Gas prices rantings

[Panamoka_Bassin]

So, I'm watching the news a couple days ago, and I see a pundit discussing the price of oil, which is "down" (giggles) to $55 per barrel.  The jist of his speech was that, though oil barrel prices are down, its going to take a couple months to get that cheaper oil into our gas tanks, so the gas prices will not come down until then.  HUH?  Did I get that right?  Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but as soon as a barrel of oil goes up in price, the prices at the pumps reflect it THAT DAY, not months later when the more expensive oil gets to the stations.  Anyone remember what happened to gas prices right after Katrina?  That was instantaneous, not "months later" when the shortage would have been easier to absorb.  They make it sound like gas is so cheap now, anyway, but do you really think $2.45 for gas is cheap?  What total crap!  I am so sick of oil companies lining their own pockets with hard earned American money and then having the gall to try and placate us with the idea that "Soon prices will come down."  I don't have any exact figures, but I know that of all the companies in the US in the last few years, oil companies have posted the biggest gains, yet they all cry to the bank with pockets full of money.  I'm fed up.  I'm gonna buy a horse while grain is still cheap.

[justfishin]

Please buy your horse some rubber non slip horse shoes for backing your boat and trailer in and while taking it out. Those ramps get slippery! ;D

[Catt]

While I feel you disgust there are few if any oil companies left in the US they are foreign owned.

Have you priced grain lately?

[Troutfisher]

A favorite quote of mine... "Why's our oil under their soil?"

I wish we could drill in Alaska, and destroy our dependency upon foreign oil.

[Vyron]

guys come on!!!!! have u checked the prices in europe?

ur gas is free there

[NATHAN_JAMES]

With all the advancements in techknowledgy today it's BS that we are still dependent on oil. Ther are synthetics like Amsoil, created in 70's. It's oil company greed that hold America back  . I'm gonna stop now because this rant could go on and on. And don't get me started on pharmaceutical companies, the last disease cured was polio 50 years ago, now they just treat disease,more profitable.

[VekolBass]

guys come on!!!!! have u checked the prices in europe?

ur gas is free there

A lot of that is tax--no pity for self-inflicted wounds. U.S. gas would be cheaper if we would fully exploit the resources we've got. Sorry, but a mosquito infested wasteland that I'll never visit like the Alaskan North Slope seems a perfect place to put some oil rigs. If not there, then where? Ditto for off-shore resources. Don't those people know that off-shore rigs are fish magnets?

Oil prices go up quickly because the down-stream suppliers are protecting themselves from price increases that they know (or suspect) are coming. Nothing moves faster than bad news. They are slower to reduce prices because they don't really want to, and it takes time for market pressure to force them to cut prices.

True, oil companies are making money hand over fist now, but in the nineties they were going broke because of low world oil prices. No one gave a c--p about their oil profits then, but now that prices are up everyone thinks they are getting gouged. At some point investors need to make a substantial profit on their investment otherwise they will put their wealth into something that will yield profit--and to make the hard times worth waiting through. Frankly, the low prices did us bad in the long run because there wasn't enough money at hand for oil field exploration and development--not to mention making the difficult process of building more refinery capacity an attractive proposition.

[Troutfisher]

A lot of that is tax--no pity for self-inflicted wounds. U.S. gas would be cheaper if we would fully exploit the resources we've got. Sorry, but a mosquito infested wasteland that I'll never visit like the Alaskan North Slope seems a perfect place to put some oil rigs. If not there, then where? Ditto for off-shore resources. Don't those people know that off-shore rigs are fish magnets?

I love that paragraph you've just stated.  I agree with it to the utmost extent.  

[JT Bagwell]

The price of gas is finally starting to drop a little in my area. I think

it is down to $2.09 per gallon. Hopefully it gets back to the $1.50 range

and stays there for a while. My Triton has a 56 gallon gas tank and spending

$2.50 - $3.00 per gallon gets expensive. Maybe my Optimax oil will go back

down in price this year since oil prices are down. Our local dealer raised it to

$30 per gallon last year (up from $23 per gallon the year before).

JT Bagwell

[logger]

Where I work we're are at $1.98. And IMO its still rape. For the first time in what seems a couple years we are under $2.00 a gallon here in northern MI. Rant all you want, I agree with just about every word written here. My family suffers greatly because of the gas prices. I am selling my beautiful truck because I can't afford to drive it. I commute 124 miles everyday, so on any given month I spend between 250-300 bucks on gas myself only because I picked up a small beater car (not including my wifes gas use),so I could use a break at the pump. My father in-law owns a golf course, golf in northern michigan was down over 50% this past summer because people didn want to drive up north to vacation, he was having a terrible time just staying open. Gas prices should get capped at a certain % over the price per barrel or something. Anything over companies should get nailed for gouging.

In my town we have 3 stations next to each other and in 4 years they have never had price war they always have the same exact high price. And they are always 10-19 cents higher than the surrounding towns. Word of advice if you are coming to Mio fill up before you get here.

[BASS fisherman]

I think it was trout fisher who said about the oil under our soil. In the town I live, and surrounding areas, I know of around 50 gas/oil wells that have popped up over the past 10-15 years or so. I wonder where the oil from the wells is going since supposedly we are not drilling in the US. I do know that the wells are in fact oil wells because they put one in the woods up behing my house. I went up a few times to check it out and personally saw the oil (when they started) and you could smell it too. I also know of a farm owner who lives in the area who was approached by an oil company who wanted to check for oil on her property. According to her, they said if they did find oil on her property and gave them the rights to it, she would be given free gas for the rest of her life.

[cabela10]

$1.86 in the Twin City area....Minnesota

[Sam]

Here is the deal on American oil.

We pump oil out of Alaska and send it to Japan.

Japan pays us for the oil and we then purchase what we need to refin from Venezuela.

Why? Because it is closer for Japan to get their oil from the US and closer for the US to get our oil from South America.  And since Japan and South Korea are such strong trading partners we work this deal.

As for drilling in Alaksa and off the Alaska coast, there is an abundance of oil up that way but so far the Congress has refused to allow drilling.  

As for the Alaska Pipeline killing all the reindeer; the reindeer snuggle up to the pipeline to keep warm so that is nothing more than political BS to sway the uninformed American public to be against domestic drilling.

And as for oil prices; you are correct.  Oil companies price their current stocks of oil based on current pricing of the oil the must pay.  It is similiar to the LIFO accounting technique of last in first out.

And don't forget that the majority of what you pay for a gallon of gasoline is taxes, both state and federal.  Remove the taxes and see the price drop down to under $1.00 per gallon.

Don't you just love America and our politics?

[cabela10]

I think our state tax on gas here in Minnesota is just 10cents...they are wanting to raise it to 30cents per gallon but our current governor, from my home city, rejects it every time. Great dude. Tim Pawlenty.

[Guest avid]

U.S. gas would be cheaper if we would fully exploit the resources we've got. Sorry, but a mosquito infested wasteland that I'll never visit like the Alaskan North Slope seems a perfect place to put some oil rigs. If not there, then where? Ditto for off-shore resources. Don't those people know that off-shore rigs are fish magnets?

I'm sorry to be crude, but this is just plain nonesense. "A mosquito infested watesland" describes most of Florida and certaily the everglades. Has it been so long ago that the Exxon Valdez ruined miles of pristine water and habitat? Talk to the stone crabbers and commercial and recreational fisherman, lobsterman, and shell fisherman in the gulf of mexico. (before wilma)

C'mon guys, we're the ones who are supposed to care about and conserve the outdoors. If the hunters and fisherman don't care about the environment who will?

You can honestly advocate for drilling in the last great wilderness habitat in North America while people are driving 9 mpg hummers, Obese SUV's and stretch limos?

The investment in research in alternative fuels is apalllingly low. We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq, but investing in something that would really liberate us, namely freedom from the oil barons, is not a priority.

I guess I'm the dummy, because I just don't get it.

[Sam]

Avid,

You are not dumb. You are logical and smart.

The people within the beltway are dumb.

The USA is going to go down in flames from all the social program spending we do and I hope you and I are gone so we don't have to see it happen.

As for me, I am planning to take my Social Security and retire in a few years and go out on the water, enjoy the beauty and have some fun fishing up and down the east coast and in Louisiana.

I no longer watch the ABC, CBS or NBC news as I can't take it anymore.

In the words of Grisham's insurance guys when they wrote the letter to the family of the boy who died in the book (sorry, I can't remember the title)...the people within the Washington DC beltway are "stuipd, stuipd, stuipd."

We need more people that think like you in DC.  But that will never happen.

[VekolBass]

U.S. gas would be cheaper if we would fully exploit the resources we've got. Sorry, but a mosquito infested wasteland that I'll never visit like the Alaskan North Slope seems a perfect place to put some oil rigs. If not there, then where? Ditto for off-shore resources. Don't those people know that off-shore rigs are fish magnets?

I'm sorry to be crude, but this is just plain nonesense. "A mosquito infested watesland" describes most of Florida and certaily the everglades. Has it been so long ago that the Exxon Valdez ruined miles of pristine water and habitat? Talk to the stone crabbers and commercial and recreational fisherman, lobsterman, and shell fisherman in the gulf of mexico. (before wilma)

C'mon guys, we're the ones who are supposed to care about and conserve the outdoors. If the hunters and fisherman don't care about the environment who will?

You can honestly advocate for drilling in the last great wilderness habitat in North America while people are driving 9 mpg hummers, Obese SUV's and stretch limos?

The investment in research in alternative fuels is apalllingly low. We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq, but investing in something that would really liberate us, namely freedom from the oil barons, is not a priority.

I guess I'm the dummy, because I just don't get it.

Millions of people live in, and many more are relocating to, Florida. That in and of itself creates a far larger ecological problem in that peninsula than even several thousand oil and gas wells would have created. The Northern Slope of Alaska is far less hospitable. In addition to the mosquitos that make those in the lower 48 look like a joke (at times they literally drive the resident caribou mad) the winter temperatures preclude the place from ever having a significant human population. The most robust oil development plan for the North Slope only would effect under 5% of the total area currently protected as wilderness. As I said before, if not there then where? As far as the Exxon Valdez is concerned:

-- It was a tanker, current dependence on tankers to transport oil from abroad makes it more likely that it could theoretically happen again. (Sam made an excellent point regarding oil being a commodity, but Ill blithely ignore its implications in an effort to cut down on keystrokes.)

-- As long is we have a modern society there will be costs associated with acquiring the energy resources need to run it. I dont want to sound crude--but accidents will happen and we will just have to deal with it. Fortunately, as the Exxon Valdez and several other incidents have proved, the environment given a chance, recovers nicely. In the 60s and 70s the Potomac river was essentially dead, except for some rough fish. Today we hold bass tournaments on it. A minimum amount of common sense environmental legislation accomplished that.

As regards high fuel use vehicles go I dont advocate their use, and I dont discourage it either. I advocate the free market. As oil resources become more scarce, price goes up, and people driving things like Hummers, three quarter ton trucks, and bass boats with 225 HP motors feel the pinch. They then have to make a decision whether to continue doing what their doing or scale down to an econobox sedan or a 25hp outboard--like mine. Their business.

Alternate fuels? This country has people called "venture capitalists." They are people with money to invest in technologies that promise to be "the next big thing." If there is sound economic logic for investing in a technology--ie. it will be profitable--they will line up to invest their money. The lack of investment in alternative fuels (if there really is a lack, which I somewhat doubt) suggests to me that all the hype is just that. Ethanol being a prime example. As the price for oil rises, which it probably will over time, these alternative fuels may become more attractive. The day that my local station offers something cheaper that doesnt damage my engine I will be the first in line at the pump.

[Troutfisher]

We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq

Y'know, I know this is off topic, but just answering your view, Avid, I would like to say this.  What if the President during the time of WW2 had not taken us into war because it was too much money?  Money does not matter when it comes to protecting freedom.  :

As far as drilling for oil in Alaska, I'll applaud your view, Vekol.

[cabela10]

We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq

Money does not matter when it comes to protecting freedom.

Who's freedom?  Ours or trying to give Iraqis freedom.  Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me.  We started that bullsh*t with Bin Laden and Saddam.  The current presidents father started all this crap.

[Dan:]

Recent investigations into oil company profits have revealed nothing illegal.

I have read articles that say oil pipelines in some parts of Alaska have IMPROVED some of the wildlife in the area (I  think the article I read cited an example of increasing deer population in the region affected by the oil pipeline)

Drilling in Alaska doesn't necessarily mean we have to destroy the entire wilderness. Hell, most of that wilderness up there is unseen, so don't say we are getting rid of a environmental resource because nobody is using most of it.

Also, why is it that California gets to vote on whether or not to drill for oil offshore (and vote no) while Alaska has not been allowed to vote on whether to drill on their property or not? (which they would vote yes for) Isn't that a bit of a double standard? If we drilled in these two states, gas prices would be lower. Maybe it's not the gas companies that are being greedy but the lawmakers who determine whether we can drill in these areas or not.

And vekol, you're analysis of investment relating to alternative energy is precisely why I beleive we are NOT running out of oil on this planet. The gas companies would be the first to know and the first to find an alternative if they found out oil was running out. Why? Because they have the most money depending on it.

[Dan:]

We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq

Money does not matter when it comes to protecting freedom.

Who's freedom?  Ours or trying to give Iraqis freedom.  Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me.  We started that bullsh*t with Bin Laden and Saddam.  The current presidents father started all this crap.

What did we start with Bin Laden? Last time I checked, he was the one who decided to bomb us.

[Troutfisher]

Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me

Where do you think your taxes go?

[cabela10]

Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me

Where do you think your taxes go?

Overseas, what part did you miss?

[cabela10]

We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq

Money does not matter when it comes to protecting freedom.

Who's freedom? Ours or trying to give Iraqis freedom. Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me. We started that bullsh*t with Bin Laden and Saddam. The current presidents father started all this crap.

What did we start with Bin Laden? Last time I checked, he was the one who decided to bomb us.

Bomb us? or fly planes into the towers?

Sorry but things happened way before this 9/11 stuff happened.

Bush Senior attempted to kill both Saddam and Bin Laden on numerous occasions while he was the president, and now his son is trying to finish the job.  I believe saddam or bin laden try to kill Bush also at one time.

And our president bush has his hands in all the oil/gas money, so why would the prices go down when he is making millions.

Come up to Minnesota everyone, you can get E85 gas for around 1.40 per gallon.  It's made from our corn.  I'm sure you've had to of heard of it.

[Dan:]

We can spend 100 billion dollars to invade Iraq

Money does not matter when it comes to protecting freedom.

Who's freedom?  Ours or trying to give Iraqis freedom.  Us spending billions over seas and not helping our own homeless people is a disgrace to me.  We started that bullsh*t with Bin Laden and Saddam.  The current presidents father started all this crap.

What did we start with Bin Laden? Last time I checked, he was the one who decided to bomb us.

Bomb us? or fly planes into the towers?

Both. The trade center was bombed during the Clinton administration by OBL. American embassies overseas were also bombed by OBL.

Sorry but things happened way before this 9/11 stuff happened.

Of course they did. What does that change. Can you give me an example of how we started the fight with OBL?

Bush Senior attempted to kill both Saddam and Bin Laden on numerous occasions while he was the president, and now his son is trying to finish the job.  I believe saddam or bin laden try to kill Bush also at one time.

What's wrong with trying to kill OBL? He is the leader of a terrorist organization. He didn't start hating us because we were trying to kill him. We started trying to kill him because he is a dangerous, evil murderer. His hatred for us isn't caused by things we have done to him, it is caused by his adherence to fanatical islam that creates a hatred for all of the west because our cultures are deemed "sinful" and they interpret the Koran in a way that says they should destroy that "sin" in order to obey Allah. And if you remember back to the first Gulf War, we explicitly DID NOT try to invade Baghdad and kill Saddam, we left him in power (which is what caused this whole new mess) And by the way, why are you defending murderous dictators so much?

And our president bush has his hands in all the oil/gas money, so why would the prices go down when he is making millions.

Do you have evidence that Bush is profiting from the oil business? No.  Can you even argue that his policies are explicitly for furtherment of the oil industry? NO! You may "beleive" that is his motivation, but there are clearly many more reasons for his policies and actions.

Come up to Minnesota everyone, you can get E85 gas for around 1.40 per gallon.  It's made from our corn.  I'm sure you've had to of heard of it.

No thanks, I'd prefer to get the better gas mileage that regular gas has...