gas over $4 is here! is $5 gas far behind ?

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg

High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco,
Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records
at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed
a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government
inventory report.

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070510/4...ed7db81fd3db3b

AirRaid wrote:
> http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg
>

Another view of the same sign - along with another sign where prices are
lower.

Here's the story on those gas prices:

http://www.trucks.autoblog.com/2007/...prove-a-point/


the short version:

<quote>

To hear Bob tell it, Shell has made it impossible to stay in business.

<snip>

Shell charges him more for gas in San Francisco than in other parts of
the Bay, where he also owns stations, but won't let him buy gas anywhere
else.

<snip>

[Shell station owner] says "I got fed up." What did he do? He raised his
gas prices to well over $4 a gallon, and ever since, he hardly sees a
customer.

"It makes a statement," he said, "and I guess when people see that price
they also see the Shell sign right next to it."

<snip>

"I'm going out with a bang,'' says Oyster. "And I don't care if I don't
pump a gallon on the last day.'' And he probably won't: the Chevron
across the street sells gas for 70 cents less.

</quote>

> High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco,
> Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records
> at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed
> a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government
> inventory report.
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070510/4...ed7db81fd3db3b
>

AirRaid wrote:
>
> High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco,
> Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records
> at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed
> a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government
> inventory report.


It's got ****-all to do with 'supply imbalance' and everything to with
Big Oil's bottom line. Billions of Dollars in windfall profits every
week. That money is leaving the economy, as far as civilians are
concerned. Never to return. They will happily charge you $10/gallon
next week if you go on acquiescing to their bull****.

..
Profiteering at the Pump

The Great Oil Robbery

In case you're wondering why crude oil prices are down from last year,
hanging around at about $60 a barrel, while gasoline prices have
soared past $3.10/gallon nationwide, just check out the latest profit
reports from the oil companies. They are at record levels.

The answer for this seeming contradiction is simple: Americans are
being robbed blind by the oil industry.

Sure, the oil companies, and their PR and lobbying agency, the
American Petroleum Institute, will give you all kinds of reasons for
higher gasoline prices at a time of falling crude prices: problems at
two refineries in Texas and Oklahoma, rising demand or whatever. But
the real answer is that there is simply no competitive market in this
industry.

As Tim Hamilton, a researcher and petroleum industry consultant with
the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, observes, the oil
companies all store their crude oil and refined gasoline in the same
tanks, and all know exactly how much inventory each other company has,
so they don't have to meet and collude on pricing in order to reap the
huge rewards of deliberate supply constraints.

Says Hamilton, "Years ago, you had companies that would try to guess
when the other companies were going to have supply shortfalls of
gasoline in the summer. They'd ramp up their own gasoline refining and
then supply the market at a lower price and eat their competitors'
lunches, the same way General Motors would do if Ford had a problem on
its assembly line. But today, no oil company would do that. They all
benefit by keeping the supplies tight."

Hamilton says that the oil industry has in practice conspired to limit
refining capacity, so that companies can keep pushing up the price of
gas artificially-only they've done this without ever having to meet in
secret and cut a deal, because they all have complete competitive
information on each others' inventories, internal pricing, and
refinery capacity.

"There's no correlation any longer between crude oil prices and
gasoline prices," he insists. "Crude could drop to $10/barrel, and you
could still have gasoline go to $4/gallon. All the crude oil price
does is set a floor on gasoline prices."

As an indication of how much control the oil industry has over retail
gasoline prices, Hamilton points to a study he did, looking at the
price of gas approaching Election Day. His results are truly
disturbing.

The oil industry has been a solid backer of Republicans for many
years, giving 80-90 percent of its campaign contributions to GOP
candidates-particularly during the two Bush terms. What Hamilton
discovered is that this support hasn't just been limited to campaign
contributions.

In fact, the oil industry appears to have clearly tried to minimize
voter anger at Republicans late during the election cycle by pushing
prices at the pump down just ahead of the voting. In the period
2000-2006, Hamilton found that each non-federal election year - 2001,
2003 and 2005 - gasoline prices didn't decline during the month of
October, but each of the election years - 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 -
they fell, with the most dramatic drop coming in October 2006 - a
period when crude oil prices were rising sharply. Each time, gasoline
prices rose again quickly right after the election was over.

"This is a set of coincidences you'd be hard-pressed to explain by
anything but planning," says Hamilton. (And incidentally, it would be
interesting, when Congress gets those Karl Rove emails from the
Republican Party and the White House mainframe computer, to see if
there are any to the American Petroleum Institute.)

The whole situation makes a joke of Bush proposals for opening up the
Alaskan North Slope to more oil exploration, or for Republican calls
for an easing up on environmental regulations for new refinery
construction. Says Hamilton, "The price of oil produced in Alaska will
be set in Saudi Arabia, and any new supply of crude from Alaska won't
affect American gasoline prices in the slightest. And as for new
refineries, why would any oil company want to spent $1 billon or more
to add refinery capacity so they could get less money for the gasoline
they're selling? There isn't enough money in the federal treasury to
subsidize the building of new refinery capacity in America."

The irony here is that it is higher prices for gasoline that might
eventually convince Americans to use less gasoline, and to reduce the
production of greenhouse gasses. But where those higher prices in
Europe come in the form of taxes, which can then be used to subsidize
public transportation or retirement and healthcare programs, in the
U.S. the higher prices simply go to the bottom line of the oil
companies, and into the pockets of oil company shareholders, leaving
public transit, retirement and healthcare programs under funded, and
leaving lower-income workers stuck with higher bills to get themselves
to and from work in their cars.

Until the public recognizes that the illusion of competition carefully
maintained by the oil industry and its backers in the government is
just that-an illusion-this astounding rip-off will continue.

-- Dave Lindorff, May 2007


..
..
..

AirRaid wrote:

> http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg
>
> High gas prices

You people haven't a clue what high gas prices are !

You want to pay less ? Drive a car with better mileage.

Graham

Eeyo

<< reply limited to r.a.d >>

> You want to pay less ? Drive a car with better mileage.

Better yet, don't drive unless it is necessary.

--
F uckedup
O ld
R atty
D odge

> -------- Original Message --------
> From: hc23hc >
> Billions of Dollars in windfall profits every
> week. That money is leaving the economy, as far as civilians are
> concerned.
>
>

So where are the oil companies sending the money? To the moon?

The money is going to the owners, those who own shares of stock. Which
means the money does return to the economy in terns of earnings. It is
also good for for retirement and 401(k) plans as well. Companies making
money is a good thing...at least if anyone wants to retire someday of
the earnings made by those companies.

IF $4.00 a gallon gas were hurting so much, consumption would drop as it
has historically in the past when gas prices were higher than people
could bear (BTW, Jimmy Carter, A Democrat was in office then). So far,
apparently, the prices haven't reached the point of truly hurting yet.

hc23hc wrote:
>
> AirRaid wrote:
> >
> > High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco,
> > Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records
> > at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed
> > a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government
> > inventory report.
>
> It's got ****-all to do with 'supply imbalance' and everything to with
> Big Oil's bottom line. Billions of Dollars in windfall profits every
> week.
>
If you want to provide energy, have at it. No one is stopping you from
selling gasdoline, or whatever-o-line, for what the hell ever you want.
Have at it.


> That money is leaving the economy, as far as civilians are
> concerned. Never to return. They will happily charge you $10/gallon
> next week if you go on acquiescing to their bull****.
>
How is that money "leaving the economy"?

--
"There are some gals who don't like to be pushed and grabbed and lassoed
and drug into buses in the middle of the night."
"How else was I gonna get her on the bus? Well, I'm askin' ya.",
George Axelrod, "Bus Stop"

AirRaid > wrote in
oups.com:

> http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg
>
> High gas prices are posted at a Shell gas station in San Francisco,
> Thursday, May 10, 2007. With gasoline prices poised to break records
> at the pump, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed
> a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government
> inventory report.
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070510/4...ed7db81fd3db3b

And how much higher is it "here" than in the real world.

IBM

Eeyore wrote:

>
> AirRaid wrote:
>
>
>>http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg
>>
>>High gas prices
>
>
> You people haven't a clue what high gas prices are !
>
> You want to pay less ? Drive a car with better mileage.

Idiot Reagan supporters backed gutting the CAFE standards.

--Jeff

--
We know now that Government by
organized money is just as dangerous
as Government by organized mob.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

In article >, Jeffrey Turner wrote:
> Eeyore wrote:
>
>>
>> AirRaid wrote:
>>
>>
>>>http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/9...dollarstp5.jpg
>>>
>>>High gas prices
>>
>>
>> You people haven't a clue what high gas prices are !
>>
>> You want to pay less ? Drive a car with better mileage.
>
> Idiot Reagan supporters backed gutting the CAFE standards.

CAFE could only be a failure. CAFE was an attempt to tell US car buyers
what they had to buy. This doesn't work out well, ever.

CAFE is something supported ultimately by people who want government to make
decisions for them. There has always been a choice to buy cars with
better fuel economy.