ducati996 said:
but it is always easier for those who have an abudance of material items to be lazzie fare on how things should be regulated when there clearly is a need for consumer protection.
Protection from what? The consumers, you & me, in the US are using MORE AND MORE oil every month. Consumption is going UP. So if the oil companies make 5% on every gallon of fuel, and they are sell more and more fuel, then they SHOULD make more money. Now in additon to the fact that they are selling MORE fuel to you and me, they are also being charged more so the 5% margin equals an extra penny or two per gallon. But that is not gouging as you suggest. What you are suggesting is simple communism. Fix the price and let the economy go to the dumps. That is the fact of what you suggest.
ducati996 said:
I would like you to set the example and give up your prized possesions which you feel isnt that important as a whole. I honestly dont believe it....
I'm not sure what you are asking here. But I could give up guns, Swiss watches, dogs, and Hawaiian shirts without impacting oil.
ducati996 said:
I would also like to see how you can get around the impact of Oil has in your life and family - I would assume you would then be living like those in 3rd world nations.
Wow bad assumption! I would likely not live where I live, or I would have built a different house if I chose to live without much assistance and impact of oil. But my choice was not to do that. Again it was my choice. I could have put photovoltaic panels on the roof to generate electricity, as well as heat collectors to heat water. As I live on a ridge line with prevailing winds, I could up up a wind generator. People here on TBN have done all those things. I simply choose not to. I've looked at, and considered, and done cost analysis on hybrid cars. I chose an inefficient SUV instead. It was my choice. I understand the consequences.
What I don't understand is how anyone today can espouse communist style price controls when all that does is destroy nations and people. I'm just old enough to have been able to extensively travel to a couple of the communist nations of eastern Europe while they were still solidly under the grip of communism. I can tell you first hand, it did not work! Quality fell. Innovation ceased. You tell me, in what nation that built an economic model based on price controls are the people better off than in ANY western nation?
I do understand that you have some emotional reason to want price controls, but you clearly do not understand the consequences. What you want is less pain at the pump. But you think the answer is simple, just fix the price. While I want the same thing, less pain at the pump, I understand that the answer is complex. I realize that if the government would get its head out of its rear end we could be driving a lot more diesel vehicles, and those are more efficient so we would not need as much fuel. Demand would drop if we had just 5% of our cars running diesel, but imagine if we had 40% of our vehicles running diesel!!! Further, if we had more diesel vehicles, we would actually have a market for "bio-diesel" so we could further reduce the need for importing oil.
Look at my signature line below each of my posts, you will see a link to an information site on the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. We should have been harvesting that oil for the past decade! But still we are not yet drilling for oil in the single largest reserve we have. Who is to blame, the same government you are asking to fix the price at the pump!
Wall Street Journal Weighs in on the Importance of ANWR Oil
Posted on August 10th, 2006
By Kevin Kennedy in Uncategorized
THE PRUDHOE PRINCIPLE
Opponents of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration and drilling have long argued that the supply wouldn’t make a difference to prices. But that claim was silenced yesterday with BP’s announcement that it is shutting down its operations at Prudhoe Bay due to a damaged pipeline that could take months to patch, says the Wall Street Journal.
The news showed what a supply shock of less than 2 percent of U.S. consumption can do to the energy market:
- U.S. crude soared $2.25 on the news, taking oil to nearly $77 a barrel.
- Many experts are predicting another 5 to 10-cent a gallon price increase at the retail gasoline pump — possibly to a new high.
Those that argue ANWR’s estimated 1 million barrels per day aren’t worth the effort might have some currency if oil were plentiful and gas prices were still “only” $1.50 a gallon, says the Journal. But with the margin between global oil supply and demand so thin, any supply counts.
As it happens, House Republicans are mounting yet another effort to get ANWR opened. A majority of the Senate supports it. The latest bill promises to devote federal ANWR revenues to “alternative energy” programs, an enticement that has already gathered some Democratic support. If Congress really wanted to impress voters, it would use the BP mess as an excellent reason to increase U.S. energy supplies, says the Journal.
Source: Editorial, “The Prudhoe Principle,” the Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2006
For text (subscription required):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115500045447029432.html
Click HERE to find more information on ANWR.
Ethanol is another possible fuel source as well, and is reasonably viable. It is difficult to transport except by truck, since it can't be shipped in pipeline so that makes it more of a regional fuel, but it is limited to specially equipped vehicles which makes it scarce. Let's have the government require that we each buy an E85 vehicle next time we buy, that will increase the demand. But since it costs more for the engine, we will probably want that price fixed too?
Simple solutions, like price fixing, do not work. They have been tried, they have failed. See Cuba as a great example of a failed economy. I am pretty much under the impression that the failure of the USSR is logic enough to abandon price fixing schemes.
