Gas Prices you knew this was commin!
 

OK how is it that gas is now about half the price it was 2 months ago? We are getting it up the (you fill it in)! The damn goverment says the oil industry is to blame, bulldookie they are the ones that get all the kickbacks from the oil industry we are being lied to everyday as americans in the land of the free.

That's a bunch of bullshiat... the government doesn't control the price of gas. The market for oil does. If the price of oil goes up, then so does our gasoline price.

Where I live gas topped out around 3.40/gallon and is currently 2.90/gallon.

I'll accept your initial statement (gas is 1/2 the price it was 2 months ago) as an exageration to make a point.

Individual politicians have blamed the oil industry for the run up but I've never seen an actual government official responsible for the matter make that accusation. If they had I would have expected indictments to follow in days. I want you to source your statement there. Which goverment official blamed the oil industry (for the run up, I assume)?

My own theory is that industrialization in China, India and other countries is placing a demand strain on a limited resourse. Okay. It's not really my theory. But it does make sense.

2.90 seems cheap now. A time will come when 10.00/gallon looks cheap. In your lifetime.

The good news is we will never run out of oil. The same way that you could have projected an end to whale oil (the prefered source for light before kerosene) based on demand/supply other energy sources will become economically viable at higher oil prices.

Here's a helpful suggestion: Don't blame the oil companies. Don't blame the governmement. Blame yourself. If you bought gas at $3.40/gallon like I did then by definition you found that a fair deal. Stop buying it and the price drops.

A nation that drives low milage SUV's and trucks and wants to find out why gas is so high is in denial.

It's Clinton's fault gas was so high.

Now now, when Clinto bragged about getting a hummer, I don't think he was referring to the vehicle!

Pillow,
I'm a very big cynic on this topic.
back in the '70's during the "oil embargo", all I had to do was drive along the Palisades Parkway along the Hudson to see loaded tankers, one after another, all full but not off loading at the NJ refineries, to prove to me that the market can and is manipulated. People were lined up at gas stations, coming in with cans for gas due to the "gas shortage".
Did the price go up then?

So, now we have elections coming in November. Do you think production is up for a reason? Sure prices are coming down..for now.
Do you think the Saudis got a call to have them do a favor? They'll go down just long enough for people to forget the high prices of the past year...watch what happens to the prices in Dec. and Jan.

best post i've seen in some time!!!

to say it's the prez's fault when things go bad, or to give credit when things go well is ridiculous. we live in a capitalistic, free market society. oil goes up, which makes gas go up. now oil is down, so gas is down. and as much as we all screamed about the price the last few months...guess what? we were still buying it. so why the hell would they lower the price if they were still selling it??
oh, that's right. cause bush said so. ummmm, yeah.

DTS..if you saw tankers stacked up on the Hudson...refusing to unload crude..so be it. And yes the price at the pump went up. Crude oil sky rocketed...so price at the pump, on whatever product was available, went up. This time we topped out at about $75 per barrel...back in the early 80's, after the embargo, the highest price I remember was about $46 per barrel. So prices, at the pump, went up in both cases.

Ez

I still think the goverment invaded iraq for the oil, thats is my own opinon. People in iraq (not all but most) needed some one to make them follow a fine line, and i am not sayin i like saddam i am glad he is gone but now look at the mess it has put the american people in and the goverment just sits in there big ole office while we send out the guys just tryin to better there lives over there on basically suicide missions cause they don't really even know who wants to shake their hand and who wants to shoot them just IMO!

i feel like i just re-read some of the last 80-odd pages of ulysses....

thing is, if we invaded for oil, than why the hell has it been so high til now? i mean, it kinda backfired didn't it? and you really think the military would put it's soldiers at risk for oil?? the govt would have been better off taking all the money spent on the war and just bought the stuff!!

if that's all we're in for, to help the bottom line, than why were we in somalia? in lebanon? kosovo?

Oil Futures ever heard of it?

Yes. But how does that explain your post?

I could say the government was behind 9/11 and as an explanation state "commodity futures".

But then neither your post nor mine would be at all clear. How about some facts to back it up? Or just something that doesn't require we read your mind.

Ez,
The fact is that they weren't refusing to unload. They weren't allowed to.
One of my friend's fathers ran a company called Hudson River Pilots. The company takes pilots out to the ships while outside NY harbor and guides them in to their destination inside the port.
Since the tankers couldn't off load, they anchored them.

All I was attempting to say is that the oil market can be manipulated.
I don't remember $75 per barrel in the 80's, but I'll take your word on it.

btw...oil isn't flowing out of Iraq because the pipelines keep getting sabotaged.

About the most ridiculous post I've seen.

One of the funniest posts I've ever seen.

Hmmmmm...no this may be the funniest.

I paid and even 2.00/gallon this afternoon for regular unleaded.

Indep Geo,
You obviously know far more than I do about Saudi oil production. You probably have the capacity of exports from Jan - June, so I won't provide them.
There's no need to apologize for your insult.
If you found humor in what I've said, it balances the pathetic feeling I get from reading your "expertise".

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...DE61A68081D%7D

L=G,
You might be interested in this regarding oil futures. It's from an article explaining some of the contributing circumstances in the region of Darfur in Sudan.

"Until April 2005, it was said that whatever oil deposits existed in Darfur were confined to its southeastern corner. However, new seismographic studies brought a surprise. On April 19, 2005, Mohamed Siddig, a spokesman for the Sudan Energy Ministry, announced that a new high-yield well had been drilled in North Darfur -- several hundred kilometers northwest of the existing fields. Seismographic studies indicated that a huge basin of oil, expected to yield up to 500,000 barrels of crude per day, lay in the area. This Darfur discovery effectively doubled Sudan's oil reserves."

I said (meant) the price went to about $75 this time (2006)...and around $46 in the early 1980's.

They (the tankers) weren't allowed to unload? I have to ask.. who was stopping them? Are you saying the owners of the tankers, the owners of the crude, the refiners.....or the feds, were stopping them? The whole conspiracy claims concerning crude oil price manipulation just doesn't hold water, as why did prices dip into the single digits in the late 1980's? OPEC, through production, can maintain a price, but this is far from any oil company or US government conspiracy.

Ez

Conspiracy theorists--------you gotta love 'em.

Who's the "them" that made this "call" to Saudi Arabia; and why would Saudi Arabia care about our Nov elections. How does the party in office have any effect on how much we buy or how much we will pay for their oil?

I wont apologize...........I think it's hilarious.

DTS, what are the Saudis independently going to do to lower price. The only way to lower world oil price is cut demand, or increase production. The Saudis are members of OPEC, and can't produce a significant more crude than what is allotted to them. I would say the drop in price is due to production catching up with todays demand...rather than some kind of election time conspiracy.

Ez

Ez,
Click on the "marketwatch" link in my previous post.

You are uninformed if you know nothing of the Bush family's connections with the Saudi royal family.

Yes, I saw the link. It pretty much states that OPEC has not curbed production, even with the price dropping (constant production with lower demand..equals decrease in price). So, all OPEC nations continue to produced at their allotted rates. If the price continues to drop, then you might see OPEC move to limit production..to hold the price to what they feel is fair (what they want).. Remember this is the group OPEC..not one individual member. It's been like this since the 70's..

Ez

I don't know why the tankers weren't being off loaded. I DO know what a loaded tanker looks like. All you have to do is look at the water line.
The fact is, they were anchored in the Hudson while the lines went for blocks at the gas stations.
You're guess as to why they weren't delivering their shipments is as good as mine. Maybe better.
I just know what I saw with my own eyes.

Another interesting article about "oil".

Published on Monday, September 25, 2006 by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Georgia)
Now, Oil-Rich Leaders Mock Bush Team
by Jay Bookman

Last week, the presidents of Iran and Venezuela took to the podium at the U.N. General Assembly to lambaste President Bush, with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez going so far as to refer to Bush as the devil.

That rhetoric drew harsh condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike, with some conservatives seizing the opportunity to bash the United Nations as well, which is more than a little silly. (Getting mad at the United Nations for being the setting of such speeches is like getting mad at Turner Field because the Braves have played so poorly.)

However, Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have more in common than their dislike for Bush. It is no coincidence that they also head two of the most oil-rich countries in the world. Through our nation's dependence on oil and our decades-long refusal to pursue energy alternatives and energy efficiency, we have contributed to giving Chavez and Ahmadinejad the money and power to behave as they do.

The problem is, most of the steps that would ease our dependence on foreign oil have been fought bitterly by our own oil industry. Higher taxes on oil consumption, tougher fuel-efficiency standards on automobiles, substantial investment in energy alternatives — it has been impossible to get such ideas even considered by those now holding power in the United States.

And that's too bad, because what's good for Chevron and his buddies is good for Chavez and his pals, too.

One of the most maddening and illuminating examples of the oil industry's grip on the Bush administration is what's going on with deep-water oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, where Chevron recently announced a major new find.

Back in the late '90s, the U.S. government signed more than 1,000 leases allowing oil companies to drill in the Gulf. Because deep-water drilling is expensive and risky, the U.S. government agreed not to collect its standard royalties of 12 percent to 16 percent of the price of oil or gas from those leases.

As part of the deal, though, those leases were supposed to include a provision requiring companies to start paying royalties if oil prices ever rose higher than $36 a barrel. The oil companies understood that was to be the arrangement; federal bureaucrats understood that, too. Yet when the contracts were signed, the fail-safe provision was somehow missing.

Today, with oil prices at more than $60 a barrel, that oversight has already meant a bonanza of roughly $1.3 billion for the oil industry, money that by rights ought to be going to taxpayers. Chevron alone may save more than $1 billion in royalties just on its newly announced discovery.

Outraged by that possibility, some members of Congress have tried to pressure oil companies into renegotiating their faulty leases, but their effort has been frustrated by Republican congressional leaders and the Bush administration. Bush officials are taking the legalistic approach, claiming that "a deal's a deal" and refusing to consider legal action, new legislation or any other way to possibly recoup the money.

In essence, the Bush administration claims that's just business, but it isn't. Not by a long shot.

In business, behaving as the oil industry has done in this situation would have consequences. If General Motors or Microsoft got stiffed out of billions of dollars by somebody who has displayed the bad faith demonstrated by the oil industry, you can bet their corporate lawyers and accountants would be re-evaluating every business relationship with the offending company, looking for any possible way to get leverage. They would never meekly accept such an outrage, as the Bush administration has done.

The Interior Department, which is supposed to act as the taxpayers' steward, has also cut the number of auditors investigating possible royalty fraud, which has produced yet another bonanza for the oil companies at the expense of taxpayers.

According to the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, federal auditors recovered an average of $115 million a year in unpaid royalties between 1981-2001, making their salaries one of the best investments in government. But from 2002-2005, the number of auditors was cut and annual royalty recoveries fell to less than half the previous level.

It's gotten so bad that four government auditors who were denied permission by their superiors to pursue unpaid royalties from oil companies are now seeking to recover the money by filing lawsuits as private citizens. It's just too bad we can't sic 'em on Chavez and Ahmadinejad, too.

Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.

© 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

are young america is dying over this, and for what, to protect our freedom. 99.9% of Iraq never planned on comming to america. Bush is wacked and so was his dad.

DTS: You DO have a lot of conspiracy theories floating around, but I'll give you this. If this article is even half right, then something serious should be done about it.

Let's see....leases signed in error the late 90's, sounds like another mess that Bush has to clean up left by the Clinton Administration... OK, just kidding, but this royalty issue is not as black and white as the article tries to make it seem. Royalties paid on oil and gas leases can be quite complex, and that is where most of the under payments come from. The leases signed in error...with all of the bureaucrats at the BLM, god only knows how that could have happened.

Ez

Did you know that George Bush had the airforce redirect Hurricane Katrina by using the backdraft of hundreds of B-52's,so that it would hit New Orleans?

Did you know that George Bush personally dynamited the WTC after learning of the terrorist plot to crash planes into the buildings?

Did you know that Monica Lewinsky was a plant sent by George Bush? Do you know the Bush family's connections with the Lewinsky's?

Do you know that Osama Ben Laden, under the direction of Carl Rove, will surrender to US armed forces two days before the election? Check out the connections of the Bush family to the Ben Laden's.

And you call me uninformed !!!!

DTS, I am really trying to follow your logic with regard to the Sudan..but, I am missing something. This huge field of which you speak, substantiated by seismic operations and one (1) well, is owned by who? My guess is that whoever conducted the seismic operations, and drilled the so called discovery well, is going to own the concession, and therefore, have the right to develop same (if there is a field). The capital expenditures to develop a field of this size will be huge, therefore, I am guessing that a State sponsored company (like China), or group of non state sponsored companies, will have the lion's share of the ownership. From the Article you posted, US companies are barred from participating in this concession...so, with regard to this new, although still questionable, discovery, a change in the US policy towards Sudan is going to do what? Sounds to me like the window of opportunity to get into that deal has closed.

Ez

I don't know who did the exploratory drilling. I do know that the '97 sanctions prevent US companies from participating. Doesn't it state in the article that there are "ways around" this?
Is this why the US has been slow to stop the genocide? hmmm..your guess is as good as mine.