Re: Solution to gas prices: Nationalization

We're really having a disconnect here.

What about, say bread. The raw materials are in the ground sitting there. They're free. Add some seed, then a miracle occurs and you get wheat. Then another miracle occurs and you have bread. So - $0.10 a loaf ought to be about right.

What about a professional service - say a bridge design. The consulting engineer's out of pocket is maybe $100 for paper and ink. So how does he get to charge tens of thousands of dollars for something that, by your philosophy, only cost him $100?

What do you do for a living? Let's put your value added work to the same test as you want to put to the oil companies.

Like I've said, I'm not a fan of the oil companies, but let's be fair.

The engineer pays $100 for paper and ink that used to cost $25. Why isn't he only charging a couple hundred dollars for his services? Plug in any endeavor you want to - including whatever it is you do for a living. Your argument is ludicrous.

By the same general rules as any other for-profit endeavor. Again - let's put your job to the same analysis. I don't think we want to start telling each other what we have the right to charge. The market decides that.

I have no idea - I don't know enough about the business. I would not even venture a guess. I do know that if a competing viable form of energy were to be found, the price - by free market rules - will come down.

Fact is, they are making around 10% profit. Back to my original question - what's wrong with that?

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

My philosphy? I did not state what anything should sell for, but opened a discourse for everyone to contribute. You seem to think I'm saying it shoudl be cheap. I'm not against profit at all. I own stock in oil companies so I do want them to make a healthy profit.

Yes, let's be fair. They should make a profit. There are people that have stated that gas should be selling for $10 or more a gallon. What I'm asking is it they want to make a case for that, whee should that money go? The oil companies? The land holders? The goverment? There are others that think gas should sell for pennies. Maybe it should. The cost of raw material has not changed for a billlion years, only the cost of retrieving and processing it. Unlike you loaf of break, oils is just sitting in the ground whereas a farmer must plant and grow wheat at some expense.

What argument? I'm not arguing anything, I'm asking a question that you don't have the asnwer for. I'm not stating what I think gas should sell for at all. What I do for a living is ofer my services and knowledge. I get what I can for it. Gas is a product and the raw material itself, the crude oil, is there for the taking.

Hey, now you are catching on to the discussion here. I'm not suggesting anything. I'm soliciting opinions. Some have been brought forward over the past six months or so.. Some thing gas should be selloing for less, others for more. I'm just wondinering how they arrived at their conclusions. Especially from the poster here that said gas is not selling for its "true value". I'm asking what that "true value" is and how it was arrived at. Somehow you seem to have missed that part early on.

Nothing. As I said. I'm a shareholder. 15% would be better. Why do you think I'm against charging what it cost and a good profit? Rather than discuss a statement made by a poster here, you've become confrontational, or at least defensive when I never took a position either way. It still goes back to the OP and his "true value" of oil.

2006 Oil Profits 119 billion 2006 Election Cycle: Federal Campaigns: 18.9 million Federal Lobbying: 123.8 million State of California Campaigns: 91.6 million

March 06: Last month, the Bush administration confirmed that it expected the government to waive about $7 billion in royalties over the next five years, even though the industry incentive was expressly conceived of for times when energy prices were low.

"The big lie about this whole program is that it doesn't cost anything,'' said Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who tried to block its expansion last July. ''Taxpayers are being asked to provide huge subsidies to oil companies to produce oil, it's like subsidizing a fish to swim.''

But on Aug. 8, Mr. Bush signed a sweeping energy bill that contained $2.6 billion in new tax breaks for oil and gas drillers and a modest expansion of the 10-year-old ''royalty relief'' program. [end quotes]

It will be interesting to see how and by whom *this* current bill is killed:

I don't see the difference. There are costs in doing both (there are costs in getting the oil out of the ground just as there are up-front expenses that the farmer incurs before he has access to the processable raw material). The costs are different than each other, but nevertheless they are costs. What difference does it make at what point in the process the expense occurs. Again - I'm really missing the point there.

And there is expense in the taking just as the farmer has expense before he has access to his raw material. Again - what is your point there?

Sorry - I'd have to look back at what it was I was initially taking issue with. I'm just having trouble getting the point of some of your statements about the oil just sitting there for the taking, as if there are no costs involved there in contrast to the farmer who has up front expenses before he can harvest his wheat.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

To quote a great President, "There you again." Just thorw the raw dollar numbers out and ignore the fact that it is a respectable 10% profit. That's the dishonesty I was referring to earlier.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

LOL, now we're in the land of subjective.

Again, subjective but at least understandable. :)

Not nationalization which will only create an unresponsive Gov. bureaucracy.

I suggest the oil company excess profits go into a Gov. controlled carbon offset fund. Not a totally private carbon offset fund because the con artists like Gore will get their hands into it.

LOL, we wouldn't want any "con artists" involved in the oil business, that's for sure.

Yes, you missed the point so no sense trying to have an intelligent discussion about it.

Umm - OK - maybe someone much smarter than I will explain the point of your statement: "The cost of raw material has not changed for a billlion [sic] years, only the cost of retrieving and processing it. Unlike you [sic] loaf of break [sic], oils [sic] is just sitting in the ground whereas a farmer must plant and grow wheat at some expense."

You *appear* to be saying that there is something unique about the cost of getting oil out of the ground that makes it insignificant and/or impervious to inflation, while the farmer's cost of planting and harvesting wheat are more real and are more subject to inflation.

If that was not your point (which, if it is, is void of all logic), maybe someone besides you (to illustrate that your point was obvious to anyone, besides yourself of course, with more than an ounce of intelligence) will explain (1) exactly what the point of your statement was, and (2) how much perfect sense your statement makes in explaining why the dollars spent by a farmer taking the steps necessary to be able sell or harvest his wheat are different in nature than the dollars it takes to get the oil out of the ground, and why both cannot equally be considered costs of getting the raw material to the next step, which is processing of said raw material to turn it into a useful/sellable product.

Anybody?

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

OK - I'm seeing one point that I may have momentarily missed, but even with that accounted for, it doesn't make your point any more valid. I guess what you're saying is that the farmer's up front costs of planting have no counterpart in "creating" the oil. IF that is your point, it is moot. There are costs for "manufacturers" of both bread and oil - all subject to inflation - involved in getting it into a sellable form. The fact that the relative size of those costs at the different sub-stages prior to the point of consumer end-user purchase does not change the fact that there is a total bottom-line inflation-sensitive cost for getting both products to market.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

The cost of oil is the same. The cost of getting it has changed. You brought wheat into the conversation. We're taling oil prices here.

Never was the point. You long ago missed the point.

Why do yo keep bringing wheat into a discussion about the "true value" of oil. Go pack to the post before mine, where a poster said oil was not selling for its "true value" Keep the wheat and bread in the supermarket. Guess your argument is a "straw man" :)

Bill., the point of the original question was long ago lost. It has nothing to do with wheat, oranges, apples or how much profit a supermarket makes on watermelon. I never denied they have costs, were subject to inflation, or that oil companies should make a profit. There was a question about oil being sold for its "true value" and I questioned what that was. I'm sure most everyone has long ago lost interest in the subject. You missed the subject. There is no point in trying to go back to refine anyone's point about anything. Good luck with the farm and I hope your crop does well this year and you sell it for a large profit. Your farm subsidy check went to David Letterman anyway.

LOL. But......., did any country ever invade a sovereign nation to

*help* them harvest their wheat and fix it so they "helped" (for a reasonable price) for the next few decades? Can wheat really inspire that sort of altruism?

Moonbat alert.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

You have me confused with someone else.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

That was quite an expose on the CBC. Only an ultra-liberal would be so dishonest as to not be able to distinguish between a wall built by a communist country for the purpose of keeping its citizens from escaping to freedom from a wall built by another country to prevent illegal aliens from, among other things, stealing services that they never paid for in lieu of going thru a legal process to become citizens. Truly amazing and disgusting.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')