Americans united fo fuel price control
 

I stumbled across an interesting website. www.auffpc.com The Pac is planning on having a massive mailing to Wahington with a twist. They want for every member to mail an identical letter with one tea bag included in the envelope. They are calling it the Washington Tea Party.

This is by far the most interesting plan of action that I have heard in a while. I cant wait to be apart of something that could be the turning factor of our economy. If you have a minute check out thier site.

www.auffpc.com

I think this is something hummer owners would really like!

Good luck with that! :rolleyes:

I don't think these strategies will make much difference. With a democraitc majority in congress they live and die by the latest polls. With about 75% of the population being for expanding our domestic sources it won't be long until they change their minds about it. They don't want to risk loosing the presidential election this fall.

-Jay

Been There, Done That
 

In 1974 Nixon imposed price controls. Within a week we had shortages and gas lines.

That old supply and demand thing.

We have learned something from that...I hope.

The site emailed me and apologized that their contribute page was down. They told me to keep checking and that it should be up by tomorrow.

Supply vs demand. *****ing about it doesn't do much good. Sell the SUV, and get a car, now if we could get millions of Americans to do that, we would use billions less per year. That would make a difference. Sorry, just venting!

There's not much point in sending tea bags if you're going to vote the rascals back into office. Only one political party has pursued a 30 year policy of national energy suicide. I'll let y'all figure out which one. If you vote for them, they'll drink the tea, tax you for more, and keep right on stonewalling any domestic energy development. The choice is yours.

What he said.
.

That same party was the one which promoted conservation, development of renewable energy, and development of shale oil. The other party's solution is war, spending billions so the first party has to tax more just to pay off the debt the second party's run up.

Frankly, I don't think sending tea bags is going to do much except make Lipton and Celestial Seasonings (and the folks at auffpc.com...notice it is a dot com, not a dot org) more money. If you're going to buy the tea, drink it yourself, read the other posts here and cut your fuel bill by driving sensibly, not by loading up your congressman's mailbox, regardless of what you think of him. If you don't like what he is doing, vote against him. (That's what I'm doing...) That will do more for gas prices than anything else. And it doesn't cost you $30. Unless you buy $30 worth of tea. (I'd rather drink beer, but that's just me...)

There actually is no lack of supply. We have lots of oil fields within our borders not to mention other sources of oil. Oil prices are artificially high for two reasons. One, the middle east hates us and doesn't feel like giving us special prices anymore. And two, the oil companies are making a killing.

They'll never lower the price back down significantly. They only have to bring it down 25c and we'll all be happy.

It makes absolutely no business sense for them to lower prices. High prices have hardly even begun to affect demand. The only thing that will work is regulation. Not quite price fixing, but regulation ie breaking up monopolies. The most extreme thing I would support is having a government owned company to compete with the private oil companies.

That's the last thing we need is the Gov't getting into the oil business. They have a habit of making anything they do unprofitable. I used to be a civilian employee of the USMC for 10 years. I had worked several positions in the exchange system. I know how they operate, and the people who operate it. Most of the people running the system have never worked outside the Gov't and would never be able to profitably run a business on the outside. The whole system is geared toward politics, not business. I used to piss off some really "important" people because I did not care about the political aspect of my job. When faced with a decision I always erred on the side of what benefited the marines on my base the best, not what was politically advantageous. I think its because of that I was able to keep my job for 10 years without being fired... ;) No matter how political someone was I was always able to end any dispute by asking what would have been a better decision for the troops? They then make all these political decisions and then wonder why the exchange can't compete with Wal-Mart's prices.

Anyway, its people like this that would be running a Gov't oil company. I can guarantee that it would run over budget, and under produce. People who are not used to running a corporation, and have never been in the oil business before will be dictating policy and procedures with no regard as to how these decisions will effect profitability.

It would be cheaper if the Gov't just bought gasoline and gave every licensed driver a gas card with a monthly allotment of "free" gasoline at taxpayer expense.

Not conservation...anti-human policies. They cater to organizations that see humans has a pestilence. And what alternative energy have they actually supported rather than just played lip service to? Wind power? No, it kills birds, makes noise and blocks Teddy Kennedy's view of the horizon. Nuke? Heaven forbid. Sugar cane ethanol? Banned. Shale oil? Banned. The only 'alternative energy' policy they have actually acted on is corn based ethanol...a fuel so inefficient to produce and use, it is probably a net loss overall. But it buys the support of the corn lobby.

Would that be Roosevelt's War, Truman's War or Johnson's War? The war cost is a pale shadow compared to the $52 Trillion debt in Social Security and Medicare.

Those of us who have been around for a while have lived through the shortages and gas lines that inevitably accompany government controls. It would be nice for youngsters to live through them so they too can learn the limitations of government, but only so long as I don't have to live through them again. I've already learned the lesson.

We may have proof of life on other planets. Because informed people on this planet know that the thirteen largest oil companies in the world are governments. Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, etc. ExxonMobil, the largest US oil company, it the 14th largest. Hardly a monopoly. So exactly how does one break up the foreign government owned oil companies? War?

And if as much time was spent understanding the business of America rather than reading Marx's Das Kapital, it would be understood that the US oil sector doesn't make all that high a profit. About 8%. A mediocre performance compared to other industries. This is because they make most of their money from refining and distribution. The big bucks is in drilling. But they have to buy the vast bulk of their crude oil from foreign governments because they can't drill here.

[/QUOTE]The most extreme thing I would support is having a government owned company to compete with the private oil companies.[/QUOTE]

Socialism has been a failure in EVERY country it takes over. The Europeans nationalized companies through the '50s and '60s and spent the '80s and '90s trying to privatize them again. What do they teach in schools nowadays? Oh, yeah. The teach socialism.

LEARN HISTORY!!! :mad:

I'm siding with T. Boone Pickens. Make energy. Anything, anywhere as long as it's domestic.

I'm only 37, but I remember the gas lines as a small child, only being able to purchase gas on certain days. I remember being told as a child that by the time I graduated college there would be no cars, because there would be no gasoline left. What we went through durring the Carter administration is far worse than what we are experiencing now. I remember gas lines and inflation. Who fixed it? Regan. Durring his administration we prospered, and gas was under $1/gallon.

As a 37 year old I don't have to go that far back for a good example.

Right after Hurricane Katina, Hawaii installed price controls only to have the oil stop flowing to their great state. Darn those pesky private property rights. It did not take long for the price controls to be removed.

Watching the man made gas shortage in GA (after Karina) was interesting also. The masses started hording gas and drained what was left of the supply. Instead of simply keeping a calm head and consuming fuel as normal. Of course I had just topped of my tank the day before knowing there would be a price hike.

It was strange seeing all the pumps closed till next delivery.

The oil companies don't set the price, it's not their fault the price is so high. They are subject to world prices just like all other markets. Some of the price hike, IMO, is due to speculation. Traders think the price will continue to go up, so it does.

I read an article a couple weeks ago that Saudi Arabia wants to increase their production by a lot so that the price lowers. They are worried that the high prices will drive alternative fuel research and oil will begin to be phased out and their country will once again live in complete poverty because of their lack of other resources.

Oil companies want to be efficient. The reason a lot of our oil from alaska goes to japan is because it's cheaper to do that than bring it down to the lower 48. If we used that domestic oil here, the price would be even higher. So being all domestic isn't the best solution either.

You're right. High fuel prices have renewed interest in alternative forms of energy. The Saudis wouuld be wise to increase production so the price comes down, otherwise their customers will find another source of energy that the Saudi's won't be selling. I imagine if the price of solar electricity were to come down they could setup huge solar electric generating plants in the desert and sell bulk electricity to Europe and Asia. As much as OPEC wants to stick it to us, they don't want to drive us away from them either.

-Jay

I believe that fuel product pricing should be based on the price of crude oil when it was purchased, refined and delivered. Not changed daily as current crude oil prices escalate!

you do realize that it goes both ways though. even though it doesn't seem that way right now.

when the prices go down, there is the same instantaneous affect.

7% profit is a killing???

should we then CRUCIFY manufacturers of soda, beer, pharm drugs, candy, toys, etc whose profit margins exceed 7%?

at least most of us NEED fuel. most of us do NOT need these products.

Usually in business you like to see at least 20% profit. 7% is nothing.

-Jay

Umm...Just a few miles (<10) from my home, it's already happening. Maybe not to Europe and Asia, but at least to L.A.

https://www.esolar.com/news/press/2008_06_03

But if the price of oil were to drop, I'll wager you'd want to see the price at the gas station go down immediately...

:thumbup: :thumbup:

The truth is that there is plenty of supply!!! The oil companies have oil fields tapped and ready to go in Alaska, Hawaii, and elsewhere. They have the required permits and permission. And yet they don't draw out the oil. Instead they try to secure even more oil. Oil companies don't control prices?! So you're saying that if one oil company lowered their prices, the others wouldn't follow suit? They'd just let that one company rail their ***?

So you think there's no cause-and-effect with all the oil companies merging back to what they were before the government broke up the monopolies ie standard oil? They all merge and then gas prices go crazy. Hmm... deregulation is great!!

Just because the government sucks doesn't mean they have to suck and that they always will suck. There's no reason why we can't push them to do something and do it right. So enough of that fatalism. I found the Walmart mention hilarious. Walmart keeps their prices cheap by having a BS health care plan, low low wages, and poor working conditions. When you shop at Walmart you just dig us in a deeper hole. Good companies lose your business, cut their workers hours or lay them off. Then they all go to Walmart for lower pay, no benefits, end up on public assistance which you either pay for in taxes, or you will pay for in lack of social security.

Good advice. You should take it.

Your omission of facts and details to spin it is ridiculous.

Obviously you missed the part about every Republican administration since Reagan stealing from the Social Security fund to bankroll tax cuts for the rich. Do you want to make any guesses about when the problems with the Social Security fund started??

And apparently you missed the part about investing in alternative energies implemented by the Carter administration only to be immediately abandoned by Reagan - while simultaneously giving oil companies even more advantages and opportunities to corner the market.

I can only imagine your disappointment as Bush is leaving office! :rolleyes:

This wasn't a political bashing thread, but that's no big deal, however if you want to lie by omission of facts or out of ignorance, I'm going to call you on it.

[QUOTE=lowbridescape;112959]Not conservation...anti-human policies. They cater to organizations that see humans has a pestilence. And what alternative energy have they actually supported rather than just played lip service to? Wind power? No, it kills birds, makes noise and blocks Teddy Kennedy's view of the horizon. Nuke? Heaven forbid. Sugar cane ethanol? Banned. Shale oil? Banned. The only 'alternative energy' policy they have actually acted on is corn based ethanol...a fuel so inefficient to produce and use, it is probably a net loss overall. But it buys the support of the corn lobby.


wind power is exploding- the firms that produce turbines are maxed out. the bird killing issue is real and being worked on, environmentalists are very much in favor of wind power:
https://www.treehugger.com/files/2006...n_misconce.php

sugar cane ethanol is not banned. sugar cane simply does not grow well here.
https://money.cnn.com/2007/08/06/news...anol/index.htm

shale oil production is ramping up domestically:
https://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...9/ai_n24190073

corn based ethanol sucks, that much is true (that stupid iowa primary gets that state lts of money. (Hardly a "Liberal" conspiracy). But otherwise you are grossly misinformed and attempting to misinform others.

The reason we do not see offshore oil drilling is that rich Republicans with Bush senor and Jeb Bush's help blocked it in the gulf, and Rich and powerful Democrats block it in Southern California. hardly a Liberal Conspiracy. The Republicans had the votes to lift the ban untill the 2004 midterms. Why didn't they? Politics. And politics is not as simple as blaming everything on the evil environmentalists.

"The issue also makes for a fascinating family drama since the president's father, President George H.W. Bush, signed the order banning offshore drilling, while his brother Jeb more recently opposed such drilling when he was governor of Florida.

Florida's current governor, Charlie Crist, has been an opponent of offshore drilling, but he now has an open mind about it since McCain's embrace. Crist's name has come up as a possible vice presidential running mate on the GOP ticket. "

https://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/...mccain.energy/

If you want more production tell the environmentalists to allow the companies to drill in certain "environmentally sensitive" areas. Proven oil reserves are important to have because they are, well, reserves. If the reserves get low and we think the oil might run out soon, shooting up like a rocket goes the oil/gas price. Liberals are usually those who prevent us from going into these places. Currently the US uses something like 1.8 million barrels of oil per day, but only produces something like 1.5 million. So we couldn't be self-sufficient even if we wanted to with the level of production we have now.

wind power is ok. Unfortunately, because wind is very variable, they are not reliable for power at all times and backup generators must be going near capacity anyways.

ethanol will likely never catch on like it was intended as long as it is a net loss energy producer (which it is). Production of ethanol in the US, which is mostly by corn, puts a stress on not only our food supply but water as well. Corn is a very thirsty plant, and the irrigation it needs in most areas sucks up aquifer water.

oil shale is much like ethanol. We still need to find ways to make it more efficient.

IMO, hydro and solar power are the best, with nuclear right behind. but those don't help with petroleum fuels for vehicles, obviously.

From what I've seen, there are many places where the wind blows steadily enough for wind to be VERY productive. I see the turbines in Tehachapi running most every day. (OK, there are a few days they don't run, but for the most part they do.) In fact, So. Cal. Edison is upgrading the power lines running from Tehachapi to L. A. County, because there is already more generating capacity available even with the 25-30 year old turbines than there is powerline capacity. Not to mention when all those vintage turbines are upgraded from the old 50kW shrimps to modern 1.5 MW units...

Then there is the midwest (especially corn country), and west Texas...with enough wind turbines, you will have pretty steady power because there is always SOMEWHERE where profitable winds are blowing...

With nuclear you have that pesky problem of what to do with the waste and old, worn out nuclear reactors.

I always thought the hydrogen cell was the coolest idea. You set up solar/wind hydrogen stations across the US (the sun isn't going to burn out for a while) to produce hydrogen where it can safely be stored in cells. Then, when your car is running low, you pull up, exchange cells, and drive away. The infrastructure and safety issues are the biggest hurdles to overcome, but once you do, you have a clean, renewable source of energy to drive vehicles that would last much longer than anything we drive now. These same cells could be used to power your home as well, enabling you to be off the grid, so to speak. Pipe dreams I guess. :rolleyes:

And quit all the political bashing. Both parties are full of self serving douche bags with a few exeptions for each. ;)

Focus on vehicular efficiency, which addresses the problem at its source. Then everything else can follow its natural progression of competition and the resulting lower overall cost.

We hypermilers are the revolutionaries of the energy conservation corps. The people who clearly demonstrate that you can make it more efficient even though vehicles are very poorly designed for efficiency, and every argument about the state of the status quo being acceptable is ludicrous.

We prove it every day.

Automate hypermiling in the near term and eliminate the speed variations we find essential by hypermiling the storage capacity of the vehicle itself. The transition is much simpler than many would believe.

regards
gary

All these silly schemes to lower gas prices are getting annoying. But I guess it is just it is a part of the process of America coming to grips to the fact that oil is a finite resource. Sooner or later (if not already) supply of oil has to peak, and increasing demand will only exacerbate the problem. The political reactions as a consequence are predictable and unfortunate: politicians will feed into the peoples short-sighted fears, and offer illogical but comforting "solutions" as opposed to logical but more painful solutions that actually address the core problem.
Albert Einstein once said ?Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.? This is applicable to this situation. People are stuck in the same old way of thinking, they are too focused on the price of gas. The price of gas is only a market mechanism that illustrates the problem, that is, that we rely on an unsustainable and volatile source of energy, AKA "we're addicted to oil".
So even if the government artificially lowers the price of gas, it will not address the the underlying problem. In fact, by removing this incentive to invest in alternative technologies coupled with higher oil prices in the future, it will only push the consequences into the future and make them worse when we finally have to face them.
So, be careful what you wish for.

the gov't need not "artificially" lower prices, just allow domestic drilling and let supply and demand actually lower them. that's to say nothing of eliminating speculators and putting pressure on the middle east to lower their crude to stay competitive.

most or all here that support domestic drilling also support alternative fuels and conservation.

in case not everyone has heard, the US economy just lost MILLIONS of dollars as another company went under(Benigans/Steak and Ale). this is not even to mention the individuals who are in dire financial situations.

if we don't impliment a comprehensive plan for present and future energy, that includes extracting and refining more of our own oil, we will go beyond recession into a depression.

US oil production peaked in the 70s. US production is now only 30% of it's consumption. We'll be lucky if new drilling in US could just offset the decline from existing fields. Don't count on miracles, last of the giants been discovered in the 70's, we need to drill to slow down the decline. The only way for US to become energy independent in the next 15-20 years is a miracle technology or 70-90% reduction in demand, e.g. stage 5 die-off.

World wide production peaked in 2005 and now is being supplemented with unconventional sources, so total liquids production 05'-08' look like plateau, but we are now spending more energy to produce those sources, so net energy for end consumption is dropping.

Demand in oil producing countries is skyrocketing - they are keeping more oil for themselves, so net oil exports are dropping even faster then production.

The government will not solve this problem, their taxation and redistribution schemes will choke off remaining supply.

Energy and liquid fuels are important not only for transportation, but also food production, heating and manufacturing - e.g. battery powered cars, solar panels, wind turbines, infrastructure

I follow this site for discussion on energy: https://www.theoildrum.com/
A lot of great articles by folks with scientific background, substantiated with quantitative analysis. It's really a great resource.

For political/social outcome scenarios, check out Dmitry Orlov's new book - "Reinventig Collapse", or just some of his articles here:
The five stages of collapse
Here:
Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US

And his blog here:
https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/

Enjoy
Ross

outstanding links!!! too much info to even begin to discuss.

no doubt that one could NOT read these comprehensively and still conclude that we should not drill for new oil!

Drilling for more oil to solve the problem is like giving a cocaine addict more cocaine to help with his problem. We need to be more energy efficient. We need to buy locally when we can. Our dependence on oil no matter where it comes from is our problem.

what will replace oil TODAY for our entire energy needs? we need to drill now while developing alternative fuels, PERIOD.

I like your cocaine analogy... Its more true than you think....


Ok, so we're addicted, and there isn't a specific treatment for it. Yeah, there's some experimental stuff in trials, but it won't help us with our problem right now. We need to regulate our use of cocaine (oil), and continue to produce it until we can get our treatment (alternative fuels) into full scale production and distribution, otherwise you will have the public going through oil "DT's".

-Jay

I'm not sure drugs analogy is valid. For decades, oil allowed more and more people to experience better quality of life. Fighting this "addiction" would be like fighting one's addiction to breathing air or eating food.

Resource depletion will require corresponding reduction in population. This could be done gradually through attrition (e.g. birth/death ratio), if depletion is slow and there is support from population. Or we could have a repeat of Rwanda 1994 Genocide (too many people, not enough land) on the global scale.

Miracle technology might save the day, but being that peak oil is happening right now, and major infrastructure upgrades take 15-20 year to implement... looks like we are in for some pain in the coming years.

Ross

We can cut back on oil use in so many ways beyond driving. Plastic water bottles and soda bottle, plastic walmart bags, stryofoam fast food containers and coffee cups. Oil is very useful, don't get me wrong, but were using it like it's the only rescource we have. This leads me to an "addiction" analogy. It's all a matter of changing bad habits we have acquired living in a throw away society.

I know I sound like tree hugger.