I think oil prices are set by market conditions and by widespread speculation, nothing else. It's easy to blame a fat, cigar-puffing white male sitting in his penthouse office in Houston-at least that's what Clintobama wants us to envision.

As for blaming the opulent, desert dwelling, medieval savages who actually sell us the stuff, I won't state the obvious.

A gallon of gas in the USA is still a lot cheaper than most places in the developed world, and when you adjust for inflation, it's about the same or even cheaper than it was in 1978. Even so, that doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

Go back a little further in US history, and you can partially blame Alfred E. Sloan, the CEO of General Motors, who bought out and closed all of the municipal tram lines so GM could sell buses and cars. This is true, I swear. Also, Robert E. Moses, who paved much of metro NYC and built all of those super highways around the city, to the detriment of mass transit.

We are a culture of cars. Either we pay up and shut up, or we change our habits. We can start by buying a vehicle that gets decent gas mileage (20+) instead of the three-ton V8 behemoths that so many of us have, to get us from point A to point B. We can learn how to car pool to and from work. A little heat on the politicians to start investing in mass transit would help too.

Steve, I partially agree with you, but partally agree with some of the other arguments posted.

As an oil field geologist during the late 70s until the late 80s, then an environmental consultant, and finally a Geologist assigned to a State Agency, I can say that there is an abundance of oil on this planet.

Does anyone really believe that in the last five months, there has been a three fold increase in oil requirements, where the price at the pump has risen on average $1.25? Supply and demand have nothing to do with it. Its the low life speculators and filty rich who previously invested in the housing and land boom, that just tanked.

The problem here is we have inadaquate refining capabilities, and speculators have used world problems agravated by Dub'ya and his band of idiots to artificially raise the price per barrel to $120, when it actually should be closer to $70 based on reserves and production. Also, Dub'ys is buying an inordinate ammount of oil to store in the strategic reserves, and paying for it with gold, depleating our treasury even further. And he wants to place an additional two time what we have in storage already.

Gee, I wish I had a Blind Trust made up entirely of energy stocks.
(wink-wink. the real "Mission Accomplished").

As to the gentleman who writes that oil tankers were just sitting off of Cape May playing games before unloading fuel. I also observed that practice in 1973 through 1974, as I am a former USCG Officer, I monitored ship traffic patterns for the 1st and 3rd Naval District.

What else can I say? Vote Independent this fall, and lets take our country back.

Chuck

Chuck,
Its a shame that they don't have NONE OF THE ABOVE
on the ballot, betcha most people would pick that
one.
Ronbo

Chuck, I agree with you that there is an abundance of oil on the planet. It's getting to to some of it that's the challenge.

You're Dead-on with your comment about our refining capacity. There hasn't been a new refinery built in the US in over twenty years, and Federal environmental regulations have placed restrictions on those we have. You can thank the NIMBY's and Environazis for the lack of refining expansion, and the developing electrical generation and distribution shortages as well.

First of all, thank you all for the respect shown toward my above post as a "visitor". Sometimes a visitor is looked down upon and I did not see that. That speaks volumes for those on this board.

I still feel strongly though about the corporate boardrooms dictating prices and profits. Yes it is true we are a society dependant on the car, it is this weakness that gives the oil company execs the leverage to do as they are, in my opinion, currently doing.

Does anyone recall the days when the oil companies assured us that they were "stockpiling" gas to ensure we had enough for holiday travel..? I do. That was until the Annual Oil Shortages of the 70's.

The oil companies no longer keep stockpiles as they say it is a waste of money. The obvious thing is to eliminate stockpiles. By eliminating stockpiles, you ALWAYS have shortages and that equates to increased prices at the pumps. Just today, in my area of Michigan the price went up 30 cents from last night!! The oil companies don't even try to fabricate explanations anymore, even they know it is pointless.

Their Greed is so obvious. They even tried to blame OPEC a while back saying they reduced output. But OPEC said NO WAY and showed they were producing more than enough and threw it right back at our domestic oil companies. They didn't respond to that did they!?!

Keep in mind, those MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR PROFITS the oil companies are forced to report (you know darn well they wouldn't report them otherwise) those profits are just that... PROFITS... That which is left after paying all the expenses... that which could they could not hide... That which they had no choice but to report.

One last thing to keep in mind... Who was it that was invited by the White House to privately decide this country's energy policies...???? Heck, Congress can't even find out what went on in that meeting.... Should be a warning to the rest of us....

That is how I see it. I THANK YOU for allowing me to express this. I will bore you no more.

Thank you for boring us no more. As some one who sits in a corporate boardroom I completely understand than 99.9% of America have no idea what it takes to manage a company. And that is fine. I won't dispute any of the comments above because I have no basis to do so.

However if it isn't the people in the corporate board rooms that are supposed to dictate prices and profits, then who should? Isn't greed the foundation of our capitalistic mindset?

Also to understand how a company can change absolutely nothing about the way they do business and increase profits here is an example.

Oil costs $50 per barrel
The set margin is 25%
This means the selling price per barrel would be $66.67.
This nets a profit of $16.67 per barrel.

Oil costs $100 per barrel.
The set margin remains 25%.
The selling price per barrel is 133.33.
The profit per barrel is now $33.33.

Nothing changed in the company's business plan and yet in theory the company would double the profits.

This is one of the main reasons oil companies are having record profits. They certainly are not increasing profits by lowering costs.

I don't like it but I also know that if I want to spend less on fuel I will need to do so through conservation.

Sorry for the unpopular post but sometimes the rest of the truth needs to be voiced.

Jeff

Location: Pennsylvania

Hey... I don't think your post is "unpopular", on the contray, I for one appreciate it. You have provided information that is both helpful and enlightening.

I am sorry that you feel 99.9% of America fails to understand you (your occupation) but understand that you are not alone. There are many other occupations out there experiencing the same "misunderstanding" as you.

My own take on this is that we have really put this on ourselves. Yes the demand is up but not to the extent that the costs would dictate. We have not built new refineries in years and are prohibited from drilling for new sources even though we have the safe technology to do so. We can look for alternative fues all we want but in the meantime we have millions of gasolene dependent vehicles that will be around for a long time. I'm all for substitute fuels but what about all of the other demands for oil? And at the cost of reducing the acreage that we used to plant into crops for food? Kinda dumb, I think.

Location: Wareham, MA

Well, this post may have had absolutely nothing to do with diecast fire apparatus (despite the stretch made in the initial post to link it somehow), but at least it allowed Chuck to get in another of his populist rants about "Dubya" and his evil friends...

Location: Woodbridge, VA

and we won't even start on the idiot bankers whose irresponsibility created the sub prime crisis....sorry Jeff but this is one area that has been created by the decisions of boardrooms, and has affected the whole world because of incompetent corporate decisions....they should be held accountable. Lending huge amounts of money to people who could not even begin to meet repayments is totally irresponsible.

If we dig deep enough, I'm sure we'll find that Code 3 Collectibles (along with Dub'ya) is responsible for this mess.