Record profits and soaring gas prices, I dont get it

[Gilgamel]

Let's say you make widgets. It costs you 2 cents per widget, and you can sell them for 6 cents. Now lets say two emerging economies go widget crazy. It still costs you 2 cents to make your widgets but now by pricing appropriately you can make the same amount of widgets but make a lot more money because you are selling them for 9, 14, 17 cents per widget. This is the exact situation we are in. The emerging economies are consuming far more fuel, increasing demand and driving the price up. Even if the oil companies do not produce as much, or the same, or slightly more, they are going to make far more money than they did before. It is not about charging you slightly more than what it costs them to pull it out of the ground, it is about charging you the perfect market price to maximize their profits. You will pay $4 a gallon, therefore they will charge you $4 a gallon. Period.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Hi, Railways.

[Soriak]

Gilgamel: I don't think the profit in percentages of revenue has improved much, if at all, for oil companies. If they set their profit margin at 10% of the production cost, then a higher cost translates into a higher absolute profit.

Price gauging isn't in their best interest, because it encourages investment in alternative technologies.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

None of my business how other's habits affect the environment we all share and the economy we all live in? Ohhhk.

So you are an environmentalist. Why didn't you just admit as much in the first place?

And yeah, it's none of your business. The authority you have over the economy is limited to your wallet and how you spend / invest what's in it. All an economy is is millions of individuals making individual decisions out of self interest; regulating such is an affront to individual liberty. That's the problem with you libs, you abstract things like the economy in order to legitimize reducing freedom, and by so doing you become out of touch with the individual.

[Arbitrary]

What freedoms are being reduced exactly?

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

I appreciate the hard-on you have for turning this into a political issue, but really - high prices affect everyone, regardless of what sort of government you want. Having a sustainable plan for energy, food, and an economy also affects everyone, regardless of your political affiliation.

I'm not an environmentalist in the tree-hugging, Sierra Club sense of the word - far from it. But I believe in low-impact living and sustainable energy resources... things like railway and reducing how much people drive when they don't need to.

How many people should be allowed their "personal freedoms" when that personal freedom is the direct cause of the problem? You say "I'll drive when I want, where I want, and I don't give a shit about the environment" and on your own, you don't matter in the scope of the ecosystem. However, when more and more people think like you, the problem gets worse and worse until you all collectively have an effect on an otherwise balanced system.

All an economy is is millions of individuals making individual decisions out of self interest; regulating such is an affront to individual liberty.

Well, it's already regulated - a ton, if I may add. So you can go ahead and stow that Libertarian bullshit back into your backpack - we aren't heading towards de-regulation; you'd be blind and willfully ignorant to think such a thought.

There is a harmony to be found between technology and nature; the willful destruction of the world we live in merely because "you can" is disgusting and irresponsible.

That is why oil companies should not be allowed to bury new tech that competes with them, and that is certainly why we need to find a way to lessen our dependency on oil.

That's the problem with you libs, you abstract things like the economy in order to legitimize reducing freedom, and by so doing you become out of touch with the individual.

I suppose you're right - but in the long run, how free are we to do anything if we're indebted to the corporations that are strengthening their hold on our wallets? Those who live rurally, or even suburbanly, could probably find a way to lessen their gasoline consumption when gas prices keep going up... but most likely, and most realistically, they will continue to pay higher and higher prices at the behest of the petro companies, without any real increase in wage or income - thereby reducing their personal freedoms.

I'm pretty baffled on how you've managed to agree with a system that is more akin to slavery than any sort of hippy "liberal" bullshit I may spout off about nature and harmony.

[SalaciousTunare]

You guys are complete idiots if you think our society is NOT engineered for these oil companies to profit.

Did you know it is law in Israel to have a water heater that is solar powered?

Did you know the second richest guy in China, makes solar panels?

Did you know, the fuel efficiency standards for American automobiles are lower than all of the western world, and are lower than China? The ford model T got 25mpg. In 100 years the best american ingenuity can improve upon is 35mpg? Pathetic? or a boldfaced lie.

Did you know Brazil is 100% energy independent via Ethanol?

We are being 100% lied to, PERIOD. If you honestly think Solar Panels or Bio-Diesel's are not viable technologies, you are a retard. Technology suppression is a reality. We did NOT run out of whales and horses people, we moved on to the next thing. It is long past due to bury the oil companies, all it takes is a president that actually gives a fuck about the economy.

GM and Ford cannot give a car away in another country. We produce garbage, because a few select elitists wish to remain at the top of the food chain.

[kedwyn]

Originally Posted by Soriak

The price is what it is because of supply constraints - you remove the tax and the price isn't going to just drop by that much. Isn't it also something like 16 cents? That's a long way off from 10%...

You forget the state taxes on it as well. 18.4 cents federal and most states are that much or higher.

There is your 10%



Gas Taxes

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Fammaden

Have any overpopulation scares or predictions actually come anywhere close to true?

Originally Posted by Soriak

Nope. I don't know about the US, but it's also something used by some fringe anti-immigration groups here. The idea, that there's not enough space/resources to take in more people without everything going to hell.

The argument completely ignores that more people just create more demand, which in turn means more economic activity and hence more jobs. Economic growth has to come from somewhere and it just requires a growing number of people.

You answered the question wrong, Soriak. No, none of the doomsday scenarios about overpopulation have come true. Things like the Green Revolution helped up the world's food supply enough to stave off what we're seeing today in terms of food prices.

But the predictions of population growth have more or less always come true, so long as they were reasonable. It's a statistical trivialty to come up with reasonable projections of population growth over the short to mid term. 2050 is only two generations away. I'm sure that if they're saying 9 billion, that means we're going to end up with anywhere from 8-10 billion people.

Population growth has a lot of inertia, and we aren't going to see some sort of demographic miracle where suddenly the world's population plateaus yet the world's economy isn't crushed under the strain of 80% of the population being senior citizens.

So either way really, it's bad news. A: The population goes up by around 50% in the next 40 years while also rapidly developing and increasing consumption per capita, resulting in skyrocketing energy and food prices, possibly wars over resources etc. Or B: Somehow the world population and consumption stagnates whether through war, famine, disaster, or better yet by dictat. Whether the world economy is funked up by the direct cause (asteroid, rapid climate change, whatever) or by the demographic cluster fuck of rapidly stopping child birth and therefore population growth, B doesn't look pretty.

No, I'm not that optimistic for the future. IMO our only real hope is C: a little of option A with a whole fuckload of praying for technology and ingenuity to save our asses before mother earth snuffs us out as a civilization (but not necessarily species). We've managed it before, but I'm beginning to wonder if we're up for the task this time around.

[Hachima]

Let's see...Sell gas at $2 a gallon in the US or sell it for $5 a gallon in Japan? Its a global market and what else can you expect but for our price to match that of other countries. France, Germany and Japan were all paying $4 a gallon over 10 years ago. Yes, TEN years ago. Gas costs ~$5 a gallon in Japan right now and may rise to $6 next month with a new 30 yen per LITRE tax they are implementing ($1 per gallon).

The US is just barely starting to catch up with the rest of the modern world.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

How many people should be allowed their "personal freedoms" when that personal freedom is the direct cause of the problem?

And the closet fascist comes out. That took what, 4 posts?

[Kalaar Kururuc]

Try paying $10/gallon like the UK

[dak]

massive famine

Many places all over the world are having riots in the streets over food right now.

rationing

See above

and resource war by this point

Every war is a resource war.

Besides the population is growing exponentially, it's almost 4x as large since the 1900s.


As for gas prices do what I'm doing, convert a car to electric and power it off the grid.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Originally Posted by Ashes Emberblade

And the closet fascist comes out. That took what, 4 posts?

You act like this is some sort of revelation that a Communist wants people to like... act for the community instead of themselves.

[spronk]

In general for every gallon of gas:

Feds get 18.4 cents in taxes
State gets 20-40 cents in taxes
Transportation costs 23-26 cents
Refining costs 24 cents (Valero, etc turning oil into gas)
all the rest ($2.10 - $3.00) goes to a big oil company (Exxon, Chevron, BP, etc)

In other countries the fed/state taxes tend to be much higher, as in $3+. Even in India gas is $5 or so a gallon, which is high considering the standard of living is still 1/10th that of the USA.

In 2007 Exxon made $40 billion in profits and paid out $100 billion in royalties to countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia, etc. It costs a company about $1 to pull a barrel out of the middle east, and $70+ to pull a barrel out of The Gulf of Mexico. There are hundreds of billions of barrels of "sand oil" in Canada but currently the costs are still above profitability, once oil hits over $200/barrel many new sources will be more viable (profitable).

Saudi Arabia received $200 billion in 2007 from oil. Iran received $70 billion. Russia, Venezuela, etc have similar numbers.

ANWAR would produce between 600k - 1.2 million bpd (barrels per day), based on low/high estimates of how much oil is there (6 billion - 16 billion barrels). The US consumes over 25 million barrels per day of oil, and growing. ANWAR at this point would have minimal impact on the price of gas, 15 billion new barrels being available is pretty insignificant compared to the billions of undeveloped barrels in Middle East, Russia, Africa, and so on, where it is much cheaper to pull out of the ground as well.

In a global economy driven by futures price trading the oil commodities price is not dependent on local supply/demand but global supply/demand and calculated risk factors (weather, war, etc), unless of course we decide to nationalize oil and sell it at below market pricing like they do in the middle east, venezuela, etc.