Gas Prices

[mindido]

lumbaugh,

Pulled your head out of the sand again?

"and i dont recall hearing anything at all at $5 or higher... except your predictions, that is... "

http://thekneeslider.com/images/gasprices.jpg

(Will have to add this to the lumbaugh stupid comments page.) Lumbaugh, being as this only happened a couple of months ago, it seems your having a bit of a problem with short term memory. You might want to get that checked out as its one of the first indicators of Alzheimers.

Also found this, thought it was pretty funny:

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/X/R/gasprices.jpg

You know, you must be the only person in the world that doesn't understand that SUV's are inherently top heavy, thus prone to roll over. Jeez, none of the manufacturers hide that fact.

Time to put your head back in the sand.

 

[mindido]

It seems we'd better get ready for higher gasoline prices. Iran's threat to cut production and the current turmoil in Nigeria have driven wholesale prices back up above $65 per barrel (we haven't seen that price since last October).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060117...0IBagas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3bGI2aDNqBHNlYwM3NDk-

 

[mindido]

Well, oil is back above $68 per barrel and, if we don't watch out, it could be headed significantly higher. The reason? Nigeria is a mess. If you don't know whats going on, here's a brief article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060120...ghvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Most importantly, Iran. Watch out here! Their government really dislikes the US (no surprise there) and has resumed research on nuclear weapons (they say their research is for peaceful purposes but.....). The EU has been trying to negotiate with Iran to stop but talks have failed and there is now talk of referring Iran to the UN security council.

Iran is threatening to cut off the US and EU of it oil (nobody is taking this seriously at the moment) and is asking OPEC to cut production by a million barrels per day.

So, be careful. This Iran situation could have some very deliterious effects.

 

[mindido]

Holy crap! This could be either bad news, or very bad news.

Iran is pulling most, if not all, of its money out of European investments (approximately $50 billion).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4632144.stm

That didn't take long.

 

[Duke E. Pyle]

So is this Isreals green light or what? Is there any chance that Iran WON"T be attacked? Scary shit.

 

[mindido]

So is this Isreals green light or what? Is there any chance that Iran WON"T be attacked? Scary shit.

Duke,

I don't know what the Israeli's will do here. I don't think they will be the first to attack, but who knows. You can bet the Iranians learned a lot from the Israeli attack on Iraq's facilities years ago so you can pretty much bet that the Iranians most important facilities are far below ground. I saw some General the other day saying that they would probably need at least 5 to 6 bunker busters just to get close to some of these facilities.

I guess there is a chance Iran won't be attacked. Almost all of the Generals I've seen on the tube recently seem to think that we won't (or can't) do it now. So if we don't do it, and the Israeli's don't, who's left? The EU?

And yeah, this is pretty damn scary.

 

[Duke E. Pyle]

Isreal is supposed to have 5000 bunker busters which i have to assume was just pretty much for this instance. At about 10 meters of concrete penetration per bomb, the location would be the hard part it seems. Some good news is that every forum i've seen with Iranians speaking on the subject say that they {Iran} would never attack anyone 1st and seem to pretty much hate their government and their govs beliefs and ideas. Isreals preperations for this along with Irans recent comments and your link really is depressing. Fuck i hope this is one instance where 1+1 does not equal 2. With all this shit heating up we'll probably need a new thread for the subject.

 

[mindido]

Duke,

From what I've seen on the subject, the Iranians have dispersed their nuclear facilities all over the country. This is one of the things they learned from the Israeli attack on Iraq years ago. Some of these would be pretty easy to get to with cruise missiles, but you'd have to use a lot of them. Their most important facilities are buried very deep and only the Iranians (apparently) know precisely where they are.

And I've heard the same thing about the Iranian people. The problem here is that they're not the ones making the outlandish statements and decisions. We (or someone affiliated with us) will be the first to let missiles fly in order to stop their nuclear program (is there really any doubt about that?). So they will have to retaliate.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail here. But if they don't, watch oil head north of $100 per barrel.

 

[mindido]

I was watching 60 Minutes last night and they had an interesting article on the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. For a transcript, see here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/20/60minutes/main1225184.shtml

But the most interesting part of the article was an interview with T. Boone Pickens (a Texas oilman from way back) who said:

"Does Pickens think the days of cheap oil are gone?

"They’re gone," he says. "From what we knew as cheap oil, when I pumped gasoline in Ray Smith’s Sinclair station on Hinkley Street in Holdenvale, Oklahoma, 11 cents a gallon, that’s gone."

Will we ever again see $1.50 a gallon? "We won’t ever see $1.50 a gallon. No, that’s gone," says Pickens."

 

[cableguy]

quoting a founder now, i see... here are a couple more from ben that you may use--free of charge--when in a political discussion..

" I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-- Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1776

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
-- Benjamin Franklin

if the US doesnt kill irans nuke program, israel will--whether or not anyone wants them to... for them, it isnt about anything less than survival... if that happens, perhaps, if we are lucky, the arab/israel thing will flare up and be fought to the finish... once one side wins, there will be peace... this will have no real affect on oil prices outside of the pre and early conflict jitters, which are utterly unfounded...

opec needs desperately to be broken, by whatever means necessary... only then can a realistic price on a barrel of oil be expected... look for that price to be signifigantly lower than pre-katrina levels... naturally, as most politicians lack the stones to do this, it probably wont happen in the near future...

gas prices... never topped 4 bucks per gallon where i live, actually, i dont recall them being even in the mid 3 dollar range, and if the sign you posted is legit, you may well have a case for gouging... perhaps folks here dont panic at the first sign of bad news somewhere... the per barrel price of gas hasnt really affected the price at the pump much at all here... it was below 2 bucks for a couple weeks, and has been floating between 2.05 and 2.25 since then... neither is much of a burdon...

 

[mindido]

lumbaugh,

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

Hmmm, isn't that exactly whats happening with the Abramoff (and other) scandals?

"if we are lucky, the arab/israel thing will flare up and be fought to the finish... once one side wins, there will be peace..."

Umm, lets see, there have been how many wars over there so far (4 to 7)?

"opec needs desperately to be broken, by whatever means necessary... only then can a realistic price on a barrel of oil be expected..."

You prove my point precisely that this whole thing is about oil. The sooner we get away from our addiction to it, the sooner we can thumb our noses at what happens in that area of the world.

 

[Iceberg]

opec needs desperately to be broken, by whatever means necessary... only then can a realistic price on a barrel of oil be expected...

And that would be what, cable?

The Europeans pay about $3US per litre, or about $10-12US per gallon. And you complain about $3US per gallon??? We in North America are fooling ourselves if we think $3US per gallon is expensive.

Hell, we pay more for water than for gasoline! That is how ridiculously low the price of gasoline is. A non-renewable resource is cheaper than a renewable resource. We in North America have seriously got our priorities wrong.

Rather than wasting so much gasoline, a resource that will never be recovered, on gas-guzzling SUVs, trucks, and (obscene) Hummers, we should be conserving oil for use in more valuable and resuable products. Either that, or leave it in the ground for future generations to figure out, perhaps, a life-saving use for it.

 

[mindido]

Well, its that time of the year to report 4th quarter profits. Chevron is the first oil company to issue its report with a record $4.14 billion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060127...rQAUxSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3bGI2aDNqBHNlYwM3NDk-

Just a few quotes:

"a company record that continued the most prosperous stretch in the oil company's 126-year history"

"Its profit of $14.1 billion for the full year was also a company record."

"Chevron now has posted record annual profits in each of the last two years, earning a combined $27.4 billion."

Exxon's report is due out Monday.

 

[mindido]

Exxon's 4th Qtr. Report

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4662474.stm

A few quotes:

"Fourth-quarter earnings jumped to $10.7bn (£8.8bn) from $8.4bn in the same period last year."

"The results drove Exxon's annual profit to $36.13bn - 42% up on last year."

"Exxon Mobil beat its own record, reporting the highest quarterly profit for a U.S. company..."

""It's an exceptionally strong quarter -- they're the world's most profitable company," said Robert Lutts, president of Cabot Money Management."

"Putting it in perspective, Exxon made about $116 million a day in the last three months of 2005."

"The results pushed up Exxon's profit for the year to a staggering $36.13 billion -- bigger than the economies of 125 of the 184 countries ranked by the World Bank."

And, just as an aside, Venezuela has given Exxon until the end of the year to renegotiate its contracts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4544390.stm

 

[Texan]

I'm glad I kept my stock in Exxon, a few more quarters like this and I just might be able to retire at 45

 

[mindido]

Tex,

Having tons of fun filling up that big old truck too, I bet.

 

[Texan]

Tex,

Having tons of fun filling up that big old truck too, I bet.

Yeah thats why I said 45 instead of 40! LOL!

Its not too bad, I only spend about 50 bucks a week.

 

[DBfan187]

prices went down a nickle here.

 

[maddgreek]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsa...63_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-EXXON-EARNS.xml&rpc=23

 

[cableguy]

iceberg, i dont know what a free market price on a barrel of oil would be... no one does, because there is no free oil market...

mindido, more name calling, i see... yes, the abramoff thing is part of the people voting themselves the treasury, but only a small part... that one refers to transfer payments... politicians promising to take from someone else and give to their voters... welfare, social security, medicare, medicaid, farm and corporate subsidies, all of these are detrimental to American society, and should be done away with...

the arab/israel thing has never been fought to the finish... it has been fough to a cease fire, not to a defeat and a victory... peace never comes from a cease fire... it comes when one side is vanquished, unable to fight any longer...

ending dependance on foreign oil isnt something you can just snap your fingers and do... increased domestic production is the first step, and after that, innovation must be given time... no one forced this nation to abandon horses in favor of cars, but it happened... why should there be a federal mandate in this case???

iceberg, first, i DONT complain about gas prices... they are what they are... second, i dont believe oil is a nonrenewable resource... even if it is, what is the harm in using it?? what else would it be there for??? what good does it do while it is in the ground?? i dont believe that oil is created the way i was taught in school some decades ago... i believe that we humans have extracted and used more oil than could have been created through whatever decomposition process is theorized... oil can be found in many places, and its location is more a function of geology than history.. otherwise, we would be looking for it near fossil beds...

how is oil created?? how much organic material is required to create a barrel of oil??? how much time??? no one knows, to my knowledge... "where does oil come from" is, at best, unanswered...

another thing that pisses me off is the concept of "excess profits." this is not taught anywhere in business school... there is no such thing as "excess profits." and heres what really gets me... the next time someone tells me the oil companies should be giving up those mythical excess profits, i have every intention of demanding of that person that they support a reimbursement to that company for any "excess losses" it may EVER have... oil companies dont always do well... the last time they were doing nearly this well, they took a huge hit within the next few years... all the gains were lost... i am confident that not a single soul rallying against the oil companies now will favor economic assistance, should an oil company need it...

hypocrites...