MaynardMeek
Well-known member
Gouging isn't a myth when your government does not allow you to up the cost of something more than once in any given 24 hour period. Maybe a better word can be used then gouging, but it is happening here in NJ usa.
F**cking Gas Prices
- Thread starter enzo1
- Start date
BigVrunga
Well-known member
As sick as it sounds, so do I. Maybe then people will get up the motivation to truly end, or at least significantly reduce our dependency on petroleum for energy. If the government and private industry made it a priority and devoted massive amounts of time and energy toward the task, it would no doubt become a reality.
Our current primary energy source being outrageously expensive and in short supply is the best way to kick that in motion.
As for me, next year Ill be tooling around in a french-fry grease powered VW, and as soon as I get a house Ill be making my own E85 for my Hondas. Like CDB said, do what you can to conserve over the long haul, and the tides will turn.
BV
mtruther
Member
The problem isn't so much supply of oil here as it is refinery capacity. The Gulf Coast is home to a very large percentage of the oil refineries in ths country, and they're shut down. We simply have no way of refining oil at this point, and without refineries up and running, we're not gong to be able to meet demand.
It's time to start building new refineries. Maybe put them up on closed military bases.
We also need to streamline our fuel grades. There are over 40 different varieties of fuel grades used in this country, and with each new addition, more money is spent on production.
That's what's the matter in Atlanta right now. They have this super-exclusive fuel grade set up for its clean burning properties, but it's very expensive to refine, and most of those facilities were in Mississippi and Louisiana. So they're getting screwed through the pooch for their environmental regulations.
Yeah, alternative energy would be great. I'd love to see farmers pull down some more cash and to be able to keep their farms. I'd love to see supply go domestic and biodiesel to become the norm. But honestly, if we don't start some cominbation of burning more coal, building new refineries and drilling for more oil here in the US, we're screwed.
As an aside, Bill Forbes set down a fairly convincing argument that the oil bubble would burst within a year. Hope he's right.
It's time to start building new refineries. Maybe put them up on closed military bases.
We also need to streamline our fuel grades. There are over 40 different varieties of fuel grades used in this country, and with each new addition, more money is spent on production.
That's what's the matter in Atlanta right now. They have this super-exclusive fuel grade set up for its clean burning properties, but it's very expensive to refine, and most of those facilities were in Mississippi and Louisiana. So they're getting screwed through the pooch for their environmental regulations.
Yeah, alternative energy would be great. I'd love to see farmers pull down some more cash and to be able to keep their farms. I'd love to see supply go domestic and biodiesel to become the norm. But honestly, if we don't start some cominbation of burning more coal, building new refineries and drilling for more oil here in the US, we're screwed.
As an aside, Bill Forbes set down a fairly convincing argument that the oil bubble would burst within a year. Hope he's right.
CDB
Registered User
You're missing the point. Gouging is a myth because people have the right to charge whatever they damn well please for the goods they produce and the services they provide, just as everyone else has the right to buy or not buy. Gouging is an aestetic argument. Oeople don't like the fact that prices can fluctuate, severely sometimes under extraordinary circumstances. Gouging is a myth because people in this country are taught from birth that if some disaster happens and the price of this or that good they deem essential goes up a lot, it's because of the greedy capitalists and not because the supply has been strained at the same time as an increase in immediate demand has gone up. Gouging is merely a rise in prices, a signal sent by the market that a certain goodor service has becomefar more valuable and should be used sparingly. People don't like reality though. Too inconvenient.MaynardMeek said:
judge-mental
Board Supporter
you are somewhat right about holland, they are realizing theyre mistakes now BTW, but not about other countries IMO. I have been allover the continent and my sister lives in the netherlands.CDB said:
mtruther
Member
Hey BigVrunga, you got any good links on the vegetable oil and diesels (I'll look around a bit when things slow down a bit)? I currently drive a Jetta Diesel. Love it. It's been good, especially now. I'm in med school, so I wouldn't have tons of tme to brew up my own fuel, but I'm curious.BigVrunga said:
MaynardMeek
Well-known member
two stations by me just got shut down by the government for "profiteering" they are cracking down... YAY
CDB
Registered User
Price controls have a much higher tendency to do strange things to the economy. Rapid, pronounced rises in prices of any commodity are almost always the result of government meddling in the market, and it's pretty strange to think that the people/entity that caused the problem have the know-how on the best way to fix it. Further meddling always makes the problem worse in the long and short term.ss01 said:
Just keep that in mind.
CDB
Registered User
If these people don't profiteer or gouge you can expect the oil supplies to run dry very quickly and nice little shortage to begin. Hard as it may be to take, a price is just information, nothing more. It's information on the relative value of one good to all other goods. It's a ratio, nothing more. If something is more valuable for at a given point in time it's usually due to an imbalance of supply and demand that the market can't accomodate right away. If the price is not allowed to rise the end result is a shortage of whatever good that is the subject of price controls.EEmain said:
A couple of good articles, one older but spot on in terms of gouging.
Invalid Link Removed
Invalid Link Removed
BigVrunga
Well-known member
Sure bro!
The only book you need to read is:
Invalid Link Removed
'From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank' by Joshua Tickell.
The book describes everything you need to sythesize biodiesel, and also how to convert your diesel car to run on straight vegetable oil Even used vegetable oil that and restaurant owner/manager will be happy to let you take for free. Retrofitting would cost ~$800 if you did most of the work yourself.
I plan in implementing these ideas in my next vehicle, and when I get my own house Ill definitely be setting up my own ethanol still. That is, unless alternative fuel vehicles are quickly becomming reliable, affordable, and the status quo.
BV
Rogue Drone
Well-known member
Atlanta, and I'll assume the rest of the Southeast, is ~4.5 days away from being completley out of gas, by my estimate. The six high demand stations that I went went by in Marietta today are already dry.
It's a distribution issue, the pipelines that feed us were at .00 for two days +, and now are running at only 0.38 for lack of power in Mississippi.
Atlanta's in deep trouble, but , of course, the politicians are sugar coating the situation to prevent the panic buying we saw earlier this week.
I guess I'm guilty of contributing to the problem, I bought a bladder tank and 40 gals for my Tundra. Tommorow I'll pin some **** filled diapers and a dead squirrel to the top of it as theft camouflage.
It's a distribution issue, the pipelines that feed us were at .00 for two days +, and now are running at only 0.38 for lack of power in Mississippi.
Atlanta's in deep trouble, but , of course, the politicians are sugar coating the situation to prevent the panic buying we saw earlier this week.
I guess I'm guilty of contributing to the problem, I bought a bladder tank and 40 gals for my Tundra. Tommorow I'll pin some **** filled diapers and a dead squirrel to the top of it as theft camouflage.
EEmain
Registered User
:thumbsup:
I do appreciate your attempt to educate me about economic theory but I have lived too long and seen 2 many bullshit jobs... I do remember the full oil tankers in the Delaware bay during the late 70`s... And I am sure there will be a gas shortage so the price can hit $4.00 a gallon... then drop back to $2.50 and everyone will be so gratefull for cheap gasoline
CDB said:
I do appreciate your attempt to educate me about economic theory but I have lived too long and seen 2 many bullshit jobs... I do remember the full oil tankers in the Delaware bay during the late 70`s... And I am sure there will be a gas shortage so the price can hit $4.00 a gallon... then drop back to $2.50 and everyone will be so gratefull for cheap gasoline
CDB
Registered User
I like biodiesel. The fact that a byproduct of America's collective fat ass might be a clean, viable alternative fuel source is fucking hilarious and perfect irony. And a perfect example of how alternatives arise in a free market. Like oil, for a long time no one gave a **** about the left over grease in the french fryer. Now it's starting to become valuable. Guess what? The price will go up if it becomes popular.BigVrunga said:
CDB
Registered User
I think you're missing the point. The price should be allowed to go as high as it can to avoid the shortage. And yeah, it may drop back down after the **** storm passes, but the policies that help exacerbate these situations are still there and it won't be long before some new war or some unseen circumstance knocks us into the shitter again.EEmain said:
I find it laughable. You look at a roast beef sandwich, and were you to trace the structure of production behind it you'd go back decades, if not further. People mined the metal to make the cutting blades to cut the meat. Someone sewed the aprons the deli personel wore. Someone created the was paper. Someone grew the lettuce, the totmatoes and made the mustard. Someone kept and fed the cow. Someone shipped all this **** around. And all this went on for decades. Decades of investment and work, all by people with nothing but their own self interest in mind. All by people who by and large paid each other for goods and services rendered at prices they all found mutually advantageous. All this interlacing latticework of exchange upon exchange over distance and time, all equilibrated with no one to direct it, no planning board to determine it, no politician passing legislation to make sure that sandwich was there thirty years down the line when someone wanted it. The wonder of the market at work when no one is fucking it up.
And yet, in the beginning of the twenty-first century we're facing a possible fuel shortage, and no one thinks to look to the government to blame them for the problem instead of demanding they be savior of the minute once more. The market manages to equilibrate the efforts and resources of millions of people over time and distance to make any and all goods that people demand cheaper and more abundant and varied than before. Yet we're having a gas shortage. I'd sneer at people if I didn't have some humility about the subject because I once thought as they did. You might want, as I did, to pay a little more attention to that economics theory. Because most of it is not theory, it's hard fact learned on the ground. And if you want to know how we can deal with this situation properly rather than just fucking things up worse than they are, it becomes crucial. I know a shitload of people on thse boards seem to think my ecnomic ideas are wacky and wrong. I hate to break it to you but I wasn't born or raised in the Austrian School. I was raised a nice solid Republican supply sider by my father. I went over to the Austrian School late in my education because one thing stood out about that school of economics more than any other: they had the annoying habit of being right all the time. A claim of distinction no other school of economics can make.
CDB
Registered User
Good. They're making a profit. People are employed and using themselves productively. I have to do some research and find out just when this became a bad thing in America, and when people were supposed to get up and work and be productive just for the fun of it. Where did that profit come from? Even the most socialist of our economic commentators admits it's not from gas sales even while they're calling the oil companies greedy. The oil industry covers a whole lot more than just those pumps. I believe they've also been trying to expand exploration to other areas in the US, such as ANWR. Gee, a little more geographical differentiation in sourcing and refining might have helped at this point in time. But tree huggers and NIMBY types pretty much killed all chances for that. I'm hoping America will wake up a little because of this, but I doubt it. They'll shuffle the same **** in out of DC until things get real bad. And how bad that will have to be I don't know, but the current situation along the gulf coast might be a prelude.EEmain said:
EEmain
Registered User
Dude I wouldn`t know the Austrian school from the Austrailian school... what I know is based on living and watching... There is always someone somewhere getting paid in this society and the many signing the check... call me cynical or conspiratorial I refuse to believe anything Big Gov., Big Oil, Big Pharma ect... sayCDB said:
BigVrunga
Well-known member
No doubt that it will, and that's about the time Ill be turning on my ethanol still
I wouldnt mind paying $2.00 for a gallon of used fryer oil. Its not polluting the environment, and its not going toward another Bently for some rich America-hating sheik.
Although Im sure many are starting to think about fuel alternatives, it will take a much higher gas price to actually get the average person motivated to help themselves. Modifying a diesel engine to run on vegetable oil isnt especially complicated, but your average joe shmo who can barely change his oil or fix his brakes isnt going to attempt it.
Of course, that sets up a niche for a nice buisiness now, doesnt it?
BV
mtruther
Member
You think the supply is short now...wait and see what happens if the government caps the price of fuel.CDB said:
Price caps just don't work.
As an aside, I'm debating not buying from Amoco again. I just learned that Venezuela's national source of oil comes from there. Not by any stretch of the imagination am I going to support that commie Hugo Chavez, badmouths our nation, and cozies up to Castro and does God what else knows. On the other hand, you buy elsewhere, and you're supporting the Arab leadership. Kind of a lose-lose proposition.
Oh well...
CDB
Registered User
There's a company that's kept it's eye on the ball I'd say. I love my Honda. They have some more gas guzzling alternatives, but they always seem to have kept the focus on their core commuter boxes. That's going to help them a lot in the near future I think. What pisses me off is I was all set on getting a Honda Element soon. It's so God awful ugly I love it, and it'd be perfect for camping which I'm doing a lot of these days. But the mileage ain't that great.CSK said:
riskarb
Ron Paul... phuck yeah!
You can't ration or put a ceiling on price... It's 1973 all over again if we were to put rations/limits in place.
JMH -- you can attribute the long lines to the freeze. I live in Chicago and Lake Tahoe; no lines in either locale nor any price-controls. There is a BP station across the street from my condo in the city, 12 pumps and no waiting with gas freely-trading at $3.46/gallon. It's $.40 cheaper in the 'burbs with no waiting. The Midwest is fairly isolated as well with no significant refining operations.
JMH -- you can attribute the long lines to the freeze. I live in Chicago and Lake Tahoe; no lines in either locale nor any price-controls. There is a BP station across the street from my condo in the city, 12 pumps and no waiting with gas freely-trading at $3.46/gallon. It's $.40 cheaper in the 'burbs with no waiting. The Midwest is fairly isolated as well with no significant refining operations.
riskarb
Ron Paul... phuck yeah!
Petroleum geology
Raining hydrocarbons in the Gulf
Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.
He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.
This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.
Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas — about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."
According to a 2000 assessment from the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the mean undiscovered, conventionally recoverable resources in the Gulf of Mexico offshore continental shelf are 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But, says Richie Baud of MMS, not all those resources are economically recoverable and they cannot be directly compared to Cathles' numbers, because "our assessment only includes those hydrocarbon resources that are conventionally recoverable whereas their study includes unconventionally recoverable resources." Future MMS assessments, Baud says, may include unconventionally recoverable resources, such as gas hydrates.
Of that huge resource of naturally generated hydrocarbons, Cathles says, more than 70 percent have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds, venting into the ocean, at a rate of about 0.1 ton per year. The escaped hydrocarbons then become food for bacteria, helping to fuel the oceanic food web. Another 10 percent of the Gulf's total hydrocarbons are hidden in the subsurface, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil and 374 trillion cubic feet of gas that could be extracted. The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay trapped in the source strata.
Driving the venting process is the replacement of deep, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons by shale-sourced, Eocene hydrocarbons. Determining the ratio between the younger and older hydrocarbons, based on their chemical signatures, is key to understanding the migration paths of the oil and gas and the potential volume waiting to be tapped. "If the Eocene source matures and its chemical signature is going to be seen near the surface, it's got to displace all that earlier generated hydrocarbon — that's the secret of getting a handle on this number," Cathles says.
Another important key to understanding hydrocarbon migration is "gas washing," Cathles adds. A relatively new process his research team discovered in the Gulf work, gas washing refers to the regular interaction of oil with large amounts of natural gas. In the northern area of Cathles' study area, he estimates that gas carries off 90 percent of the oil.
Ed Colling, senior staff geologist at ChevronTexaco, says that identifying the depth at which gas washing occurs could be extremely useful in locating deeper oil reserves. "If you make a discovery, by back tracking the chemistry and seeing where the gas washing occurred, you have the opportunity to find deeper oil," he says.
Using such information in combination with the active hydrocarbon flow model Cathles' team produced and already existing 3-D seismic analyses could substantially improve accuracy in drilling for oil and gas, Colling says. ChevronTexaco, which funds Cathles' work through the Global Basins Research Network, has been working to integrate the technologies. (Additional funding comes from the Gas Research Institute.)
"All the players are looking for bigger reserves than what's on shore," Colling says. And deep water changes the business plan. With each well a multibillion dollar investment, the discovery must amount to at least several hundred million barrels of oil and gas for the drilling to be economic. Chemical signatures and detailed basin models are just more tools to help them decide where to drill, he says.
"A big part of the future of exploration is being able to effectively use chemical information," Cathles says. Working in an area with more oil by at least a factor of two than the North Sea, he says he hopes that his models will help companies better allocate their resources. But equally important, Cathles says, is that his work is shifting the way people think about natural hydrocarbon vent systems — from the past to the present.
Lisa M. Pinsker
Raining hydrocarbons in the Gulf
Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.
He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.
This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.
Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas — about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."
According to a 2000 assessment from the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the mean undiscovered, conventionally recoverable resources in the Gulf of Mexico offshore continental shelf are 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But, says Richie Baud of MMS, not all those resources are economically recoverable and they cannot be directly compared to Cathles' numbers, because "our assessment only includes those hydrocarbon resources that are conventionally recoverable whereas their study includes unconventionally recoverable resources." Future MMS assessments, Baud says, may include unconventionally recoverable resources, such as gas hydrates.
Of that huge resource of naturally generated hydrocarbons, Cathles says, more than 70 percent have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds, venting into the ocean, at a rate of about 0.1 ton per year. The escaped hydrocarbons then become food for bacteria, helping to fuel the oceanic food web. Another 10 percent of the Gulf's total hydrocarbons are hidden in the subsurface, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil and 374 trillion cubic feet of gas that could be extracted. The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay trapped in the source strata.
Driving the venting process is the replacement of deep, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons by shale-sourced, Eocene hydrocarbons. Determining the ratio between the younger and older hydrocarbons, based on their chemical signatures, is key to understanding the migration paths of the oil and gas and the potential volume waiting to be tapped. "If the Eocene source matures and its chemical signature is going to be seen near the surface, it's got to displace all that earlier generated hydrocarbon — that's the secret of getting a handle on this number," Cathles says.
Another important key to understanding hydrocarbon migration is "gas washing," Cathles adds. A relatively new process his research team discovered in the Gulf work, gas washing refers to the regular interaction of oil with large amounts of natural gas. In the northern area of Cathles' study area, he estimates that gas carries off 90 percent of the oil.
Ed Colling, senior staff geologist at ChevronTexaco, says that identifying the depth at which gas washing occurs could be extremely useful in locating deeper oil reserves. "If you make a discovery, by back tracking the chemistry and seeing where the gas washing occurred, you have the opportunity to find deeper oil," he says.
Using such information in combination with the active hydrocarbon flow model Cathles' team produced and already existing 3-D seismic analyses could substantially improve accuracy in drilling for oil and gas, Colling says. ChevronTexaco, which funds Cathles' work through the Global Basins Research Network, has been working to integrate the technologies. (Additional funding comes from the Gas Research Institute.)
"All the players are looking for bigger reserves than what's on shore," Colling says. And deep water changes the business plan. With each well a multibillion dollar investment, the discovery must amount to at least several hundred million barrels of oil and gas for the drilling to be economic. Chemical signatures and detailed basin models are just more tools to help them decide where to drill, he says.
"A big part of the future of exploration is being able to effectively use chemical information," Cathles says. Working in an area with more oil by at least a factor of two than the North Sea, he says he hopes that his models will help companies better allocate their resources. But equally important, Cathles says, is that his work is shifting the way people think about natural hydrocarbon vent systems — from the past to the present.
Lisa M. Pinsker
CROWLER
Anabolic Innovations Owner
CDB said:
You say people can charge whatever they like and that price gouging is a myth.
Price gouging DOES exist so how can it be called a myth?
No you can not charge whatever you like. Well yea you can try and charge a grand for a 5000 watt generator the day after a hurricane but you also can find yourself breaking the law.
So saying you can charge whatever you like is like saying you can goo 100 MPH on the road. Yep you can but you probably will be stopped by the law.
CROWLER
CDB
Registered User
Morons in government. That's what happens when you cap a price in the face of a much more higher value on the product. If eggs all of sudden were identified as a way to extened your life by 100 years, you think the price wouldn't go up? You don't think that if the government capped it there would be no eggs whatsoeverin the supermarkets because people will have bought them all? It's the difference between scarcity and shortages.jmh80 said:
CDB
Registered User
The law is wrong, and it goes against all known economic laws. Law does not define reality, Crowler. I could define myself legally as a ferrett, it doesn't make it so. The idea of gouging is a myth. Prices go up, no one denies that. They can go up severely. This is not 'gouging' as most people understand it, profiteering of greedy corporations on the backs of the little people. It's a common market response to uncertainty, increased demand with no increase or even a restriction of supply. A drastic price rise is the only way to stop a shortage in the face increased scarcity and demand all at once. Don't believe it, go into any situation where the government has stepped in to stop such things and your chances are about 100% you will find shortages. What's more, you will see parallel situations where the government didn't step in and, somehow, magically one might say, there were no shortages. 'Gouging' in terms of sudden, drastic prices rises due to market conditions is a reality and should be welcomed. Gouging as most people in this country understand it is pure bullshit.CROWLER said:
Matthew D
Well-known member
CDB, not everyone subscribes to the pure market economy that you seem to be pushing... sorry but that is the true.. and the more that you push people with words that seem to belittle them and not educate them, the more that people fight back and disreguard what you say.. because that is the point that I am with you. HOW could anyone welcome a whole sale increase of 0.40 in less than a day? How does that seem to help things in the economy? By making people very fearful about what is going to be happening. Economics is also a study of people's preceptions of what is going on or at least for the little reading I have done on has lead to me to believe. I know that most of the people that have "extra" or disposible cash might be more likely to hang on to that income right now due to the fact that there is a very uncertain future in the oil industry. Now that I have said my little piece I am finished with this..
CDB
Registered User
True, but to be blunt opinions don't matter in the face of reality. If someone would rather have a shortage so long as the prices aren't allowed to rise that's one thing. Denying the reality that price controls cause shortages is another thing entirely. It is basically disregarding reality.Matthew D said:
Yes, that's the point. I don't think just because a majority of people don't get that means it has to be said as anything less than a statment of plain fact.
No Matt, that is economics. The effects of certain actions are built on that study. People buy gas at a rate of X gallons a day at price Y. If price Y increases by a factor of Z, X will decrease by an unkown factor, call it W. If the rise in price Y is due to an increase in demand or a decrease in supply, or both, the rise is a market signal that the gas can't be produced and sold at the rate people are used to and thus they need to either keep buying at their current rate and the increase in prices fund the companies that bring gas there at a rate such that they can continue to do so, or people need to decrease their consumption in line with this new set of circumstances until circumstance change again, one way or another. No one can know what will happen until it does. However, if an attempt is made to raise the price and it is not allowed to rise, people will keep going as they normally would with complete disregard for the market change, and sooner or later due to a lack of supply, means to deliver it, or a lack of desired profits on the part of those doing so, the supply will stop and there will be a shortage.
This isn't even macroeconomics, it's microeconomics. And there is little to no disagreement about microeconomics, at least not the basic concepts outlined above. It's not a matter of opinion, it's observable fact throughout history. I leave it to people to see which circumstance they would rather have: shortage or higher prices. But the risk is real and is not a matter of whether or not someone believes in a pure market philosophy. One may as well disregard gravity because someone said they don't believe in a pure physics universe, that's how set in reality the above situation is. Other economic points can be hazy I admit. Not the above situation.
As far as gouging it's basically selling something at the highest price the market will bear. That's what people do every day, it's not called gouging then. When an extreme set of circumstances arises that severely affects supply, demand or both, the market will react extremely. People who don't understand this is good, and what is supposed to happen are, in my opinion, denying reality. Because, the reality of what caused the price spike is fairly obvious, the general agreement among economists as to how and why the price increase happens is failry obvious, and the need for the price spike to conserve the resource is fairly obvious. The only thing that isn't obvious is why people think that life should go on in a perfectly normal way after a major event drastically changes market conditions. Or, to be blunt the reason is obvious. There's just no polite way to point it out.
And there's no denying that there's no bitching when things go in the opposite direction. Every new innovation that causes a decrease in prices over time has been accepted as if it's been deserved. Seems everytime people see a drop in prices they're more than willing to accept this information, thinking they deserve nothing less. It's only when the market communicates bad news through rising prices that people get pissed. That's kind of selective and hypocritical if you ask me.
While I am generally a believer in politeness I'm not a believer in the supremecy of opinion. There is right and there is wrong, there is correct and there is incorrect. There is fact and there is fiction. For anyone who would think it's good to let the government cap prices, you only have to ask a couple questions: By what right of yours do you impose this price restriction on the product of others' labor? Better, and this drives the point home much clearer: How do you think you'd be treated if the government capped all wages at certain levels that were below what you could get on the market? Do you think your employer or others would stop demanding more of you? Now, what happens when all motivation for you to increase your productivity disappears? Because that's what a price control is. What it comes down to. People want. They want their gas, they want it delivered, they want it now, they want it without fuss, and they want it at the same price it was before some calamity completely changed market conditions. It's kind of hard to hear a point of view so far removed reality over and over again and not point out how divorced from reality it is. Nor I'm sure would these people be so generous of their efforts if the skills and/or products they deliver into the market were all of a sudden in high demand. I wonder what their opinion of 'gouging' would be once they saw the other side of the equation personally.
A price is the only objective measure of value, a ratio of the value of one good to another, or when money enters into the situation of one good to all others. It's information, nothing more. To operate at its best the market needs the best information possible. We **** with that at our peril, plain and simple.
CDB
Registered User
That would depend on a number of factors. Everything else being equal, those prices could go up as well. Sometimes a company would find it necessary to do so, sometimes a rise in price to compensate for the rise in production cost would hurt total revenue more than just absorbing the cost increase at their end. It all depends, and once more if the cost goes up that's life.EEmain said:
I'm not oblivious to the fact that costs going up is an unpleasant thing for people, myself included. I simply don't understand why no one blames the damn government since they're the main cause, with their meddling and attempts at managing the market causing all kinds of boom and bust cycles (which can result from price manipulation of any ubiquitous good in the market, not just monetary inflation) and wild price fluctuations. Where the government is not involved you rarely if ever see these things. That point seems to escape almost everyone's attention while they're screaming for the government to, you guessed it, "DO SOMETHING!"
The government is constantly "doing something." It's constantly fucking things up.
MaynardMeek
Well-known member
meh, in the long run this may help balance out the dollar. since we do not back the green back on anything but the good faith of the american people, we in a way, tell ourselves how much our dollar is worth. if we keep spending at the pump at these prices we will only let them keep said prices longer to match our feelings that we can "do away" with 6 bucks a gal. if everyone just did a 4 day gas boycot we might have some interesting results.
in good knews though... 8 out of the 10 places in which we turn oil into fuel/gas are now back open after being shut down for over 4 months. and now that there is an overstock of oil in the pipe ready to be turned into gas, we should see a dramatic price drop through out the next month or so... i would even guess to say it will go down to as low as 1.00 a gal in some areas and then level off to about 1.75 and stay
in good knews though... 8 out of the 10 places in which we turn oil into fuel/gas are now back open after being shut down for over 4 months. and now that there is an overstock of oil in the pipe ready to be turned into gas, we should see a dramatic price drop through out the next month or so... i would even guess to say it will go down to as low as 1.00 a gal in some areas and then level off to about 1.75 and stay
CDB
Registered User
Was this in the news? If so, do you have a link? I'd like to read the article(s). As you can tell, I've got more than a passing interest in the subject. I really doubt a boycott would do much, especially just for a day. The money, if any, the oil companies would lose would be made up within a week at most as people compensated for the lack of buying on that day. The only true way to launch such a move is a large scale overall cut back on consumption. Which will actually be achieved as people sell off gas guzzlers and take the increased price of gas into account when they buy new cars and cut back on consumption currently.MaynardMeek said:
riskarb
Ron Paul... phuck yeah!
MaynardMeek said:
Bro, you have no clue with a $1.00 - $1.75 gas at the pump. You'd need crude to drop $30/barrel, assuming current crack-spread relationships, to reach $1.75 at the pump for unleaded. Crude for October delivery is trading $65.53 as I am typing this. Unleaded futures would have to drop by nearly half... not going to happen in the next two years.
Ethereal
New member
Damn soccer moms, everytime I see them zoom past me on the interstate on thier 8mpg gas blackhole. I just laugh, never in my life have I loved my Celica more then I do now. Especially since it is manual trans, I can keep my rpms below 3000 going 70.
And if you really want to save some money on gas, drive the speed limit. You will be surprised at what a difference that will make.
And if you really want to save some money on gas, drive the speed limit. You will be surprised at what a difference that will make.