Gas-out? (Not my post...)

NOTE: Not my screaming, I just copied and pasted. This was going fine until the OP brought up the Administration controlling gas prices. Seems to me I remember Nixon doing this. Can anybody say, "Rubber Band"?

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NEt LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE Sept 10TH HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT TO THEM DAY" AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.

WAITING ON THIS ADMINISTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD

Reply to
Hachiroku
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not going to happen it would take a miracle if just one day everyone didnt drive their cars and the streets wouldd be sooo empty

Reply to
freestylez

snipped

You know this has been going on for some time. It just keeps coming back in different forms.

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Reply to
badgolferman

Thanks for posting the link. It save me having to look it up. It's too hot for that... :>))

Reply to
TOM

Reply to
Bob Palmer

Yeah, I know. It pops up every time the price of gas rises more then a few cents a gallon.

But, in theory, economically, there would be an effect on the gas companies. They project that they will sell x gallons per day. When this expectation is not met, what happens is the trucks and other delivery methods expect to pump out x*days gallons through the system. Since they DIDN'T sell x gallons on Sept 10, it does create a backup in the system. IF everyone buying fuel stopped on Sept 10, then it would mess up their delivery system by millions of gallons.

However, like so and so said (bgm?) people would make up by buying more the day before or the day after, hence the next deilvery would still be the same. It needs to be spread over a number of days, say a weekend, and as suggested everyone STOP any extra driving, or carpool, or bicycle, etc to NOT use those gallons that would put a crimp in the delivery system and cause a backup at the terminals.

Reply to
HachiRoku

I don't think the Administration is controlling gas price. But it's definite doing things to help gas price to go up, such as starting a war, make enemies with oil exporting countries, etc.

Reply to
XYZ ABC

Hey, don't forget about causing hurricanes. The government controls the weather, you know.

Reply to
Mark

that one is spreading like wildfire.

Reply to
Learning Richard

Hachiroku wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ae86.gts:

Well, no.

That "calculation" was invented by an economic ignoramus.

Investors/speculators would snap up the surplus at bargain prices, driving demand and price back up again, at which time they'd sell at a profit.

Oil companies do not set prices. Why is this so difficult for so many people to understand? Nobody's ever heard of commodities trading, or Mercantile Exchanges?

If you're really concerned, tell the US government to stop meddling in other countries' affairs, and to reduce regulation and legislation that creates artifical shortages. All these things dramatically drive up market bids for oil.

Reply to
TeGGeR®

Exactly! Ever wonder why SmithBarney keeps releasing it "analysts" "Research" saying oil price will go over $100? Remember how SmithBarney use "analysts" to drive up WorldCom? Remember how Enron manipulating electricity supplies in California to drive up price?

We should have laws forbidding investors/speculators from trading such essential commodities as electricity and oil. What does SmithBarney have anything to do with oil?

Reply to
XYZ ABC

Yup - I used to reply all when one of my friends sent me numerous urban legend emails - *her* friends complained that I was emailing them!

If the stupid twerps want to keep perpetuating ULs, that's their business, but most people appreciate the clarification.

So now I just send it back to whomever sent it to me (The one friend is still the only one who refuses to check with Snopes). Whether she passes it on to her friends is anyone's guess.

Ya try to help people....

:-)

Natalie

Reply to
Wickeddoll®

I don't see a "one day boycott" causing anything more than a blip on the radar of the oil companies - Everyone will tank up the day before (creating a noticeable but not huge spike) and/or the day after (creating yet another spike). The day of the "Big Action" you'd get only a small percentage to participate, meaning the dip in retail sales would be slight. Working or traveling people would not have the option to not buy gasoline that day.

For the week as a whole the sales figures wouldn't budge, and I sincerely doubt that commodities speculators could get a toehold in it.

The entire petroleum industry in the USA (and much of the world) is broken (some would say Rigged) because every step on the supply side of oil extraction, transportation, refining, distribution and retail system is being actively and artificially constrained by the sellers.

We don't pump much oil out of the ground in the continental USA because it's 'heavy' or 'sour' and harder to refine, so domestic wells sit untapped - and OPEC has us in a tight spot. We're addicted to 'light sweet crude' and OPEC members are the pushers.

There's a huge artificial "war tax" being applied at the well, because of the unrest in the middle east and potential terrorist acts the brokers are using it as a dodge to push up crude prices. Same thing with the hurricane season potentially closing a few Gulf Of Mexico offshore platforms or coastal refineries, people are trying to make a killing on the commodities market.

The US oil industry already (allegedly) has all the operating refineries running flat-out to meet demand, and the oil companies (with politicians in their pocket) legally constrain new refineries from opening, and refuse to expand the existing ones, creating an artificial supply bottleneck.

They announce a fire or other problem crippling a refinery and the prices spike. I'd love to see the security camera tapes, as a worker (think "Steve Urkel") loosens a bolt so the seal can blow out and cause that cracking tower to catch fire. Followed by a perfectly innocent sounding "Did I do that?" (In other words, "Coincidence? We don't think so.")

And even when the refineries have a chance to 'catch up' and bank some refined gasoline and diesel in a tank farm to cover these problems, they don't. There's no incentive for a refinery to build up a few extra days of refined product inventory to cover the emergencies, since the resulting price spike will work in their favor.

Even at retail, the refiners have their fingers deep in the pie - Zone Pricing gets them the highest price the poor suckers (excuse me, "Customers") will bear for the area, and screw the poor station owner if they can't make a living on the three or four cents a gallon markup the oil company allows them to make.

There are several practical solutions:

  1. Allow new refineries to be built, or some mothballed refineries to be upgraded and reopened (USA Petroleum, Ventura CA, et al) without a ton of EPA emissions BS to wade through. Refining is an inherently dirty business - you can clean it up a whole lot, but the government can't require absolute perfection.

  1. Stop using "Astroturf" protests (faked 'grass roots' protests) to prevent construction of new refineries or reopening closed ones like the example above. The other oil companies allegedly spent some money and stirred up the local NIMBY crowd when USA bought and tried to reopen that refinery.

  2. Prevent debacles like (for example) Shell trying to shut down their perfectly good and operating Martinez CA refinery that "is surplus to our needs because it primarily makes diesel fuel" - yeah, "only" a large percentage of the diesel fuel used in the entire state. And Shell and the other refiners would have to divert some of the production at other refineries from gasoline to diesel. (Good news - the regulators finally forced them to sell it, still in operation, to Flying J Truck Stops.)

  1. Give refiners and pipeline depots financial incentives to bank a few extra days of refined inventory in tank farms along the route, to smooth out price spikes from pipeline or refinery trouble.

  2. Get down to two or three emissions blends for gasoline and diesel for the whole country, so it can easily be shipped between regions.

  1. Go do the exploration and pilot well drilling and tests in ANWR, and other promising spots through Alaska and the Lower 48. Give federal incentives to do it if needed. They don't need to go for production wells in ANWR yet, just proving we have a few billion barrels proven and ready to go should get OPEC to start behaving better.

(And if they can't build production wells and a pipeline with absolutely no environmental impact, they are doing it wrong. They can slant drill the wells out from a few small patches of land.)

  1. Get our national appetite for fuel down. More hybrids and alternate fuel vehicles where we need them - a Prius is nice, but I need a 3/4 to 1-ton work truck that can get 25% better mileage, not a compact sedan. You can even apply the same technologies to trains, heavy trucks and buses, and make an even bigger dent.

  1. Cut oil use for power - it should only be used for emergencies and 'peaking plants' in the summer. Get Yucca Mountain done for a proper disposal site, and a few more sites in other states, and get cracking on Nuclear Power again. It can be done safely if you put smart people in charge. Start reprocessing all the old fuel rods sitting in storage pools and casks to reduce the waste stream, and recycle (down-refine) surplus weapons-grade fissile materials whenever possible.

8A. More clean coal powerplants, too. We've got lots of coal.

But this would require cooperation from the oil companies, POTUS, the Congress, the Senate, the auto makers, power utilities, and a lot of governmental bureaucrats - many of which are in Big Oil's pocket from political contributions. Not impossible, but it certainly will be damned difficult.

Wouldn't it be nice to have the Initiative System on the national level? That's one nice thing California has, if there's a huge problem and the Legislature refuses to act, We The People can force the change right over their heads. It usually works.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

"XYZ ABC" wrote in news:Ma8Qe.49940$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com:

Enron's situation was caused entirely by the government's monkeying with the money supply, and California and Ontario's governments having set up an atrociously flawed energy pricing system that was easily gamed.

Speculators are necessary. Restricting them would cause distortions that could cause even higher prices than we have now.

Remember that speculators are gamblers and can guess *wrong*, too, and often end up losing their shirts. Just like short-sellers.

Reply to
TeGGeR®

You can't "guess" wrong in commodity market if you have hundreds of billions of dollars in your hand. Especially for essential commodities like oil and electricity. Thank god they can't trade electricity, or can they?

Reply to
XYZ ABC

They do it every day. Remember "Gray-out" Davis?

Reply to
HachiRoku

"XYZ ABC" wrote in news:jhiQe.51286$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com:

Commodities trading is done for huge values, like hundreds of billions of dollars. You can easily (and literally) make and lose billions in minutes in that business. The pressures are huge, burnout is common, and bankruptcy is a blink away. It's a job for brash, bold, egotistical young men. Commodities traders (especially currency traders) are not conservative with their bets.

My wife spent years on the investment side of the financial industry, which is how I know all this.

Everybody seems to think if you have billions of dollars you must be a crook. That's a silly notion.

That was Enron's main business.

It was the horribly designed governmental re-regulation of the electricity market that enabled Enron to game it and make very good money doing so. What brought Enron down was their attempts to hide losses that were due to the US government's currency debasement.

Commodities trading is a very important part of the pricing mechanism that makes the industrialized world run. Without it, markets would be very inefficient. Maybe almost as bad as if the government ran them.

Reply to
TeGGeR®

We can certainly agree that there a few billionaires who got that way by following the rules.

Reply to
Learning Richard

WOW-way to go Bruce, thats one of the most intelligent articles I have read...

Reply to
Paul

Bruce L. Bergman wrote: snip

Bruce, Read your entire post, applaud your knowledge of the oil/gas situation and agree with most of it. I really liked the quote I included from your post and can only turn green with envy that California has this system in place and the area I live in doesn't. And, as you state, we don't have it on a national level as well. The hardest part of politics to accept today is the fact that a candidate will promise anything the public wants to hear to get elected and once they are in office will put the screws to any and every-one who doesn't have enough money to get their attention. I guess in a small sense this might be good but in a large sense it's dangerous for the political stability of our country. Slowly the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until a revolution happens. I'm not preaching anarchy in any way but it has happened so many times, for the above reasons, in the history of the world it's hard to imagine people, especially politicians, forget the adage: "History repeats itself". Sorry to get off-topic so much but I just had to vent. :-) davidj92

Reply to
davidj92

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