Marx's Role in Gas Prices

Tapping Alaska is about short term v. long term gains and really doesn't make sense.
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That is nothing more than a political position of the left. When the United States of America is importing oil at $135 per barrel from an unstable region of the world, then I would say it is about both short and long term gains for this country.
 
That is nothing more than a political position of the left. When the United States of America is importing oil at $135 per barrel from an unstable region of the world, then I would say it is about both short and long term gains for this country.
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Oil should not cost what it does and OPEC is not setting the price. Where the oil comes from is irrelevant if the cause of the price increase is not dealt with and supply and demand has nothing to do with the current prices. Production is steady, supplies are constant, and demand is down. So ask yourself..."why is price up?"

And the fact that domestic drilling would not be substantial or worthwhile is not the position of the left...it seems to be the position of the left, the middle, huge sections of the right, and majority of the geological community world wide. The only people selling it seem to be the far right and their mouthpieces.
 
My company pays about 40% of it's income in taxes. Should I be getting payments from the government? Why should taxpayers support a privately owned and profitable company?
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When the government taxes you 35% instead of 40%, it doesn't mean that taxpayers are "supporting a privately-owned and profitable company."
 
When the government taxes you 35% instead of 40%, it doesn't mean that taxpayers are "supporting a privately-owned and profitable company."
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Actually, it is if they get bigger tax breaks than anyone else and special tax breaks to do something they are not doing...like maintaining infrastructure. And then there is the matter of them receiving funds for security (Homeland security just paid 65 million to them to buy security devices), the billions of dollars in taxes the government "forgot" to collect from them for profits from public lands, the offshore tax "loopholes" they are allowed to exploit, the government funding their exploration and drilling studies, the government funding other studies and activities that solely benefit the oil companies, etc.
 
The only people for drilling in Alaska are people who work for oil companies and people who still think Bush is a good president. Two very small groups.
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Plus the majority of Alaskans...and most importantly...the folks who will benefit the most, know the most about it and live right there...the Inupiat...

My reponse to those who don't think we should drill there...what right do you have to tell us to what to do with our land up here?

WilddrilldrilldrillAlaska TM
 
My reponse to those who don't think we should drill there...what right do you have to tell us to what to do with our land up here?
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That is a good point. The citizens of a state should have a major stake in what is done with that state's resources. However, there are a few things to consider with this.


The first is that one day, we will have finally used up all the oil in Saudi Arabia. The longer Alaskans wait to drill, the more money their oil will be worth when they do drill. For example, when crude oil was selling for $50 a barrel, many people wanted to start drilling in Alaska then. Now its $125 a barrel. Aren't you glad they waited?

The second is that oil is vital to our survival as a nation. It is critical to the national defense. As such, the residents of the state are not the only people who need to be involved in the decision making process.

Third, also related to national defense, is that it has always made sense to me to use up the oil of other countries first. Alaska may be our ace in the hole one day after oil from other nations is used up. When I go shooting, I try to shoot as much of my friends ammo as possible. Same principle with oil. If we ever have to fight a war with the Chinese, wouldn't it be easier if oil was scarce for them, but plentiful for us

Finally, whether we like it or not, states often are not allowed to decide how to use their resources. The federal government does. This doesnt apply only to oil. Now this may or not be a good thing, depending on how you feel about states rights and federalism, but there is plenty of precedent for federal intervention on this issue.
 
Wild is right we have to pump and drill till we have alternate energy sources on line.

The single most responsible factor for our pain at the pump is the international market price of crude oil.

We produce a little over 5 million barrels a day of crude oil domestically. We consume a little over 20 million barrels a day. Guess where the oil to make up the differencecomes from..the international market. I think oil futures are already being sold for 2016.

Congress put on its pathetic media lynching of the oil company execs to divert the blame from themselves. Jimmy Carter who everyone says is the stupid guy began preaching about the need for a domestic energy program in the mid-70s.

Congress and everyone laughed at him.

Congress doesnt want you to know who the biggest hogs at the gasoline price trough are. Namely them and the different states. I wonder where the speculators fit in at the trough?

Exxon had a 10 billion profit the 1st Quarter but paid in a little over 9 billion in taxes worldwide.

The world production is about 84 million barrels of oil a day...world demand is about 80 million barrels a day. A 4 million barrel a day surplus is not much at all.

demand high=prices high no rocket science there...as there is competition for the resources.

So if you want lower gas prices....reduce you demand and write your represenatives to open up lands to oil production.

If you want higher gas prices..let Congress put on more dog and pony shows to blame the oil companies and do nothing.
 
Wild is right we have to pump and drill till we have alternate energy sources on line.
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I agree, but right now we are still able to buy gas is still so cheap that using up our emergency reserves in Alaska just to make life a little cheaper now doesn't seem to me to be the best idea. One day the oil reserves in Alaska will be critical to our survival, it would be a shame to use them up now so Joe Sixpack can buy cheaper gas on the way to the baseball game.

If gas prices were really a problem, we would see a larger decrease in driving, and a larger decrease in consumption. Its supply and demand. So far, any decreases in demand we have seen have been rather small.

If anything, I think we should drive the price of oil up, by way of an increased tax earmarked for research of alternative fuels. Oil and gasoline are just too cheap right now for serious interest to be paid to alternatives.
 
Wild is right we have to pump and drill till we have alternate energy sources on line
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But if it is going to take ten years for the effects of domestic drilling to even manifest, wouldn't it be best to spend that money and time developing an alternative instead? The domestic drilling idea is like trying to get yourself out a hole and saying "we need a ladder, let's keep digging downward until we find one."
 
I have an uncle who works for Marthon Oil. They are expanding at least one of their current refineries. It seems that it is easier to expand existing refineries than to get through the ridiculous environmental nonsense that the left puts up.
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This is what has made some of the "no new refineries since XXXX" a bit misleading. While it is true, it doesn't explain that we have expanded current refineries a fair amount, increasing our refining capacity without building a wholly new one. The capacity is still insufficient, but we haven't been sitting still.
 
Well, there was a guy on CSPAN this AM who said the supply and demand explanation was bunk. He said that the commodities traders were artificially manipulating the market with no oversight. Noted one Graham sponsered bill that opened up this loop hole and said that most of the individuals involved were ex Enron execs who were sought by the financial and brokerage houses because of their experience in how this game works.
 
My sources tell me there is enough oil and gas up here to make us look like Saudi Arabia.
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I have a considerable amount of time and money invested in the potential yield of the alaskan fields. my "experts" are not contracted, they get a percentage of realized income. some analyst think there is enough oil up there to free us from dependence on the middle east.
unfortunately, the environmentalists have managed to hold most of the permits up in court. It will cost bilions of dollars before even 1/2 of the lawsuits are settled.
Guess who the costs are getting passed on to?

OK forget about alaska.
doesnt this country defend most of the OPEC countries? arent we loosing american lives over there as we speak?
why cant this government start putting some pressure on these countries to reign in the profits?
you know, if we boycotted their oil it would hurt for awhile. it would demand lifestyle changes from every one of us. but they would break w/o our money faster than we would break w/o their oil! what are they gonna do with the surplus? they cant eat it, they cant turn it into wood for building.....
most of europe allowed their lifestyles to be dictated by foriegn oil. now they pay over $7 a gallon.
we're next.
 
But if it is going to take ten years for the effects of domestic drilling to even manifest, wouldn't it be best to spend that money and time developing an alternative instead? The domestic drilling idea is like trying to get yourself out a hole and saying "we need a ladder, let's keep digging downward until we find one."
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Well, it won't take ten years, if environmentalists will stop suing people, and even if they don't, there is a lot of oil in relatively shallow water on the OCS that can be on-line within 2-4.

The Cubans, with Chinese help, are drilling 50 miles off Florida. Does it make any sense that our oil companies cannot? That we keep sending the money overseas?

Fine, an immediate solution it isn't, but neither is any alternative. So why not use all the options to work the problem, instead of only the hobby horses preferred by Algoreans?
 
Well, it won't take ten years, if environmentalists will stop suing people
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What do you base that on? All the studies I have personally seen say it will take a decade for effects of new drilling to filter into the economy.
 
But if it is going to take ten years for the effects of domestic drilling to even manifest, wouldn't it be best to spend that money and time developing an alternative instead?
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No; efforts should be split between domestic drilling and alternatives. Alternative energy sources should be developed on a large scale, but we will still need oil and should develop domestic sources to fill those needs.
 
One day the oil reserves in Alaska will be critical to our survival, it would be a shame to use them up now so Joe Sixpack can buy cheaper gas on the way to the baseball game.
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I don't think you fully grasp the significance and scope of the problem.

Just three years ago, when gas was around $1.75 here in New Hampshire, someone making minimum wage had to work for only 20 minutes to buy a gallon of gasoline.

Now, with regular gas averaging $3.88, someone making minimum wage now has to work twice as long - 40 minutes - to buy that same gallon of gasoline. He's also likely to have an old car which doesn't get great mileage, let's say 20mpg. If he lives 20 miles from work, for instance, now a full hour and 20 minutes of his day are spent just paying for what it took to get there and back in the first place. Not including oil changes, nor air filters, not even the quarter for the air hose at the gas station. Not even the ethanol-inflated cost of the food he eats for lunch.

The people on the economic margins are getting crushed by this, just CRUSHED, exactly because our Democratic leaders were too short-sighted and venal, too obsessed with meaningless posturing against "big oil" and "Halliburton," to INCREASE our nation's energy security and independence, rather than CRIPPLING it.

And even though I'm assuredly NOT at the economic margins, I just got laid off last Thursday after eight years in a well-paid technical professional job in the Information Technology department of a global corporation - it's ridiculous think that the spiraling costs of energy that are hammering the SG&A numbers of this and every other global corporation had nothing to do with my layoff to reduce the IT department's contribution to SG&A.

Cars can't run on Congress' "alternative energy" hot air. Pie-in-the-sky alternative energy notions won't get me rehired.
 
I understand that as prices increase, some people will struggle. However, their struggle is outweighed by the national interest. One day we will absolutely need the reserves in Alaska for national defense and self preservation.

There are solutions to the consumer's problem, but, of course no one wants to hear them. For example, a minimum wage earner probably should try to live closer to work than 20 miles. If he lived less than a mile, he could walk, which would cut his fuel cost to zero, and also help his health. Bicycles are popular transportation in other countries. Mass transit is another option. Of course, everyone here thinks they should be able to drive a 4 wheel drive SUV that gets 10 miles per gallon. We have been encouraged to guzzle gas by oil and automobile companies. Until that paradigm changes, we are stuck with our current problems.
 
Well, in the meantime, how about we change the paradigm of Congress blocking new domestic energy development?

What good will buried Alaskan oil do us if economic dislocations that are taking place as a result of keeping it there cause the nation to collapse into a quivering heap along the model of Weimar Germany?
 
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