Hey everyone! it's been awhile since the GasMan has been blog'n but thought it was time to revisit the site. In the months since last summer, we've seen gas prices dip really low, and I must say that I was confused but happy to see it. As we move towards the annual jack my gas prices up it's Memorial Day Holiday, one can only wonder how high they will go this year. Currently where I live, gas prices are $1.85 per gallon. Not to bad considering gas prices hovered near $4.00 per gallon.
As we have ushered in a new administration, and some very new ideas regarding energy, it will be interesting to see how many of them actually get implemented. At the moment, we have more pressing interests in the banking scandals, TARPA bailout debacles, and Billions or maybe even Trillions to worry about.
Let's look forward to some new and inventive ways to power our life. For now we'll wait out the eventual increase due to "seasonal shortages" of gasoline and see how high it goes. Rest assured.. I will be back with rants and raving if we see prices like last summer! Given the fragile state of our economy, it's going to be a wild ride if prices spike..
~GasMan
Hello fellow suffering gas consumers, thought i would set fingers to keyboard once again to bring some thought to the idea of gas prices - who really benefits, and who doesn't. Obviously the latter is a given, you, I , and everyone who has to pay thru the nose for gas to get to work, pay higher prices for everything under the sun that we need to live, and worry every day about how we are going to make ends meet.
The former, "who benefits" is an interesting topic if you think about it. For instance: We can safely assume that the oil companies are making a huge profit, just review their revenue numbers for the past 3 years. Obscene profits are the order of the day. They will cry foul and blame just about everyone else for the problems. The Oil producing nations of the persian gulf benefit, because they control everything... just by increasing or decreasing production. This is also a rather obvious observation. Here's something else, our own state, local, & federal governments also benefit due to taxes they place on the fuel we purchase. Here is a good example: 1 year ago we payed about $ 1.75 per gallon Gas Taxes are about 15% or so per gallon which equals = 26 cents per gallon going into your local, state, and Federal coffers. If I bought 12 gallons - I paid a tax of $3.12 per fill up. ( I didn't like that much back in good old 2007)
Now, if we apply the same math to what we pay today, we can see how interesting it gets.. lets fast forward the way back machine to Summer 2008.....
At Today's price of $4.00 per gallon * .15% gives us a tax of 60 cents per gallon, assuming that i buy the same amount of gas ( 12 gallons) I have now paid $7.20 per full up.. 3X the tax!!!!... So i'd say that someone is making out like a bandit while the rest of us get the shaft at the pump!... What do you think?????
-GasMan
Just some thoughts for today. Yes, I watched the news again, and I must say that their broadcast seems to be like a broken record. Again, we get the news that gas prices have reached an all time high. Ironically this was the lead story yesterday, the day before, and the day before... etc. etc. So where is the leadership of our Government? Why do we not hear of any efforts to provide some relief? It would seem as though our elected leaders are content to sit this one out,.... hey ya'll let's use news anchors and the rest of the media to start to broadcast some news that might actually not be bad news for a change, let's get up off our asses and start moving... oh that's right.. I forgot.. we spent all of the money last time we had to buy gas... SOB! Who knows,... maybe if we wait another quarter century we'll be able to catch a ride in a hydrogen car or something... I wish we could make fuels out of BullSh** ! There's certainly enough of that going around.
-GasMan
Well, the bad news just keeps on comin... Just got the nightly bad news from NBC... Oil prices jumped a full 8%!!! today. The biggest single price increase in HISTORY!... No Sh**!!! We have now hit a WHOPPING $138.00 or so dollars a barrell. WTF!... We also saw that certain television analysts are predicting $150.00 dollars a barrell oil by July 4th,... which loosly equates to $5.50 per Gallon.. When will this nightmare ever end?.... This increase was DIRECTLY linked to investor speculation based on a comment from someone in the Israeli government. His comment indicated a pending attack on IRAN, which set off a storm of speculation that Oil supplies would be disrupted... So it has come to this... the spoken word, without even a hint of verification and even with our own government dismissing the comment, has the potential to increase the price we pay at the pump overnight.. by more than 12 cents a gallon!.... I think i'm beyond outrage.... and BTW, since everything else will certainly go up.... I guess my nerve pills will go up to... How ironic... What i also find strange is that no-one seems to be able to come to terms with how to deal with the issue.... The silence from policy makers, government officials, scientists, and most important Oil companies is deafening... How bout actually doing something about this. We're on a runaway train, and Oil has just blown up the bridge.. Hold on Ya'll ... I'll say it again.... Gas Prices Suck...
-GasMan
Unprecedented speculation in energy futures markets appears to be driving the price of Oil to new heights, thus causing all of us to pay more for the gasoline we buy. The content below is taken from an article i recently read. It's interesting reading, because it references the ENRON scandal. You remember this one, where the company falsified financial statements, and pretty much imploded, people lost everything they had, because of the Greed of a few idiots...
See below.. this is interesting.....
"Only when a recession is well and truly in place is a decline in consumption likely to outweigh the other factors."
"Solution: Close the Enron loophole. Some suggested closing the "Enron loophole" as a possible solution to the speculation problem. The loophole, which was codified in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, allows oil futures to be traded electronically in unregulated markets outside of the jurisdiction of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. "
"Americans may be surprised to learn that the oil futures markets were substantially deregulated by the CFTC staff decisions that were made behind closed doors," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "Now this London and Dubai loophole is keeping important U.S. energy trading in the dark and without proper light ... it can give manipulators free rein in energy markets."
As part of the recently-passed Farm Bill, Congress attempted to close that loophole, but Greenburger said language did not go far enough. He said the Farm Bill placed the burden on the public to prove a trade needs regulation rather than placing the onus on the trader to prove it does not need regulation. Greenburger said Congress should return the language of the original bill "this afternoon," saying that overnight it would bring the price of crude oil by 25%.
Greenburger also suggested that Congress impose increased margins for oil traders and regulate hedge fund owners' public speculation on oil prices.
"I find it highly ironic that when you control the price of oil, you can speculate it will go up to $150," he said.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley hedge funds own large amounts of oil futures, and have both recently said the price oil could go up to $150 or even $200 this year.
This is alarming, because what they've done is given unscrupulous investors the ability to invest with little or no oversight, we've just given the foxes the key to the henhouse, and pretty much a license to drive up the price of Oil futures. So.... they make a ton of profit, by investing in futures, with nobody keeping an eye on the trading,......while the rest of us pay the price.... Let's hope that our lawmakers require strict transparency for investments in markets that control energy and oil prices.
Just another example of how damaging Greed can be... Dont get me wrong, i'm all about free markets, but we should apply the same level of oversight and transparency to all markets, and not create loopholes that allow greedy individuals to profit, in such a way as to topple our economy, cripple growth, and pretty much trash any prosperity for the vast majority of consumers.... ( namely you, me and the rest of the average folks who are just trying to make a living, and keep a roof over our heads.... Severe Jail time should be the order of they day for those who would profit by illegal means.
-Gas Man
Thanks Alot Big Oil...what no flowers?
Exxon Mobile CEO seems indifferent to the plight of the average American & downplays the record level of PROFITS posted by his company, though he clearly states that he's making his shareholders very happy these days, unfortunately it's at the expense of all of us... If you didn't have a chance to see this debacle live on the Today Show you can search for it on You Tube... My take on it was pretty much that it was just another arrogant SOB who could only say that near 4 dollar a gallon gas is somehow good for the American consumer cause it will make us change our driving habits? Give me a break!. most of us have already done so.. and i might add, have to buy his overpriced product just to make it back and forth to work each day... Could he have been any less sincere to the American people. These are the guys to whom your government is giving massive tax breaks... His big explanation was that since his company's operating costs are in the billions every day, his profits were small in comparison. Here's a question for ya Mr. CEO man.. WTF did you do when you weren't making Billions upon Billions each quarter? Exxon Mobile didn't go out of business when gas prices were lower....
Oh, and here's another thought.. the interview itself was Whack case the host ML didn't go for the throat of the guy like he does on everyone else he interviews. I was actually rooting for the media today cause I was sure that the hard questions would come from ML.. dude you let me down... pretty much rolled over on the guy and took him at his word?.... where's the dig.. dig.. and dig.. some more.. I wanted to see some gas price outrage... and all we got was nothin.... next time grill those SOBs... someone's rakin us over the coals on this deal.... lets try to get to the bottom of it....
Just read a very interesting article that seemed to indicate that 120.00+ dollars a barrel oil is good for us. I understand the idea, the author theorizes that at this price or higher, demand for oil will surely drop significantly, thus bringing the price down. He also pontificates that this will also cause us to invest in other alternative energy solutions. Ya know, perhaps in some strange and utterly economically logical way he's right. We do need to look at other energy alternatives, and not just the obvious one's like Ethanol, you know the first round draft pick, that got paid a ton of money, only to be the worst guy on the team. I say this cause if we take our food, and burn it in our gas tanks.. hello.. higher food prices, less food to donate to the poorest people on the planet.. Ugggh...what a mess.
I might also say that while his theories are economically pretty solid, if we just consider supply & demand rules, we can also consider the idea that............ with regard to the silly notion that sky high fuel costs are somehow good for the average guy with some kids, a wife, a mortgage, coupla cats and a dog is the most ridiculous, outrageous, and morally insane idea since the spanish inquisition.
So what does the Spanish Inquisition have to do with Gas Prices?.. well it was thought up by a small bunch of really rich guys, who had everything and still wanted more.. then they decided to kick the crap out of the little guys who only wanted to make a decent living, take care of their kids, have a meager roof over their heads to keep out of the rain. Then they decided to impose their will on others, with some kind of divine mandate, and too bad if you don't like it.. Travel forward in time a few hundred years, and we also have a few really rich guys, who have decided to drive up the price of Oil and just about everything else... so I say my friends..... we pay the price for the gas cause we have to go out and make a living... nevermind that since you chose to put gas in your car, you've also chosen to limit the amount of money you've got to spend on stuff like college funds, and other things... so i guess we'll all have to do something we really don't want to do, in order to get by... not so different from some other humans a few hundred years ago.....
Just wait until torquemada and the other CEOs of all the oil companies....post their profits next quarter... then they can turn the rack just a bit more........So what do you think.....it's just a big $6.00 a gallon piece of crap sandwich, and we've all been told to take a bite and like it...
GAS Prices Suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So much to do bout that too. How I long for the once yearly (It seemed) not so long ago, nominal gas price hike at the beginning of summer, just in time for the holiday weekend. This was a tame and now mild mannered annoyance.. Someone just decided "Hey, ya know what? We can make a gazillion or so if we just keep jackin the price up.. let's say.. ON A DAILY BASIS!
Let's all go back to the good ol days.. of 2 bucks a gallon.....it can go something like this....
( we hear some strange dreamlike sounds)
Little Johnny: Grandpa? What was gas prices like when you were a young
Grandpa: Well Johnny, gas was cheap in them days.... nary 2 bucks a gallon.. we really had it made in 2004...
Little Johnny: Really Grandpa.. what happened?.. why are prices so high today
Grandpa: Nobody really knows Johnny,...
Ethanol produced from corn and grains.. has actually had a detrimental effect on the price of the food.... Did we not see this coming?... Some feel that while Ethanol is moderately cheaper, the cost to produce, ship, and run Ethanol in our vehicles isn't the cure we thought it was....Some also say that vehicles burn ethanol faster, thus causing more demand... and.... Higher food prices? Hmmmmm.....
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