Gas prices

why of course it's Bush's fault, why didn't I think of that. If we had clinton in there the oil would be much cheaper....

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Eight years ago, a barrel of crude oil cost approximately $10. Now, it's at 90. Ridiculous. The last time the price was this high was when this president's father was in office. That's not a coincidence.

The price of oil during Bush Sr administration was about $15 - $22 a barrel on average, except for a very brief period just before the 1991 Gulf War.

Please don't distort the truth.

In any case crude closed at $90.60 today. I have posted some articles and ideas in my discussion group that may interest you -

Built_Well wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com:

Not even close.

The record high in today's dollars was seen in April 1979: $101.70.

I do believe a Democrat by the name of James Earl Carter occupied the executive suite at that time.

In message news:Xns99D4D5FBB47Dtegger@207.14.116.130, Tegger sprach forth the following:

Ever wonder why there's something called "Today's Dollars"?

Because the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air, creating inflation.

This is what they mean when they say "the Fed added liquidity". A euphemism for "printing money out of thin air, devaluing every dollar you have".

In message news:Xns99D4DEAA9ABB5tegger@207.14.116.130, Tegger sprach forth the following:

So vote for Juan McCain or Miguel Huckabee.

In message news:Xns99D4E5908B5Ategger@207.14.116.130, Tegger sprach forth the following:

Yes, since you don't know much about Ron Paul.

Wasn't he the fella that pushed through something called the "Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax?" What *did* that do to the price of oil in the years that followed passage?

Well, now that we're all talking about ethnic matters, let me say that I think some of the most un-biased people I know are Christians who have married Jews, and Jews who have married Christians.

These folks show that love can overcome difference :-)

In message news:47215566$0$90453$ snipped-for-privacy@auth.newsreader.octanews.com, Built_Well sprach forth the following:

They weren't married in Israel, 'cause Israel doesn't permit interfaith weddings.

Interesting, isn't it? At least in the Middle East, there has been absolutely **NO** interruption in the supply. And, in terms of the percentage of capacity taken off line by the frequently mentioned refinery maintenance, it has been nowhere near enough to explain the current prices.

Why? Only one thing will bring down the price of oil: Oil company execs removed from their homes at gunpoint and being coerced into explanations. That might not even do it.

I don't care what ethnicities are involved, there is going to be trouble when one spouse spends all their waking hours talking about car jacks and torque wrenches. No way Jose.

The amazing thing to me is the fact that it's taken the oil companies a century or so to figure out that they produce and sell a unique commodity. If you run out of milk, you can put soy milk on your cereal, or orange juice (Ewww) or even water to choke it down, and there are ersatz substitutes for almost everything else....but if you take off your gas cap, there's only one item that can go in the tank...not water, not milk, not wine or beer, or even cognac. Just gasoline. Thus, the oil companies can set a price ...any price....and get that price from the consumer who has to run his automobile. The old GM EV-1 starts looking pretty good, huh?

Oil companies don't set prices. The price of gas is primarily determined by the price of crude oil, which is a commodity traded around the world on various exchanges.

Since most oil used in the US is imported, and most importers (in terms of production) belong to OPEC, the prices are controlled by the cartel. The OPEC cartel controls the price of oil by acting in concert with other members to control production (limiting supply) in order to raise the price, which is illegal in the US and EU (for anti-trust reasons) but obviously we have no control over the OPEC members.

If oil consumed in the US was mostly produced in the US or even overseas by US companies (as was the case about 50 years ago), then we would be somewhat insulated from these monopolistic overseas cartels. Given that US politicians have made it almost impossible to extract major known reserves in Alaska and US off-shore waters, this is not likely to change any time soon.

Another reason for higher oil prices, is that oil is always traded in US dollars, even when bought and sold overseas. Since the US dollar has decreased about 40% relative to some other currencies such as the Euro, this raises the prices of oil.

Many of the large oil companies that sell gasoline in the US are now foreign owned, including BP (British Petroleum), Shell (Royal Dutch Shell Group), Fina/TOTAL (France), CITGO (owned Venezuela government, a member of OPEC), and others.

Interestingly, he was also the fella who pushed the prime rate up to nearly 20%. And the fella who stopped American support for the Shah of Iran, which resulted directly in the Islamic takeover of Iran and the current situation in Iran.

I suspect the Shah had no magical powers and would've died at some point. What do you think would've happened then? Build another Shah?

True, but there's a problem with the system: It works like the stock market. So, as everyone knows, the price of oil (like stocks) is disconnected from reality. This could be changed, but it won't be.