Some brand of ethanol is probably the way to go.....Bush keeps talking hydrogen but that may be 20, 30 years down the road. I really liked this wheat grass fuel idea. It will take a while to get the manufacturing down to get the price low enough to make it comparable. We're still 5, 10 to 20 years from anything really feasible.
Corporate profit is a component of the price of gas, if it goes up, gas goes up. Simple. This is very true in a real free-enterprize market. But many feel that oil companies have colluded to manipulate gasoline supplies — and prices — by creating artificial shortages. Instead of being punished if they fail to meet consumer needs, the companies make even more money if they drop the ball. Gold and oil are quite different. A consumer has no need for gold. The price of gold does not affect his daily life, nor the economic well-being of entire states. He does not have to make the decision between putting food on the table or paying for gasoline where gold is concerned. Gold is a luxury item. The price of fuel is a vital national interest and most nations control their oil business seriously, just like we control the money business with the Federal interest rates.
It's the other way around Red. When the price goes up, corporate profits go up as a byproduct. Show me one chart or graph that shows corporate profits as a prelude to high gas prices. No one on the planet is making the point you are about gas prices. Exxon, Shell, Conoco, BP.....all the evil oil companies in the world are fixing the price of gas huh? Why was gas ever at $.99? Why would it ever go down? The price of gas is controlled by economics.....not some fat cat Exxon exec that the libs and Congress loves blaming. If Congress really wanted to help, they could suspend the gas taxes correct? Nah, they'd just rather haul the oil company execs up there to do what?....yell at them for nothing. It's a show. I understand gold is not oil but the basic prinicples of economics applies here. Oil, like I said, is a futures market. The price of gas now is based on the cost of oil and production in the future. When people start talking about oil and the price of gas and gouging, they still can't get around one pesky fact: No proof and simple economics.
That's the point that many don't have an answer for. If oil companies are truly as bad as some suggest, then why did they allow us to have cheap gas for so many years? Why weren't they gouging us then? And a windfall tax will do nothing to lower gas prices. It'll only give the government more money to waste. This is going to be nothing more than a political show with the party in power taking another big hit before mid-term elections. These people realize there is very little our government can do to drop gas prices immediately, but they won't dare tell us that.
The point with gold is, it's a commodity just like oil Red. You don't eat oil either........it isn't a basic necessity of life. None of what you said above has anything to do with the price of oil. Price of oil goes up as supply and demand change, same as gold. So we use gas alot....OK, so? The more we use, the less of it there is on the market, the price goes up, as do profits. I don't know what your point is other than profits somehow effecting the price of gas.....which it doesn't. And just so you know, gold has a bunch to do with our everyday lives just like oil. The amount of gold in our banks, in accounts effects the world's economy. Like I said, it is a traded commodity just like oil that follows basic supply and demand economics. Let's haul the gold producers into Congress and ask why the price is so high. Are the colluding? $600 an ounce? Man these gold producers are making huge profits now. The same economic principle applies here.
Who do you think controls the oil coming out of the ground in those countries ... U.S. oil companies or the middle eastern governments?
I honestly don't think that it's relavent, as long as someone is benefitting. Everytime sh*t gets stirred up over there, the powers that be have a sure-fire excuse to jack up oil prices.
