Why we have high gas prices

Dirtslinger, you have been sniffin too many refinery fumes. The fact is that ALL of the big oil companies have done nothing but shutdown oil refining capactiy over the last 10 years.

Its simple colusion, less refining capability = higher prices at the pump. If you would bother to do some research you would discover that Shell oil for example recently closed a highly profitable refinery in CA, why ??? So they could have less capacity and charge more.

You preach that the govt. is not to blame. this is not true ! In years past the U.S. govt. manadated in antitrust legislation that there be no less than 7 major oil compaines with refining capacity. The Bush adminstration has let all of the oil compaines merge with each other so that we NOW have only 3 or 4 oil compaines left and they can charge whatever they please because there in NO competition they have elminated it all by merging and buying each other out. In years past govt, did NOT let all this happen and would threaten the oil compaines with antitrust lawsuties to prevent the colusion that we have now. Since GW is a big oil backer he and his kind are not about to do anything, they like the high prices. If any other U.S. industry tried to merge like big OIL the govt, the federal trade commision would step in and disallow the buy outs for fear of a monopoly for a given service or commodity, but since its big oil nothing is done.

I have written my congresspersons and will continue to do so. For what little its worth I have threatened to vote for anyone other than the current persons representing my area if Big oil is not taken to task for closing refineries, to drive prices up.

Additionally DirtSlinger, if you would check some facts you would also discover that Shell Oil has been sending millions of barrells of diesel and gasoline in tankers from the U.S. to other countries and selling it. Meanshile they keep crying that the reason prices are so high is the EPA and the lack of refining capability.

keep beliveing the lie if you want but big oil and the lack of govt. action IS to blame without a doubt !

Captialism is great when there is TRUE competion in the marketplace, right now when it comes to GAS AND OIL WE HAVE NO OPEN COMPETION, ITS plain and simple colusion.
 
I did read the entire article, I think it would be more accruate to describe Joel Kotkin as one of the worls most NEO-CONSERVATIVE scholars on cities.

I say that because he uses consevative buss words like MORAL designed to push those emotional buttons, we all know because Pat Robinson has already told us that New Orleans deserved what they got, remember, he said it was God's revenge for their wicked ways.

What both fail to point out is that New Orleans flooded because the levies broke, and the facts are that regardless of the corruption of state politics, the levies are under the control of the CORP of Engineeer's and they are funded and controlled by the Federal Goverment.

Money was budgeted to the Corp. of Engineer's to shore up the levies, but then bush cut the funding for that project.

Futhurmore I have been to his shinning city on the hill "Houston" and if you want to see poverty, corruption, pollution and the result of unbridled big business, that is a good example, the thing that most struck me was the US and THEM mentality. The US's seemed to have no regard for the THEM's.
 
Want some irony.....

I saw this on a PBS documentary ( frontline ) about a month ago, a few years ago Pat Robertson and some of his investor buddies purchased a refinery in CA, they lined up financing to get the refinery up and running.

After the financing was approved, the banks involved came back later and decided not to honor there original agreement with Robertson and his investors.

In the documentary on PBS it showed Pat Robertson's televised press conference where he Pat that he would he could not open the fefinery because the banks had renigged on there financing agreement because there biggest customers ( big oil ) were going to pull there business from the banks if the Robertson financing went thru.
 
You are right, it was Bush's fault that he cut funding for the Army Corp of Engineers and ultimately the levies. That was one of many contributing factors, but the point that I was trying to make is that there was a breakdown in the social structure of New Orleans. There was a massive hurricane and people were left in the community? Wigh? Because they were poor. Anytime you have that high of a cencentration of poverty combined with a corrupt and inept local government, you are going to have problems, that is why I blame the city and the state for not having a better evacuation plan.
 
Racefantoo

I'm not positive but I think it was President Reagan who used "Shinning city on the hill". You'll notice when I refer to a president, I have enough respect for the office to use their titles, whether they are Democrats or Republicans.
 
I think that the only thing most people learned from New Orleans was that it is okay to take a tv during a natural disaster.


Thats a joke Racefantoo.......so don't start crying
 
I beleive that applies to riot also.
armoflu said:
I think that the only thing most people learned from New Orleans was that it is okay to take a tv during a natural disaster.


Thats a joke Racefantoo.......so don't start crying
Click to expand...
 
Armoflu:

Thats what you took from it, but then again you had the benifit of being safe and high and dry.

I know it would be difficult for you, but try to imagine yourself in that situation, you have lost everything you had, dead bodies are floating in the flooding waters, the President does a low fly over on his way back from an extended vacation but sees no need or reason to stop, after all they are just poor people dying.

It looked a little different from our vantage point but from their's in the midst of complete hopelessness, what would you expect.
 
Blackex14

I know you already know everything but here's a little antitrust history, maybe you know it, maybe you don't.
President Bush wasn't around in the late eighteen hundreds so not everything is his fault. It's funny how some people take every word that comes from their political parties as word straight from God. Get some facts before you spread one side or the other.

Here's some history on antitrust suits and why they happened.The spelling is theirs.

Greed posing as philanthropy
Tony Gosling
John D Rockefeller began as a humble oil business book-keeper in Cleveland, Ohio and in just seven years rose to control a tenth of the entire US oil business.

In the late 19th century the oil industry was a free-for-all, the law of the jungle ruled. Rockefeller used this 'individual freedom' to pursue several extremely successful and deceitful tactics to accumulate capital.

He would secretly buy up or create new oil related companies such as engineering and pipeline firms. These seemed to be independent operators. Rockefeller and his close colleagues secretly controlled the firms and gave Standard Oil, Rockefeller's main oil company, hidden rebates.

Another tactic was to buy up a competing oil company, again secretly. Officials from this company could then be used very effectively to spy on, and give advanced warning of, deals being hatched by his real competitors.

Almost certainly the most lucrative secret deals done by Rockefeller and his partners were with the railroads. These 'in harmony' deals meant those refineries and oil traders not 'in harmony' with standard would find that railroads would refuse point blank to move their oil, whatever the price.

Oil, of course, is free at source, so once the investment in refining and extraction plant has been made the only really important cost was transportation. Rockefeller's secret railroad rebates on the transportation of his oil kept his competitors guessing for years. None of them could understand how he kept pump prices so low. They were all bemused that Standard Oil had being growing at such a rate. How he managed to persuade the railroads to give him rebates and keep the deals secret is still not clear.

Allun Nevins has produced an official biography¹ of the Rockefeller empire but even he cannot help but question its morality. Of a railroad contract signed on 17 October 1877 he says, "The commission was excessive for the services performed. It was ethically indefensible." "Today," he says, "we must condemn the misuse of power not only as a crushing blow to the company's competitors but as an indirect tax on the public."

At judicial enquiries such as the Hepburn Committee, which delivered its report on January 22nd 1880, Standard Oil representatives and those 'in harmony' were tight lipped. They often refused to attend court hearings and regularly disputed its validity. They would give disdainful, condecending replies to the examiners which spoke of an seeming immunity to the rule of law. The committee decided that "Standard Oil violated... social justice" in its monopolistic deals with the railroads.

Standard Oil had its own intelligence and espionage service. Rockefeller saw that a little knowledge can be decisive in the business world so he combined this good supply of information on his competitors with a total wall of silence he himself presented to the outside world. 'No comment' was all that journalists came to expect from the Standard offices.

But what about the man himself? Old film of John Rockefeller shows him moving in a curiously stiff and wooden fashion, expressionless. He proffessed to being a Baptist and went to church regularly, but did he enjoy it? Anthony Sampson in his book 'The Seven Sisters' quotes John Rockefeller as having a favourite maxim; 'Don't let good fellowship get the least hold of you'. Jerome Greene called him, "the most unemotional man I have ever known".

One shadowy deal that Standard Oil of California (or SOCAL) struck back in the 1930's changed the face of urban America for ever. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Phillips Petroleum Co., Mack Truck and General Motors collaborated on a project with SOCAL called National City Lines. The tram systems in the urban US were suffering from under-investment and often crippling debt repayments so National City Lines stepped in across the States to liberate the populous from their cheap and cheerful old 'streetcar' systems. They were replaced with motor buses or they were gradually closed down completely.

The demand for motor cars soared returning massive profits for all involved in the deal. By 1940 General Motors alone had been responsible for the disposal of more than 100 urban streetcar operations. In the late forties the consortium was found guilty by the federal grand jury under anti-trust (anti-competitive) legislation but the $5,000 fine was laughable. It did not even amount to the annual profit returned from the conversion of a single streetcar.

National City Lines sold the dream of the bus and the car to businessmen and politicians right across the continent. In Detroit, even the chairman of the rapid transit company declared the car as the 'magic carpet of transportation for all mankind'. Mayor LeGuardia in NYC said the car represented the best of modern civilisation, whereas the tram was simply an old-fashioned obstacle to progress.

So where are the Rockefellers now? The current head of the family is David Rockefeller, Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank and prime mover in the secret 'Bilderberg' and 'Trilateral Commission' elite groups.

His personal secretary, Alice Victor, was one of the only woman present at the 1996 covert Bilderberg meeting just outside Montreal. Amongst the 120 or so most were Peter Job, Chief executive of Reuters, James D Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, Jean Chretien, Prime Minister of Canada and representatives from most of the boards of US and European Banks.

Press coverage of these conferences of the super-powerful is virtually nil. The entire meeting is 'off the record' for the mere likes of you or I.

They may have moved the core of their interests from Oil to Banking and branched out considerably but the Rockefeller family have not given up the fascination of clandestine operations to keep their business empire beating at the heart of the capitalist machine.

There is probably another eight or ten pages but you get the drift.

I wouldn't try influence you opinion, this is just for information.
 
aceracing said:
yes i have started and run a business and not had dime to start. but you pay more taxes than ibm ,they have lower tax rate than a small buisness. and what republican call small busines is a joke. 1 -5 employes company is small business not campany that has 100 and up is called a small business they quailfie for more loans and grant and tax breaks . and lower tax rate their has to be something wrong
and to get sba loanyou have to have more for down payment than you would if you just went to a bank and borrowed from them
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken, the same rules that determine what is a small bidnees hasn't changed, ahs it?

It was the same during the Klinton administration, no?

I guess George Soros must be a Republican. So is Kerry, Rockefeller, Kennedy, etc. They are all very, very rich. Therefore, they must be Republicans.

It's typical of the Liberals. Use class wwarfare to divide and conquer.


Meanwhile they will continue to tax and spend-IOW empty the pockets of the people they claim to support.
Look at your paychecks-I bet every one of you feel you are being over taxed.
Guess what-YOU ARE!
 
poorowner,
good information. I think a lot of what you wrote goes towards my points. The oil compaines are not dumb and less quanity equals more profit. This is why i said that captialism is a good thing when the market is an open one.
 
It is also a fact refineries have closed due to EPA regulations-it's too costly to retrofit the refineries to meet current regulations, and the treehuggers won't allow any new refineries to be built.

When was the last new refinery built in the U.S.?

The market is open-find a better alternative and sell it.

And, given the long history we have just read, why do we hear it is Bush's fault?

Now, about the Rockefellers-they are DEMOCRATS.
 
Dirtslinger this is not a republican and democrat thing yes no new refineries have been built, why ??? Well its simple...yes EPA is a small part of it....but the real truth is that not only is big oil not building new refineries but they are also closing ones that are profitable. Why...because the lack of supply means more profit for them.
Again captialism is a good thing when there is not colusion on the part of a select number of companies that all merged together.

As you are aware there are few alternatives to gasoline or diesel thus far that are really viable. But the market is not open because we do not have companies in competition to offer the best product at the best price, what we have is a small number of companies all working together to keep prices high and reap the profits. This is a clear case of colusion.

Bush could do something about this he could take big oil to task and threaten anti trust litigation, then you would see big oil back off play ball. But fat chance Bush is too busy collecting cash.

In past history the govt. mandated a minimum number of oil companies and refining capacity, to prevent what we have now. This is the right thing to do to make certain there is fair and open competiton in a market that is vital to the economy.
 
Dirtslinger:

You are mistaken about many things:

the SBA's budget under bush has been cut, thus making it more difficult for a small (mico) business to obtain funding.

While there is a Dem. Sen. Rockefeller from W.Virgina, the Rockefellers being discussed here were Republicians.

You don't have to be a Republican to be rich, but you have to have a heart to be a Democrat.

The current Republician party has developed class warfare into an art form.

The EPA, that you seem to have so much distain for was established by a Republican President, Richard Nixon

furthurmore so often the legal actions taken by what you desribe as TREEHUGGERS are funded by the big businesses that you and many others think they are attacking. Such as when an established business doesn't want any new competition.

As for your beloved tax cuts, you have been played for a fool, If you are the working man you claim to be, I would almost guarantee that you are paying more now than you were before the tax cuts.

_________________________________________________________________

I think we all have a good idea of why we are paying more for gas, now what can we do about it.

I think that one way is for everyone anywhere in the country that might be reading this web site, weather republician or democrat vote aganist any and every canidate for public office that has ever accepted a dime of oil company money.
 
You have to have a heart to be a Democrat?

I guess keeping the African Americans "down on the plantation" is having a heart.
Keeping them tied to welfare, therefore "buying" their votes is called having a heart.
Taxing the snot out of the working class to pay for entitlement programs is ahving a heart.
Undermining our military is having a heart.

Noe, some have made this a Democrat vs Republican thing, blaming the rich Republicans for high gas prices.

I wonder who made the OIL PRICES rise?

Does anyone think high oil prices could cause high gas prices?

As for rich people, I see Algore was over in Saudi Arabia recently getting paid a speaking fee for giving a speech denouncing the U.S. and its policies.

I want everyone to remember his family fortune is tied to Occidental Petroleum, one of the largest oil companies in the world. It's also a foreign owned company.
I also want you to remember Algore is the guy who says we should be paying $3.50 per gallon of gas.
Why does he want us to pay so much for gas?
What's he doing overseas denouncing his own country?

I guess he has the heart of a Democrat.
 
and AL gore said he invented the INTERNET what a buffoon he should called on treason for what he did last weekend
 
dirtslinger, you are right Al Gore is not the answer. He is captain planet all the way. He wrote a book in which one of his quotes that the internal combustion engine is a bigger threat to mankind than the holocaust.

However with that said big oil's current monopoly needs to be split up and more refining capacity mandated. If big oil has enough capacity to ship diesel and gas to South America then they should be able to give our country what we need.
 
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