Gas prices and GW

[soarkrebel]

Now i supported bush but everytime i get gas i get mad![:@]
I havent heard anything about him trying to ease the gas prices on us. i havent heard anything about him being concerned about the price of gas.
I mean the economy stinks , folks losing jobs and some of us having to drive ( in my case 140 miles a day) long distances to work so we can pay our mortgages and feed our familys!

You know his real fall may be about gas ! THE PRICE!



Just thought i would vent!

[driftrider]

I feel for you, as I drive my car for a living, but I also have three words to describe his lack of action...

Free Market Economy

It is not the governments place to step in and artificially alter the price of any good or service, so Bush is doing the right thing by leaving well enough alone. Regulated price fixing hurts the economy and is socialistic in nature. We pay what we pay for gas because the market says so, and that' s the way it ought to be. IMO, no good comes from government interference in the economy.

Mike

[James B]

The gas here is 1.79 now. It was about the same at its high point under clinton. I am a Bush supporter but I think he should be looking into the ripoff now going on. We can also thank the grren peace and other bunny hugging groups that stand in the way of more exploration and production. What Bush could do is push a lot harder for conservation.

[Richard Meyers]

Driftrider, How are gas and oil prices connected with a free market ? We have the producers conspiring to fix both output and price (OPEC). Refinery output in this country has fallen in the past few months.
Im not for government interfering but lets be real here. When the peons were being screwed on energy prices over the last couple of years, and congress decided to look into matters, suddenly cheaper power became available. Sounds like somebody needs to keep these folks honest!

[loner]

i' ll bet if you look at the quarterly earnings of the large petroleum companies,they have MAJOR profits!

[summit daWg]

Free Market...Oil companies? Don' t we mean monopolies? They all seem to sleep in the same bed. Texaco.[>:].. shell texaco..[>:].Chevron texaco.[>:]???????? Do we remember enron- these guys make them look honest.[&:]

[Richard Meyers]

Maybe I should have said TRY and keep these folks honest!

[driftrider]

i' ll bet if you look at the quarterly earnings of the large petroleum companies,they have MAJOR profits!

I' d bet you' re right, but that' s what companies do! That' s their whole point of existance. Do you think that they go to all the trouble to find, drill, refine and sell oil products without the intention on making a profit out of some benevolent effort to allow us to pay $0.25 less at the pump?

There is one thing that Bush, and your state legislature, COULD do to help the price at the pump, and that would be lower fuel taxes ($0.36/gallon in IA, and a lot more in some states) and allow U.S. oil companies to take advantage of domestic oil sources so we don' t have to be subject to the whims of OPEC. Another thing might be to relax some of the draconian environmental restrictions that the oil companies are subjected to on a moments notice and allow them to work toward them over a more extended period of time. Those regulations cost these companies billions to comply, and quess where they recoup those losses? Yep, at the gas pump.

Are oil companies in contention for sainthood? Nope. But are their boards of directors, as the liberals in congress and Hollywood would have us believe, run by men seething with evil intention and hell-bent on breaking the average Joe by stealing his last dime at the gas pump? I don' t thing so. It just goes to show that it' s easy to hate the big guy and make him out to be some terrible evil, but in reality it' s just business. If you worked for, or owned, an oil company you' d be singing a very different tune. And let' s also not forget that the $1.60/gallon we pay today, adjusted for inflation, is actually less than what gas cost in the late ' 70' s and early ' 80' s. All in all, gas prices have been lower in the last ten years and are really just now cathing up to where they should have been all along. I think that it' s just the suddeness of the jump that has shocked people. If the prices had crept up gradually at 2-3% per year, nobody would be bitching about it too much.

My opinion is still that the government has no business telling a company how much or how little it should produce, nor should it force them to sell their product at a price below what the market dictates. To do so causes more harm than good in the long run, and is also fundamentally wrong.

Mike

[summit daWg]

No problem RM ,It' s just that at times [X(]BIG [>:]oil makes my blood boil as bad as the [X(]Enviro-wacko' s[X(] that are doing thier best to get us locked out of OUR own national forests out here by trying to get them designated " wilderness" And how about those [>:]E.L.F.[&:] IDIOTS, [>:]and what they pulled in San Diego other day?!
I' m just glad it' s not quite my hunting or snowmobiling season yet so I can keep my gas-guzzlers parked in the driveway-with any luck things might get better before then.

[Cougar Mag]

How many live where a major oil refinery is? I live in the midwest where a large and very modern Marathon/Ashland refinery is located. Every quarter Marathon' s sales and net profits are published. I don' t begrudge a company making profits but what boils me is the way they treat us. Here is my list of real grievances and the reasons why large corporations in general have made me very upset!

(no. 1) 3 years ago they pushed for and got a large property tax cut while the public continually pays increasing property taxes every year. Exactly one month later Marathon/Ashland split $5,000,000 in bonuses up with the employees........this at just our local refinery alone! Nothing against those employees but it was a huge snub to all of the surrounding communities and property owners. At least they had the gonads to release it to the newspapers.

(no. 2) Gas prices are higher here than in other cities when gas is delivered. We have to make up for the cost of delivery to other communities.

(no.3) Despite what they tell us and the EPA, several times toxic gases have been released in the atmosphere, reaching areas throughout the county. They have paid to repaint vehicles, wash down homes and even replaced siding before but............you have to threaten to sue them to get their attention. Most of the time it is not known until word of mouth gets around. And this is one of the most modern and cleanest refineries in the U.S.

(no. 4) they have forced some employees to take early retirement. At ages 52-53 in most cases(it is non-union). Why? To justify paying new employees less wages(savings in the time period it takes an employee to reach top scale is phenomonal.)

I have witnessed firsthand how oil companies treat communities...no, people. It makes me sick. There is a lot of underhandedness going on...........I know, I have several friends working there. Pretty typical of big oil I have been told.