Gas Prices

[El_Phil]

1. Oil Company. Company. It's their job to make money, it's like complaining about a cow eating grass.
2. I'll put money that their profits will be up. And that most of that will NOT be from petrol, it's the other uses of oil that make money, petrol is a minor part of their trade.

[Xrati]

El_Phil said:
1. Oil Company. Company. It's their job to make money, it's like complaining about a cow eating grass.
2. I'll put money that their profits will be up. And that most of that will NOT be from petrol, it's the other uses of oil that make money, petrol is a minor part of their trade.

1. How much profit IS ENOUGH? Where should we be looking at profit versus being taken to the cleaners. All companies are in business to make money, I understand that part. Most companies have competition within their product line. Wouldn't it be nice to have an alternate fuel source for them to compete with? Most companies now operate as borderline monopolies. They buy out their closest competitors and leave the weakest of their competition to survive.

2. All oil products must still be refined into their final state. Oil, gas, tar, plastics, what ever the final product is, it must be refined! We should be experiencing a shortage of plastic shortly! I guess all those "blacktop" road projects will be at risk too!

[El_Phil]

Buy a diesel car or a hybrid. Get a hydrogen cell conversion done on your own car. There's nothing stoping you doing those things. There's alternatives. But the key thing is: They aren't as good or are more expensive.

Refining is different for the various products, the huge amount of petrol that some countries **cough The US cough** use means that many refineries are dedicated just to petrol, and indeed use various fractions of the oil that could very easily be made into other products with far less work. Oh and did you miss my post a while back? The price of DVD-Rs and other high grade plastic items is going up, more than it should but it is.

When a plastic goes from very cheap to just cheap it doesn't make much difference to the final price, unless the finished product is all plastic and is cheap itself. For almost everything else the plastic is such a tiny amount of the total cost that the price could go up an order of magnitude and many firms wouldn't notice.

[Xrati]

Well if the "ALTERNATIVE$" aren't really alternatives, then there is no real competition. Why would you chose to use something that would cost you more to use? We need more competition for fuel sources and alternative fuel sources. Are we going to wait until the last drop of oil is sucked from this planet to start looking for them!
As far as plastics go, the volume used versus the cost increase is almost insignificant. It's probably only pennies a part, BUT the almighty quest for PROFIT will justify a larger then needed price increase.
We, as an overall society, have become totally dependant on oil byproducts. For the future of the planet and the children of the world we need to find other sources of energy!!! AND it's just not happening! Maybe this is the boot in the ARSE that we need,

[El_Phil]

So your complaining that the cheapest option is, in fact, still the cheapest option?

You been a card carrying Commie long, or has it just taken slightly more expensive petrol to convice you that capitalism is evil?

That clearly is where the USSR went wrong. "Come to Mother Russia, we have cheap petrol!" They'd have won the cold war no problem.

[Atrocities]

Just look at China to see where Russa went wrong. China is still communist and doing quite well. What did they do that Russa did not? Not that I would ever want to live in either country.

[Xrati]

Do you understand what "Competition" is? It's what used to drive this country. The competition for your business was the reason for 'customer support' and advertising. If your given one choice, which choice would you make. The US has long been a world leader in marketing 'Democracy', yet they are now involved protecting 'Monopolism' (my word for it). They encourage big companies to buy out all their competition and leave us with the freedom to make "ONE" choice. They pass laws to protect companies (cable, phone) within State and Cities to eliminate any competition.
Until there is an alternative to oil/gas we have no choice because we HAVE to pay what the Oil Companies want. Don't kid yourself that there is any competition between the different Gas companies. They all support each other.

[El_Phil]

No war profitering is what drove the US. Selling arms to any country that had money, whatever their ideology.

Why on earth would the oil firms support each other in the the petrol biz? It is not worth that much effort as the potential rewards are, in the scheme of things, tiny and the punishment if caught immense. Remember Standard Oil?

The higher petrol goes in price, the more attractive other systems become. Hell perhaps some Americans may start walking places.... Only joking.

One simple question: Oil is now more expensive, hence petrol is more expensive. So why the hell shouldn't you pay more for it? No one is making massive extra profits off petrol, it's still:

Cost of oil + refining costs + Misc cost (transport, etc) + thin profit margin = Pump price.

Either the price of petrol goes up or the oil firms start making a loss on every gallon of petrol. It costs more to make, so of course it costs more to buy at the pump. You have nothing at all to complain about, it's like complaining that Strawberries are expensive in November. When things are rare they cost more.

[FJ_MD]

El_Phil said:
Buy a diesel car .......

Hey! I have a diesel car and it rocks!