread it should be a good one. I'd like to hear different/opposing views.

Pete

Oh! And I did a search for my post and I can't find it. I'm happy you remember it. I thought maybe I was going crazy.

Meh; the oil companies are doing what every company in business does; they're charging what the market will bear!

__________________
http://webwench.net/albums/new83-300...1700.thumb.jpg
1983 300D-T
348,000 miles

We've had a 100% increase in the cost in only about a year. They say there have been problems with the oil rigs out in the Gulf due to Katrina and Rita. Okay. But I ask you:

How come we never had such horrendous price increases in previous hurricane years????

Think about it. The oil companies have had to evacuate their rigs many times. But gas didn't jump from .30 to .60 during Betsy (1965), did it? Or during Camille, or any of the others that swept through the Gulf.

The national media keeps trying to soothe us (I almost wrote "pour oil on the waters") by saying we're paying less for gas in adjusted terms than we were in 1981. To which I say:

Crap. There is one hell of a big emotional difference between paying 12.00 to fill up, and paying 36.00.

Okay, it might even be true. But other costs have skyrocketed too. In 1981, I paid $250.00/month for a very nice 2-bedroom apt. in a suburb of NO. According to the website "How Much Is That Worth Today," that's equivalent to $440 today. Which is exactly what I'm paying -- for a *one-bedroom* in a *less desirable* part of town! To get the equivalent apartment today, I'd have to go to $550 - 600 or more.

The other point that absolutely no one is making is this: We're not getting the same mileage out of a dollar purchase of gas. In 1977, I recall paying .50/gal, and getting roughly 15 mpg from an average car, a Ford Maverick. So I paid a dollar to go 30 miles. Today, the price of a gallon has gone up 6 times. Yet we're not getting 90 mpg, are we? No. We're paying 3.00 to go maybe 23 miles, if that.

How to fight it? On a personal level, move closer to work, or work closer to home. Walk whenever you can to the grocery and drugstore. Don't drive your kids to school; they can take the school bus or public transport, or walk, if it's only a mile or two. Get a more fuel-efficient car, if it's time to trade in. Rethink and combine every trip as if there were rationing such as we had in WWII. And don't buy anything else from the oil companies' greedy little convenience stores; buy only gas -- get your candy bars elsewhere.

Rant mode off for now.

__________________
* *
-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino

The message is clear: Shut up, pay your taxes and be glad the oil companies let you live in their country.

The moment a decreased demand reduces fuel prices people will run out and buy the biggest damn piece of crap that fits on the road and drive the prices back up. As long as gluttonous consumption continues the extremists will find it easy to finance their actions. If there where a glut of oil due to reduced consumption OPEC would crumble and the middle east would lose significance. It's our unwillingness to reduce consumption that is putting our future in jeopardy.

Jorg

-says the man with four cars.

I suggest you add, "Wealth of Nations" to your reading list. Also, Das Kapital." I'm curious which you find more appealing.

Bot

I purchased a couple thousand shares of XOM at $49. Should have sold at $65 but the dividend is kinda nice so I still got it.

__________________
Jim

Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

Damages to oil and gas structures in the Gulf of Mexico from recent hurricanes:


Platforms destroyed:
Katrina: 46
Rita: 63


Platforms damaged:
Katrina: 20
Rita: 30




Rigs destroyed:
Katrina: 4
Rita: 1




Rigs adrift:
Katrina: 6
Rita: 13




Rigs damaged:
Katrina: 9
Rita: 10




Rigs unaccounted for:
Katrina: 0
Rita: 3


Total:
Katrina: 85
Rita: 120



Source: Minerals Management Service

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Rita inflicted substantially more damage to offshore oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico than Katrina, the Interior Department said Tuesday.

Making matters worse, damage to onshore support facilities could hobble Gulf production for months.

"We've never seen the kind of devastation to our Gulf oil and gas production that we've witnessed this year," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.

Some 2,900 of the Gulf's 4,000 oil and gas production platforms were in the paths of the two hurricanes.

Rita destroyed 63 platforms — including capsizing Chevron's deep-water Typhoon facility — as well as one jackup drilling rig.

Katrina took out 46 platforms and four drilling rigs.

Aside from Typhoon, the destroyed platforms were mostly older, "end of life" facilities that produced only about 1.5 percent of the oil and a mere 0.7 percent of the natural gas in the Gulf.

"We anticipate that most of these will never be rebuilt," Norton said of the older platforms.

The two hurricanes also tore 19 drilling rigs from their moorings and set them adrift, in some cases causing serious damage. That was also a problem seen last year during Hurricane Ivan.

Regulators aren't quite sure why those moorings are not holding. Officials plan to hold a conference in Washington on Nov. 17 to examine that problem more fully.

Interior and Coast Guard inspectors now are trying to figure out if a wayward drilling rig collided with the four-year-old Typhoon platform and caused it to flip over.

'We don't know'
"When you look at all the platforms that were in the path of both hurricanes and their size and the damage they sustained, not one of them was capsized," noted Johnnie Burton, director of the U.S. Minerals Management Service. "This was a fairly sizable platform, and there is no reason to think that the wind was strong enough to capsize it.

"So we are looking at it. We are investigating. We don't know. Maybe it was the wind. But common sense tells us that something else may have happened."

Rammed by Max Smith?
Chevron officials say the Typhoon lost its own moorings and moved off its production site. An industry publication reported that Noble Corporation's Max Smith drilling rig was blown off location and rammed Typhoon.

Noble officials, in a prepared statement issued last week, called that report erroneous, saying the Max Smith passed about 2.5 miles to the south of Typhoon's "fixed" position.

Chevron officials are conducting their own probe.
"We don't know what happened to it," Chevron spokesman Mickey Driver said.

While offshore crews are busily trying to make repairs, production is recovering much more slowly after Rita than it had after Ivan and even Katrina.

Slow recovery
As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 90 percent of the typically daily oil output and 72 percent of the natural gas production remained shut in, the MMS reported.

In part, that's because so many offshore workers were forced to evacuate and many were left homeless.

Shore bases that typically supply offshore facilities were ravaged by the storms. Pipelines must be carefully inspected to ensure they weren't damaged by the dragging anchors of wandering rigs.

And many of the onshore oil terminals and gas processing plants that otherwise would receive production from the Gulf were damaged.

Indeed, 21 gas processing plants are still out of commission, the Energy Department reported Tuesday. While many lack electricity or gas supplies, 11 of those facilities sustained damage from the storms.

Onshore damage
In fact, as much as 30 percent of the offshore production may be shut in because of damage to onshore facilities.

And many will remain shuttered for "several months," Norton said. Regulators were heartened that no wellheads appear to have leaked, although there were onshore oil spills, particularly from a ruptured tank at a Murphy Oil refinery that sent oil into a neighborhood, Norton said.

Officials believe this year's two hurricanes caused less damage to undersea pipelines than Ivan, which ripped up pipelines during a huge mudslide at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

david.ivanovich@chron.com

Um, how many oil rigs existed in the gulf in 1965? Deep water drilling technology didn't exist then, there wasn't anything for Betsy to blow away.

- JimY

Because in previous years there was excess production capacity in other parts of the country and world that could pick up the slack if output was cut in one place. Now, world consumption runs about 91mill/barrels a day and world production is 91 mill/barrels a day. Any disruption in supply sends prices soaring...If you don't like it (and I don't mean this in a sarcastic way) take the bus, ride a bike, walk do what ever you can to avoid using oil. It really is the only way we have to fight back, by keeping your money out of their (Oil Companies) pockets as much as possible.

__________________
I'm sick of .sig files

Oh brother.

If I make something and sell it for $10.00 and it costs me $5.00 to make I make a $5.00 profit.

If I make something and sell it for $30.00 and it costs me $5.00 to make I make a $25.00 profit.

Exxon, etc. had a record breaking profit quarter. This means they are **MAKING** more money. So either they are (in general terms)

a) selling more of something at their current prices (not the case)
b) selling the same amount of something with lower costs (most likely not the case)
c) selling the same amount (or slightly more or less) of something and selling it for more money (this is the right choice)

This thread has *nothing* and I mean NOTHING to do with conservation, supply or demand and EVERYTHING to do with PROFIT. Do I think it is wrong to make a profit? No way Jose! -- Do I think it is wrong to do it by telling the American people a line of bullcrap? You bet!!!!

They make more money because people want more of it and there is a limited supply. That's what we call, "supply and demand."

What happens when prices go up?

1. Consumption decreases, making more product available which brings prices down. It dropped $.25 here this week, for example.

2. It encourages development of means and methods for moderating the price--increased efficiency of fuel consuming items, for example. Or more R&D on alternatives. What does that do? See #1.

Maybe instead of driving your whine-o-matic all about you could try something really innovative, like changing your own patterns of driving. Or invent something. Or invest in an oil company and enrich yourself.

Or you could work to have oil companies nationalized so that some bureaucrat would determine what a fair price is. Like they do in Europe. Instead of calling it "profit" they call it "tax." And the bureaucrats decide how much to spend and on what projects.

Give it some thought.

B