[Vision2020] Gas prices [was: Can we not find...]

[Ralph Nielsen]

Right you are, Jay. That was why I wrote this. Don 't count on  
Bachmann either.

I was also pointing out that Americans have very little to complain  
about re gas prices when compared with most other countries.

Ralph

On Aug 19, 2011, at 11:26 AM, Jay Borden wrote:

> Aside from taxes, it doesn’t matter what party is in office, they  
> have very little (if any) control over the cost of gasoline.   
> (Foreign wars and unrest in the middle east not withstanding).  The  
> BIG OIL companies that many on here love to bash so heavily also  
> have very little to do with the cost of fuel at the pump.  If you  
> take a peek at their model, it’s a pretty straight-forward “cost-of- 
> goods to produce + markup” business.  Yes, a VERY BIG BUSINESS, but  
> one that makes the profit on VOLUME, not on price gouging.
>
> The two largest driving forces in the cost of oil?  OPEC and taxes.
>
> The government makes more in taxes on a single gallon of gasoline  
> than the BIG OIL company that refined it and delivered it to your  
> local gas station.  (If I remember reading it correctly, this has  
> been true for the past 25 years, with only 1 or 2 years being an  
> exception).
>
> The other driving force, OPEC, is just unified enough to keep the  
> supply/demand metric at a price point JUST above the break-even  
> point for alternative forms of energy to become economically  
> viable… and they damned well know it.  (They produce something like  
> 45% of the world’s crude oil supply… so they are the 800 pound  
> gorilla in the market).   If indicators show that suddenly a new  
> form of wind technology or solar energy design can be made for  
> cheaper, by some MIRACLE the cost per barrel of oil goes down just  
> a tad.    OPEC is business collusion in its WORST form.
>
> Think about it this way:  a 42-gallon “barrel” of oil sold on the  
> market today is right around $84 (rounding to make the math easy).
>
> That means that the COST of the oil is $2 a gallon before it goes  
> to any refining process… tack on a refining cost, tack on  
> transportation/distribution costs and then tack on taxes… and now  
> you’re starting to approach the current cost of a gallon of gasoline.
>
> This is why I roll my eyes when morons like Bachman declare “when  
> I’m president, I’ll return to $2.00 a gallon gasoline” [to  
> paraphrase]… (yah, good luck with that).
>
>
> Jay
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110819/262e838c/attachment-0001.html