I looked through this entire thread and it really is amazing. I learned that one CEO made 144,000 a day and that is one reason why gas prices are so high. I also learned that we wouldn't have any roads without gas taxes. Actually I do like Capitalism but it does piss me off when one CEO makes 144,000 a day. But I also wonder where is the balance here? Why only pick on Oil Companies? How about other types of companies that rape the system such as 1) Airline companies? 2) Any companies that the tax payers have to bail out. How about those companies that promised their employees big benefits then couldn't afford to keep their promises and the tax payers had to give the retirees a 1/4 of their retirement money? How and who determines how much money someone should make? http://www.pilotpensiondefense.org/Documents/washingtonpost - Higher Salaries in Lean Time.htm I wish I could find the amount Stephen Wolf received when he left US Airways!
Here ya go SD http://money.cnn.com/2001/08/20/companies/usair/index.htm I wish I could run my company into the ground and come off like that.
Not only that but the government would then bail you out and you would have a chance to start over from scratch. How about all those union workers sacrificing their wages also. Those union workers who have been there the longest have a lot to lose. A lot of those with less senority not only sacrificed wages but eventually lost their jobs while other people had to relocate to keep their jobs. Its funny how bad the oil companies are but no one seems to know about this kind of stuff.
No. But we can allieviate it with more drilling as well as expanding and building new refineries. Even if we were to come up with an alternative fuel tomorrow, we would still need oil for manufacturing purposes. Contrary to popular opinion, the oil companies use most of their petroleum for oil-based products such as plastics, sythetics and lubricants.
Here we go with the big bad oil companies again. One more time. The price of gas is what it is because of the price per barrel of oil charged by OPEC and because of supply and demand. Demand has been going up and supply has not kept up with it due to a moritorium on increasing refining capacity and the refusal by congress to increase drilling. So if we want to blame someone, look at OPEC, Congress and ourselves. Not the oil companies.
I look at all of them and you should too. Perhaps you are an oil executive. Look, the oil companies haven't built a new refinery in 29 years! The "supply and demand" problems we have involve lack of refinery capacity to produce the gas we need, when we need it, thus reducing supplies and raising prices which lead to oil company windfall profits. Are they spending that money on new refineries? Hell, no. Why should they. They make more money by keeping supplies scarce. The party is over for the oil companies.
today i saw a hearing on cspan with barbara boxer grilling the chairwoman of the FTC, a very nice woman named deborah majoras. the FTC has prepared a 700 page report that basically says there was no real horrible gouging of gas post-katrina and that gas prices are not outlandishly high to the extent that the government needs to intervene. of course, i could have told you that without spending a zillion dollars on a government study, but i am glad the FTC came up with the proper conclusion anyways. barbara boxer was pummeling this sweet woman, the FTC chairwoman. here is some rough paraphrasing: boxer: you guys at the Federal Trade Commission are shills for the oil industry, we should investigate you guys. FTC lady: we are sorry you feel that way about the ftc. boxer: now, OPEC is fixing prices, is that correct? FTC lady: of course, that is why they exist. boxer: we need to go ahead and sue them for mopolistic practices. FTC lady: ?? they are not in america, we cant sue them! yunno, american anti-trust laws do not apply to them. boxer: yeah, we should sue them, in fact there is this bill my colleagues and i.. FTC lady: you do not understand, they are on the other side of the world and dont care about our courts. they would laugh at us. boxer: you are working for the oil companies and do not care about the common citzen. so boxer was actually proposing that we sue opec for price fixing. i didnt make that up. oh what a terrible bunch of politicians we have elected. and everyone complains and complains, "we are addicted to oil!" they say. and we whine at the high prices and cry and bitch. and we cry like a bunch of retarded faggots about global warming, all the while doing everything we can to keep oilprices low so we can burn more of the stuff we think is ruining us. we cry to the government to keep prices low, that way we keep investment dollars away from the alternatives. we do everything we can to keep ourselves in the situation we hate, because we supposedly cannot afford it, and it is killing our planet. and we pay for huge government studies to find out obvious conclusions, so our politicians can waste even more money to get together and claim they dont believe the reulsts of the study. nobody wants to solve anything. nobody wants to buy a smaller car. nobody wants to move closer to where they work. nobody wants to invest in alternatives. they want cheap oil, so they can drive their SUV's while complaining about gas prices and global warming and "windfall" profits, while proposing that we use tax dollars to keep oil cheap.
to be clear i should mention that i have nothing against people who commute 200 miles a day in gas guzzling SUVs. it is the complaining and clamoring for government intervention i dont like. if you want to pay the price of living somwhere with a nice big backyard and you like to burn 100 gallons a day commuting, thats fine by me. but i dont think people should hold oil companies responsible when they put themselves in a situation where they are somrt of dependent on oil. oh, and people like to tell me that because i commute on an electric train and walk everywhere i go i dont feel it it as much directly, but i still pay when i buy items because they have to be shipped and whatnot. and i buy that logic, but practically it isnt happening. i mean, my frosted flakes seem to cost the same no matter what oil does.
I paid $2.34 for gas this morning. That's about .55 less than a few weeks ago. Oil prices under $62, a 20% drop. I guess the big bad oil companies are tired of record profits and are cutting the consumers some slack. And to think this is happening without big brother stepping in. But I'm sure this is all a conspiracy between the republicans and oil execs to lower prices right before the elections this fall. It has to be. There is no other reasonable explanation for big oil to reduce the prices, right?
