chipmonk

but in reality, we only get about 30% of our oil from opec countries, so non-opec countries (including the U.S.) are responsible for the other 70% of our supply. if the oil companies operating in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico wanted to, they could adopt their own pricing structure for the people of their own countries, that has nothing to do with opec and the artificially inflated 'market price'. imo, since everyone is making obscene amounts of money, they just shove it in their pockets and blame opec, low supply, high demand, limited refining capability, tree huggers, environmentalists, katrina, rita, ulsd, and all kinds of pipeline disruptions for the prices, then merrily walk on down to their nearest yacht dealership.

austin1972

Not if legislation only allowed for 'normal' profits. 6%-10% profit (EBIT) would be reasonable.

sdaly

Right. Lots of "can't-do" attitude these days and very little "can-do."

Here would be my proposed 5 step program to recovery:

1) Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, defund the Federal Govt., return power to the states.

2) Reinstate the gold standard, repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and Community Reinvestment Act thereby reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act. Repeal Bernake's Term Security Lending Facility $200B money giveaway, immeidately raise interest rates back up at least 2 points.

3) DRILL ANWR! DRILL OFF OUR COASTS! Limit all domestically-harvested oil to sales and use only within the domestic market.

4) Require Iraq to repay the United States for their liberation with cheap oil.

5) Require Mexico to pay the United States 1 barrel of oil per day, per illegal alien, within our country.

6) Remove restrictions/moratoriums on the development of domestic oil refineries and domestic nuclear power production facilities.

7) Enjoy our return to a nation of strength and prosperity.

Okay, that was 7 steps.

rebel_horseman

+1 to that.

If ya'll want to place blame, look no farther than the EPA. It's their draconian and utterly retarded rules that have forced the oil companies to stop investing in new facilities. It's their rules that prevent the US from enjoying many fuel efficient vehicles that the rest of the world gets to enjoy. It's their rules that cause manufacturer to spend tons of money in R&D to come up with things like EGR

Example, over here there are tons of small diesel vehicles. Toyotal Land Cruisers, Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi, Ford Ranger, etc. They all have small 4-cylinder diesels. The Ranger has a 4-cyl. turbocharged diesel, 5-speed transmission, is a 4-door short bed truck, and from what I've been told gets about 30 mpg on DF2. But it's only available in foreign Middle East markets. The diesel won't pass the EPA's standards so the US consumer doesn't get an efficient little truck and instead has to buy a gasser job that may get 20 mpg on unleaded.

cuccamonga

Ohhhh... I thought you were wanting logical steps.

Hey I just saw one of Bush's biggest contributors/golfing buddy on TV, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon. I love how he dumbs down all of us Americans. Everytime he got a tough question his words were, "it's difficult to explain". It really reminded me of Bush back in '04 with his "it's hard work" statements every sentence. Hey...I'm not an idiot I think I could understand it. The truth is easy, it's the lies that are hard to explain.

Gees, does Iraq really owe us anything. Have you seen how many total humans have died over there. Well into the hundreds of thousands. Sure some are with the opposition, but a lot are just civilians. Not to mention 4000 of our own men and women. I think they will better off, but good lord their citizens and country is really in bad shape. Do they even have electricity or a toilet to flush now. Good thing we got ol' Halliburton over there to get things built and back running again. I love those "no bid" contracts. And please don't write back with the "it's a war...people die mentality" that ranks right up there with "it's hard work".

And like I said, drilling in ANWR is just a way to get the oil companies cheaper ways to get the oil. It's not going ot help the price at the pump. See I don't know if you get it or not. A lot of people think OPEC operates in a vacuum with no connection to any other countries. That's not true. If it were our per barrel for US crude would not rise and fall like OPEC's. Look, everytime their barrel goes up ours quickly follows. Why is this? Plus, why do you think we continue to export 60,000,000 barrels of petroleum products/month? Answers would be great.

It's a scam.

chipmonk

no fan of the EPA here, but how would all that you posted change the price of fuel? read the words of everyone involved (including stock analysts, who are certainly not 'conspiracy theorists'), and they all point to the fact that THERE IS NO SHORTAGE! we're exporting millions of barrels of diesel, and refineries have gas that they can't sell, so what does the EPA, oil companies investing in new facilities, and fuel efficient cars/trucks, have to do with the artificially inflated price of fuel? do you honestly think that with the money, power, and influence that the oil companies have, they were kept from opening new facilities by the EPA? do you know how many coal fired plants (the coal industry is MUCH more hated by the EPA than oil) have opened, since the EPA made them install enviro-friendly filters and scrubbers? a lot more than the 0 new refineries, that the oil companies ABSOLUTELY don't want built! the whole 'it's the tree huggers fault, for not letting the poor burdened oil companies build the new facilities that they really want to build, so we can have cheap plentiful fuel' take on this, is no less rediculous than the environmentalists who preach global warming, even though the facts and science don't back up their claims.

rebel_horseman

No flame intended in the below. A lot of the misinformation is because of the hidden agenda by the liberal media and the talking heads.

Yes they owe us a lot. We've invested heavily in this dump of a country and have bent over backwards to get them off their thumbs and make something of themselves. In return, we should receive something for our efforts.

Wrong. Most of the deaths are not inadvertent deaths, no matter what the liberal media says. The insurgents here are mostly Iranian (or Iranian-backed) infiltrators. They threaten the Iraqi citizens and blackmail them into doing things for them. If they don't, the infiltrators will kill their family. It's happened a lot. Yes, a lot of folks have died needlessly in this war and we're here on a bull-poop excuse.

Yep. The infrastructure is shot to hell because it was never designed for the loads. This is being addressed. Now, most of the locals have a satellite, washer and dryer, and other basic things that we take for granted back home.

That said, I have seen pictures of brand new apartments built by the military and not a month after it was complete, these people had already punched a hole in the exterior wall and ran a piece of 4" PVC outside to use as a toilet. The pipe ran 3' from the wall and ended in the air. The sewage went wherever it wanted to. I've seen pictures of kids playing in ponds of this crap (literally) next to a brand new building. Why? Because the lazy pieces of poop didn't want to walk 20' down the hall to the latrine on either end on every floor.

Not even remotely close or accurate. First, Halliburton no longer is working in country. Its former subsidiary company, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is here. That is who I work for. We do BLS (Basic Life Support) missions only. We feed and house the troops, we provide laundry services, fuel support, waste water and trash collection and disposal, and potable water production. Also we construct and maintain the base facilities. This is currently operating under LOGCAP III which was a COMPETITIVE BID contract. The others lost. LOGCAP IV will be kicking off soon, also competitive bid, and there will be 3 different contractors providing these services in theater. In addition to KBR, there is a whole host of other contractors doing on base and off base construction projects, as are the US Army and Navy Seabees.

Yes I enjoy my job (though I dislike the evil empire) and all the perks that come along with it, including the 6 tax-free figures that it pays. If you were willing to take the risk you could be making that money as well.

This country and these people are scum bags, I admit. I also don't think we need to be here as this war is bankrupting our country. However I'm going to try to milk it as long as I can and as long as I can stomach the bravo sierra.

You're welcome to come make a good paycheck and find out for yourself.

rebel_horseman

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you. Just those steps alone are not enough. The bureaucracy in DC is the main culprit. The EPA is just an example of the cancer we have there. Another blatant reason fuel prices are so high is because of the Feuderal Reserve. If those morons wouldn't be running the printing presses 24-7 to try to bail out our over inflated economy, we wouldn't have the inflation we're seeing today. The oil companies are just as indictable for their actions in the recent past. However, the American pubic are also guilty. Classic example is diesel truck owners. How many people have big jacked-up diesel trucks but never tow a cotton picking thing? That's a false demand. If people bought vehicles that they actually needed instead of trying to keep up with the Jones' there would potentially be less demand for fuel. Likewise, if yuppies would stick to their cities instead of moving farther and farther out and buying property that could be sued for productive endeavors, there would be added benefit. They'd drive less, consume less, and wouldn't annoy the country folks with their rules to try to turn the country into the suburbs.

Anyway, the point is that there is plenty of blame to go around, but a large part of it falls on the Feuderal gooberment in DC.

chipmonk

rebel horseman- forgot to say thank you and stay safe!

cuccamonga

That darned liberal media...those young whippersnapper journalists. I don't know what's liberal about reporting how many humans have died in Iraq. Seems like it would be a fairly bipartisan fact. I didn't say that MOST of the deaths were inadvertent, just a lot of them. It's got to be hard to tell apart insurgency from Iraqi citizens.

That was my point...I still don't see how they owe us. Since the whole thing was a botched ego trip form Bush. Sure Saddam was a terrible dictator, no doubt about that. But there are several other tyrants like him in the world.

Six figures tax free. Can I start at that with no experience? Sign me up. Nevertheless, I'm not sure what job you do, but thanks for doing it. I'm sure there's probably a few other places you'd rather be. You probably wouldn't make as much money, but it might be an easier lifestyle.

Iraq is one thing and I think the oil prices is another. And I honestly don't feel like their hugely connected. So back to big oil. I still haven't received any answers to why our barrel price has to stay competitive with OPEC's and why we are exporting so much. Surely someone can elaborate.

sdaly

I don't disagree with you on several of your points. You're right, there is not a good reason for our domestic oil to compete with OPEC and we should not be exporting oil. Like I said above in step 3, "Limit all domestically-harvested oil to sales and use only within the domestic market." Likewise for all agricultural goods like wheat, soy, rice, etc. I am just as critical of Bush as you are, you're preaching to the choir on that (and it scares the heck out of me to see that whoever we get in November will be yet worse than Bush). Bush is a globalist, and hence has imposed on our nation this hogwash he calls "global free market trade," which he tried to tell us would be so beneficial. It has been beneficial...to the rest of the world and large international corporations...but it's been detrimental to the US.

I'm all for busting up the collusion between the Seven Sisters. Why do you think I mentioned #2 above? We need to restore the economic safeguards we used to have. We need another Roosevelt-style "Bust the Trusts," campaign. While we're busting up the Seven Sisters, we need to go after the other trusts like the media conglomerates too.

Now to where we disagree...I do see the EPA as having a hand in the predicament we're in. The EPA did serve a purpose at one time, 30 years ago. The EPA should get credited for its contributions and improvements. But it has outlived its usefulness now. Gone are the days of manufacturing corporations dumping hazardous waste into our drinking water, etc. The problem with any bureacracy is that it's never dissolved once it has served its purpose. In Southern California, our air quality is better than it has even been since the Air Pollution Control District began keeping records back in 1946. Automotive emissions are 96% "cleaner" than 60 years ago--better than ever. We have more than 4 times the number of cars on the road in Southern California and yet we have only 14% of the air pollution we had back then. It's getting to the point that the air exiting the vehicle is cleaner than the air going into the vehicle. When is our air deemed to be, "clean enough." Answer: Never. That's the problem with bureaucracy, it will never be clean enough--their imposed restrictions will never cease. Meanwhile, we pay the price for it in the fuel we buy, the cars we buy, and the taxes we pay. Just one example that directly affects us is ULSD. This ULSD costs us more to buy (because it's more costly to refine) and yet gives us less power and efficiency. Do we really need ULSD? I don't think so. I think the government bureacracy that imposed ULSD on us was on LSD. Maybe when they said they wanted ULSD they didn't mean the diesel but a new drug called "Ultra LSD."

Regarding oil reparations from Iraq. Yes, they do owe us something. We've paid substantial tax dollars--our tax dollars, for their reconstruction. We need to reclaim that. If you study history you know that throughout history the defeated nations always paid reparations. I'm glad to see Saddam out of power but regardless I too wish we had not gone to war with Iraq. Every time we go to war with another nation we always end up taking on a bunch of their refugees and it costs us more money than the war was worth. In the end, even when we win wars, we ultimately end up losing.

Regarding domestic drilling: I keep hearing how it won't help, but it certainly can't hurt. Let's give it a try, so long as it stays in the domestic market. Between this, and getting oil from Iraq, and getting oil from Mexico in exchange for taking on the burden of their citizens in our country illegally, it certainly could help our fuel problems.

cincydiesel

Wonder how long before the admins shut this one down? Didn't we (Americans) vote in the Goverment?

ronbros

I believe that the late John Lennon said it best. from the constitution of the united states, WE THE PEOPLE, ARE THE VICTIMS, OF THE INSANE!!!! Ron

sdaly

Oh please, stop! I'm getting a cramp in my side from laughing so hard!

sdaly

Back to OP's subject....

In my neighborhood, diesel went from $4.69 to today's $4.79 in 3 days, which as a percentage is more than my paycheck when up in the last year. I would have no problem with these diesel price increases if only my paycheck increased at the same rate.