Dixie, you are amazing. You start a thread entitled "High Gas Prices? Blame the Tree Huggers!". Then you start this "my focus is not on finding someone to point my finger at and bitch".
Which is it? Are you making a post that blames the tree huggers and warps the truth to fit that, or are you looking for solutions?
Well, the title of the thread is intended to provoke interest in the thread. I presented my case, and you have yet to provide any refutation of it, although you claim you have. I am presenting a plan and solution, the same plan and solution we've tried to present for years, but were stopped and obstructed by environmentalists. You claim it's not the environmentalists who have been standing in the way, and I say... GREAT, that means we can do this quickly, without any further obstruction from them! It doesn't really matter if they were or weren't, although I think most intelligent people who examine the question, will find the answer I found. But should we devote our time and energy into a petty debate over who has obstructed progress toward oil independence, or should we move toward a solution to the problem?
Now, your elementary "Because the way I see it, if your company needs and wants something my company has, you have absolutely NO leverage in what I decide the price will be" economic explanation is not the point.
Suppose I get together with Damo, LadyT, and Darla (and together we own most of any given product). We decide that none of us will sell our product below a 25% profit margin. How exactly do you, as the consumer, plan to fight that? Now if there were 30 people who shared the market, do you think that sort of deal would be nearly as easy? Or even possible??
Well, sure it's elementary, that's why I don't understand why you are having trouble with it. The oil companies own very very little of the world's oil supply. Most of it is still in the ground. The oil companies have to buy their oil from the world market, OPEC, and the price on the world market is outrageously high, as determined by OPEC. Consumers are at the mercy of the oil company who is at the mercy of OPEC, so your example is missing a component and you are making the assumption that oil companies own all the oil, that assumption is patently false. Suppose you get together with Damo, LadyT and Darla, and you have to buy your product from me to refine into gasoline and re-sell to a consumer? Suppose I don't want to sell it to you cheaply? What are you going to do about it? What difference does it make if there are 30, 50, or 500 people in your group, if I want to sell the oil at a high price, you have to pay it or find some place else to get it. Yes, it's very simple.
I didn't say that the increased number of consumers did anything. YOU said there was a set number of customers, and I was simply pointing out that you were absolutely wrong.
No, I said 'the number of customers doesn't change' and you assumed I meant there was always a set number of customers, I corrected the misunderstanding, but now you are trying to insist I said what you misinterpreted me to say. Again, I am sorry if you took my comment out of context, and I understand the number of consumers rises with growth, that was not my point and I have clarified my remarks. Do you just want to continue to insist you know what I intended and meant? My response was to your assertion that oil company mergers are responsible for higher gas prices, and nothing you've presented has supported that statement. The number of customers didn't increase when two oil companies merged, they didn't produce less gas, they didn't produce more gas, the price didn't change at OPEC because they merged. Two companies merging has absolutely no effect on supply and demand, and THAT is what effects price.
Have you not noticed the way the fluctuations in prices worked? When the price of a gallon of gasoline jumped from $1.75 a gallon to $2.50 a gallon, we all screamed and worried. Then it dropped back down to $1.95 and we felt better. After all, the price dropped $0.55. But it was a net gain of $0.40 per gallon of gas. We were pacified and kept buying SUVs and kept burning gasoline like there was no tomorrow. This happened repeatedly over the last few years. It would jump way up, then drop part of the way down. We would scream at the jump up, and then we would quieten down when it dropped. This is a very clear manipulation. And even with the increase in customers and steadily climbing costs of gasoline, we americans continued to buy bigger and bigger vehicles. Other than by manipulation, how could the Yukon, the Escalade, and the Hummer have broken sales records when fuels costs were going up higher and higher?
*sigh* You are basing your opinion on emotional reactions fostered by your preconceived notions regarding the greedy oil companies, whom you think owns all of the world oil supply. Here is what has transpired... OPEC has consistently been raising the price of oil, and it has been no big problem for us, since we have had a great economy and we are accustomed to things increasing in price. Then OPEC decided to cut production, which made the price of oil go even higher, which meant the price of gas went way up. Then Bush persuaded the Saudi's to increase production and they did for a while, which lowered the price at the pump. Then, we had to reformulate the gas for summer driving (thanks environmental lobby again) and the price went back up again. Now the Saudi's are back in line with OPEC and have cut production again, and the price set a record again today. The oil companies who have to buy this stuff, are making LESS profit than we are collecting in tax!
As for Yukon's, Hummer's, and Escalade's, this is more "finger pointing" and refusal to deal with the problem. It doesn't matter what or how Americans have behaved with regard to oil and gas, what matters is finding a solution we can live with. It seems you just want to point fingers and cast blame elsewhere, rather than dealing with the problem.
Our domestic resources cannot sustain our consumption for "generations" as you claimed. The ANWR is pretty much the biggest oil reserve we have left. There have been estimates that varied from 600 million barrels of oil to 29.5 billion barrels of oil. Lets use the high end and say there are 29.5 billion barrels of oil in the ANWR.
We in the US, consume oil at a rate of roughly 19.993 million barrels per day. That means we consume (follow me here 19.993 million x 365) 7,297,445,000 barrels of oil a year. Which means we would blow thru the entire contents of the ANWR in just a tad over 4 years. Hardly what I would call "generations", unless you meant generations of goldfish.
First of all, there is no one who really knows how much oil is under the North Slope. Second, you are making an emotional assumption again, as if ANWR would be the sole source of all our domestic oil, and no one has ever suggested that. We already produce a certain percentage of our consumption, and we purchase a percentage from OPEC. ANWR would help offset what we are currently purchasing from OPEC. There is also the reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, which geologists have said is larger than the reserves beneath Saudi Arabia. Not to mention, California and other areas we have not ventured to explore because of environmental obstructionists.
Now, do a little research into the moratorium on drilling off the coast of florida. YOu spout crap like "...most of us are smart enough to know the Environmental lobby is who pushes for no drilling." That is pure bullshit. Tourism brings in billions of dollars and is one of the top employers in the state. There was no NEED for the enviromentalists to get involved. This was not some covert operation by tree huggers. This was simply the biggest cash cow being threatened by having oil rigs ruining things.
Here's a little secret... MOST of the people who work for The Department of Tourism, or The Department of Wildlife, or The Department of Natural Resources, are also very staunch environmentalists! It is essentially why they picked their field, they couldn't ALL chain themselves to trees and make a living at it! So, while you sit here splitting hairs over whether it was Tourism or Environmentalists who killed drilling off the coast of Florida, oil goes up another $11 a barrel on the world market... are you getting my point yet? We can keep going round and round, pointing fingers at each other, calling each other names and misconstruing statements, bickering about who is to blame, or we can work toward an effective solution. As I said, if we can drill for oil and build refineries, and make our nation independent of foreign oil, I don't give a damn who you want to blame for the former high gas price, blame Bush for all I care! It makes no difference to me, as long as we can become independent of foreign oil.
