Community Forums

doc · 04-02-2009, 04:35 PM

"I get weary of the word "greed". You are aware that Mobil, E.G., makes less ROI than >50 % of business. You are aware that Mobil makes about $0.10/gal of gas sold while the various taxing agencies make >$0.60."

Ham, you can hit folks over the head with the facts and they cannot understand it. The oil companies pay tremendous amounts for research, oil leases, equipment and marketing and make a dime. The government pays nothing, does nothing except make it harder on every one and makes over a half dollar. Yet everyone thinks the bad guys are the oil companies. Go figure!

Lindsay Richards · 04-02-2009, 05:19 PM

Oil companies pay about $3.75 in taxes for each dollar of the ”evil” profit they make. About 1.5% of the oil company stock is owned the executives and the other stock in is split among about 180,000,000 Americans including just about everybody who has an IRA, 401k, company retirement plain, or a governmental retirement plan like teachers, policemen, firemen and the like. I imagine most RV’ers also fit into the category too. The evil oil companies are really just us. The politicians need a boogy man to blame thing on. America has the recourses to be self-sufficient, but lacks the political will to do so.

diandtom · 04-03-2009, 06:13 AM

I paid $2.09 for diesel two weeks ago and the next day it went to $2.19 and yesterday it was raised to $2.29. We soon going to see more federal and state taxes on fuel.
Tom

Bob (WA0MQE) · 04-03-2009, 09:03 AM

Here on the Gulf Coast of Texas prices had been creeping up from the 1.70's just a couple of days ago and yesterday they had dropped back down again. They had reached 1.92 for Regular a couple of days ago and today they're 1.85, so who knows.

jurzbill · 04-03-2009, 09:30 AM

What gets me is when we were told to change our driving habits to conserve. Well the indications were, we did..the price of gas and diesel dropped according to the price of a barrel of oil, well it drop, however, the cost for gas and diesel shoud have been a lot lower.
Now that we did change, what happened, the oil companies said there was a shortage of fuel..shortage, come on.
Unfortunately when many did change their habits and drive less, the prices dropped and guess what,,,the "hummers" were out in full force, truckers encreased their speeds, more rv's on the road, etc.
now it is going up again and , there u go, less "hummers", trucker's speed dropping and rv's will see a decline.
the rv industry is hurting as we all know and when the price of fuel goes back up, not if it goes up, those remaining rv manufactures will be closing their doors.
We as a nation are spoiled and it will hurt us in the long run.
I still plan on taking my summer trip, it may be the last one I will be able to afford.

read & learn · 04-03-2009, 10:33 AM

First I never blamed the oil compamies for greed. I never blamed the oil companies for the mess we are in.
My statement was "I hope it is not GREED.
My question was who are the people that are causing the price of oil to go up. Is it speculators who buy oil 3-4 months down the road like last year, that's what we were told last year and that the oil companies would buy oil from them if they needed more oil.
Yes, most Americans own stocks in one form or another is very true, but they cann't vote that stock in most cases as some Company like AIG are the ones who control their investment. Now that company is a example of GREED and yes they control some of my investments.

hamguy · 04-03-2009, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by read & learn

First I never blamed the oil compamies for greed. I never blamed the oil companies for the mess we are in.
My statement was "I hope it is not GREED.
My question was who are the people that are causing the price of oil to go up. Is it speculators who buy oil 3-4 months down the road like last year, that's what we were told last year and that the oil companies would buy oil from them if they needed more oil.
Yes, most Americans own stocks in one form or another is very true, but they cann't vote that stock in most cases as some Company like AIG are the ones who control their investment. Now that company is a example of GREED and yes they control some of my investments.

Capitalism is regulated (hopefully) greed. That is if you consider wanting to maximize your returns to be greed. We are the most over regulated, over lawed society in the world (where such is documented and not at the whim of the dictator). There are an estimated 20,000+ laws which make it illegal for one person to murder another. It hasn't stopped one murder.

Anyway, oil speculators made a bunch of money but ended up losing a lot of it back.

But none of the money (profit) made by "BIG OIL" was due to greed. They have trillions invested in their business and get returns totally in line with their sales and costs.

R1Kirby · 04-04-2009, 08:55 AM

Okay lets look at what happened. Just before elections the price of gasoline drop to $1.50 per gallon in some areas. The price of oil per barral did not fall very much. So the question is why? Greed? The high prices of gasoline managed to put a lot of poeple in the unemployment lines in Detroit. People stopped buying trucks and cars. People stropped going places, therefore business began to shut down, and with that investments slowed. Other business began to down size. Today here we are deep in a recession (depression). Maybe the grovernment should regulate the oil industry.... Just some thoughts......

MtManLee · 04-04-2009, 09:41 AM

Sure why not, the government right now is trying to regulate everything else turning us into a socialist state, why not oil. Most interesting thing I have seen in oil prices here in Utah we went from 1.60 a gal to 1.65 to 1.69, to 1.75 to 1.79 to 1.85 and now its at 1.89. How come they never use 1,2,3,6,7, or 8 in pricing? Another interesting question, why do some of the biggest names in our democratic congress own the biggest share of oil company stocks and yet they do nothing to help the price of fuel? Maybe they already regulate the oil industry. something to think about.

Lindsay Richards · 04-04-2009, 10:28 AM

Oil is a world wide commodity and the US now produces only 5% of the world’s daily supply of 85 million bbls (prerecession). We can not control the price and our congress’s decisions to not allow our own resources to be tapped puts us at the mercy of foreign countries who generally don’t like us. We could be producing an additional 4 million bbls a day within 4 years if congress allowed it and streamlined the permitting and environmentalist lawsuit problems. We have chosen to be in this shape and the only solution is to vote in people who will allow us to become independent of foreign producers. When you see a politician saying they are going to make us free of foreign suppliers and votes to close off our own oil and natural gas fields, they are either a liar or an idiot.

hamguy · 04-04-2009, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lindsay Richards

Oil is a world wide commodity and the US now produces only 5% of the world’s daily supply of 85 million bbls (prerecession). We can not control the price and our congress’s decisions to not allow our own resources to be tapped puts us at the mercy of foreign countries who generally don’t like us. We could be producing an additional 4 million bbls a day within 4 years if congress allowed it and streamlined the permitting and environmentalist lawsuit problems. We have chosen to be in this shape and the only solution is to vote in people who will allow us to become independent of foreign producers. When you see a politician saying they are going to make us free of foreign suppliers and votes to close off our own oil and natural gas fields, they are either a liar or an idiot.

You will note the factions that push for alternate fuels cannot tell us what those are.

You cannot efficiently move a car or truck with 'big wind' (T-Bone Pickens).

You cannot effectively move a truck or car with alcohol, even disregarding the disastrous effect to the food supply world wide.

You cannot move a motorcycle or truck with nuclear energy.

Same for coal and other supposed "alternate fuels"!

Battery powered vehicles are horribly inefficient and impractical.

I would love to have alternates but as of now, none such exist.

Like it or not, we are currently tied to oil and cutting supplies merely serves to drive the country towards economic ruin.

hamguy · 04-04-2009, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R1Kirby

Okay lets look at what happened. Just before elections the price of gasoline drop to $1.50 per gallon in some areas. The price of oil per barral did not fall very much. So the question is why? Greed? The high prices of gasoline managed to put a lot of poeple in the unemployment lines in Detroit. People stopped buying trucks and cars. People stropped going places, therefore business began to shut down, and with that investments slowed. Other business began to down size. Today here we are deep in a recession (depression). Maybe the grovernment should regulate the oil industry.... Just some thoughts......

You have not read this thread in its entirety.

read & learn · 04-05-2009, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by read & learn

The increase in the price of Gasoline and Diesel is on the way back up to what happen last year at this time.
How? The future buyers are during the same as last year. They are willing to pay more for a Barrel of Oil 2-3 months from now, thereby causing the price to go up.
What can we do. In turth very little as a whole, we as a Nation will just live with this increase until it gets into the $4.00-$5.00 range again and then start to cut back and guess what, that will be just about the end of summer when most people drive less.
I wish I had the answer but I don't, but maybe, just maybe someone in our iRV2 family does.

Time to get back on topic. The reason behind my post was just asking what we as RVers could do if this happens again. Again I don't have the anwser but maybe some one in our iRV2 family does.

hamguy · 04-05-2009, 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by R1Kirby

Okay lets look at what happened. Just before elections the price of gasoline drop to $1.50 per gallon in some areas. The price of oil per barral did not fall very much. So the question is why? Greed? The high prices of gasoline managed to put a lot of poeple in the unemployment lines in Detroit. People stopped buying trucks and cars. People stropped going places, therefore business began to shut down, and with that investments slowed. Other business began to down size. Today here we are deep in a recession (depression). Maybe the grovernment should regulate the oil industry.... Just some thoughts......

How can you say the price of oil did not fall very much. It went from $145/bbl in early July to about $65 in early November and continued down to the low in Mid-Feb. of $32. It is currently ~$52/bbl.

There are a number of factors which have kept people from buying. Paramount of them is the Chas. Schumer run on the banking industry, and the media's daily crying wolf about the economy when it was not warranted.

I am still planning a 5000+ mile trip in May-June and another ~3400 miler in Aug-Sept.

I had my house repainted and put on a new roof. I refuse to participate in the negative economy. And I live on SS checks.