bill to allow feds to cap gas prices at 2.49!!!!!!

It's always entertaining when people (especially our representatives) think that federal meddling in the market will help fix problems brought on by federal meddling in the market. It's even worse when they're so short-sighted to think you can fix a market problem by simply toying with the price, and not dealing directly with either the supply or demand for the product.

It appears that this guy is merely proposing a temporary cap on gas prices. I feel sure that the main purpose is to make himself popular with his constituents. He can bring up the bill that he proposed,sponsored or introduced when campaigning for re election.

The government needs to go after the futures traders instead of the oil companies.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Let's take a step back in time ohhhhh say 20 years or so.

Let's say, and I'm not saying these numbers are accurate, there are 20 million cars on the road.

The population is due to double. That means 40 million cars on the road in what would be today.

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Keep in mind that cars, and especially cars in the US make up a minority of world demand for oil. That sticker "made in China" is the cause of a lot of our oil woes.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Remember, the oil companies, the guys raising the price of crude oil, are the same guys who own the refineries that make the crude into gas.

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The US oil companies control a whopping 6% of the world oil supply. Once again, thank China, India, Brazil, etc...for the increasing price of crude.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

There is also this nifty thing called feduciary responsibility. What that means is a company that is publicly owned, that has private people owning shares of it, has a responsibility to those share holders to increase profits every year. I wonder who the major share holders are in the oil companies that have not built any refineries in the last 20 years. I wonder who got the feduciary responsibility clause made into a law?

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Virtually every mutual fund and 401K has stock in oil compaines.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

So, they are basically screwing the American public EVERY SINGLE TIME IT PUTS GAS IN A CAR for profit.

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This is misguided. We are "screwing" ourselves buy buying so much crap (and all our crap comes from oil, ladies and gentlemen). Blame the oil companies all you want. Do you have any idea what would happen if one of them just decided to go out of business? Shut all those refineries down, cease their importing...gas would skyrocket overnight.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Even if they put a cap on gas at whatever price, whose taxes will be making up the difference? Not the guys who own those oil companies and refineries. They have corporate write offs and pay less taxes than most of you reading this. Even though they may make hundreds to times your yearly income. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration, but SLIGHT is the key word. They still pay almost NOTHING in taxes compared to what an average 40 hour a week working stiff does.

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True, but this is largely because wealthy people have their money invested and are paid dividends off those investments. Dividends are taxed at a much lower rate than wages.

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Originally Posted by wilomn

Lube it up folks, it's not going to end anytime soon.

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That's true.

JonV

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Originally Posted by ctrlfreq

It's always entertaining when people (especially our representatives) think that federal meddling in the market will help fix problems brought on by federal meddling in the market. It's even worse when they're so short-sighted to think you can fix a market problem by simply toying with the price, and not dealing directly with either the supply or demand for the product.

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True!

JonV

The current prices have nothing to do with current supply and demand, though. The prices are high from future supply and demand that is assumed.

that bill will never pass

Agreed

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Originally Posted by wilomn

How many refineries have been built in the last 20 years? Any at all? How many have been shut down? 10%? 20%? I do know we have fewer refineries now than we did 20 years ago.

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Again, I'm not going to say these oil companies are squeaky clean, but the reason we haven't built any refineries is the same reason we have been unable to drill, and the same reason we're paying what we're paying right now- because of the environmental left.

We did talk about this in an earlier post, but you're right, the oil companies are making the same profit margin as before (and much less than a LOT of other industries). It's just big numbers at work.

The real problem is this- the oil company makes 7-8 cents per dollar of sales. The federal government takes 18 cents out of that same dollar. State government takes 30-45 cents out of that same dollar. So who are the greedy jerks? New Yorkers are paying $4.14 a gallon (average) right now... over 60 cents goes to tax! Yes, the oil company you bought it from takes 7 or 8 cents. First of all, when is it a crime to make a profit in America?? They also put all the money and effort into drilling and refining the crude, and transporting the product. What does the government do to earn their 60 cents?? NOTHING, except call up the oil execs before Congress and grandstand. The 'record profits' were also accompanied by 'record taxes' and 'record sales'. Exxon by itself paid over $30 billion in tax for 2007!!! That's more than the bottom half of America combined, and the most tax any one corporation has ever paid in history!

I do agree that this bill is just a bit of fluff to make some politician look good. It will never pass. One thing we CAN do is call our Congressmen and Senators and demand that they allow drilling (especially in places that were SET ASIDE FOR DRILLING). Even if 100% of what is produced doesn't get sold here, it will increase the world supply and lower the price.

There is a petition drive going called 'Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.' that will be presented to the Congress. They're up to 274,000 signatures so far.

http://www.americansolutions.com/act...b-346a1e096659

There are also huge ongoing tax breaks given to big oil.

They don't open refineries because they didn't get the funding from the government to make it profitable.

Oil refined into petroleum may be a small part of what crude is used for but it is still be handed to us under false pretenses.

We all have points of view and can pull statistics to support ourselves, that I would say is a given.

What I am saying is that this is deliberate. They knew it was coming, so did some of us, but the capitalized on it. That in and of itself is no big deal, Welcome to America, but the way they not only did it but are doing it to us now, rankles me.