Didn't the government try to regulate energy in the mid 1970's? Worked real well, didn't it!
Have you looked at the level of prosperity and economic vitality in Europe lately? You know, the place where gas is taxed to the point where enough elitists are satisfied that it's no longer "too cheap?"Personally I think gas is still too cheap.
We're not talking about regulating energy we're talking about cleaning up commodities trading. Different thing. Simple fix is raising margin requirements to match stock trading. It would probably literally cause oil prices to crash. Might be fun to watch though.
You and others are missing the point. Supply is constant and adequate and demand is down yet prices keep going up.
The studies and programs I have been seeing are very clearly saying that "global" demand has leveled off and declined.The problem is that global demand is not perceived as going down. In the US maybe, but not worldwide.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday said it started the probe in December and took the unusual step of publicizing it "because of today's unprecedented market conditions."
Just another political Dog and Pony show from the politcians for the masses.
The last year for which complete numbers on who pays what taxes are available was 2004. In 2004 there were 130 million individual tax returns filed. If you take the bottom 50% of those tax returns – 65 million of them – and add up the total amount of taxes those households paid you come up with $27.4 billion. This means that one corporation, Exxon Mobile, pays as much in taxes to the federal government as do the bottom half of individual taxpayers. How's that for paying your fair share.
There's more. The Adjusted gross income for the bottom 50% of taxpayers comes out to about $922 billion. This means that these taxpayers are paying an effective tax rate of about 3% of their adjusted gross income. Exxon? Adjusted gross income of around $67.4 billion in 2006 ... for an effective tax rate of 41%.
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.
Ah, so none of this is an unbiased observation of fact, but instead a sales pitch to the public.I have working interests in new wells. I have close friends in the exploration/production business. My company is doing development work on a well logging system that will allow optimal production by existing and new wells, details omitted because of patent issues. As part of that effort, discussions about current drilling technology are required, including how fast stuff can be brought on line.