Why gas prices are rising
- Thread starter HKuser
- Start date
The Tourist
Moderator
Doing what you want with your own stuff is not evil. These companies sell oil, and they charge as they wish.
Actually, I don't feel sorry for the consumer, at all. Park your SUV, buy and electric car and a bicycle and begin wearing a sweater while you turn your thermostat down.
I once got a terse letter on hobbyist forum when I stated that I charge +15 per inch in sharpening Japanese laminates. Hey, go to your yellow pages and find another guy. The gentleman who sells me my stones tells me that there are five such tinkers in North America and one lives in Canada.
Call me or begin dragging your 1,000 dollar knife through the back of a can-opener.
I have a skill, I invested wisely and I study my craft. You can spout all of this socialist "free market" babble until Karl Marx spins in his grave.
Pay me now.
Actually, I don't feel sorry for the consumer, at all. Park your SUV, buy and electric car and a bicycle and begin wearing a sweater while you turn your thermostat down.
I once got a terse letter on hobbyist forum when I stated that I charge +15 per inch in sharpening Japanese laminates. Hey, go to your yellow pages and find another guy. The gentleman who sells me my stones tells me that there are five such tinkers in North America and one lives in Canada.
Call me or begin dragging your 1,000 dollar knife through the back of a can-opener.
I have a skill, I invested wisely and I study my craft. You can spout all of this socialist "free market" babble until Karl Marx spins in his grave.
Pay me now.
Let it Bleed
New member
What happened to "Bucwheats" cereal is what I want to know. Mmm good 
No, not at all. I think he made a good case that there is a bubble being created in the oil market by speculation. I know it's heresy to suggest that commodities markets are not perfect or may be manipulated, often simply by "irrational exuberance," but I think that's the case here. The market is being bid up, much of it by large funds, some of which are owned or heavily invested by oil producing nations. The bubble may be a mix of intentional manipulation and mania.
Not to lecture, but sales taxes are paid on retail sales. I would expect XOM to have modest retail sales.
The real injustice is if you are an XOM shareholder, the Federales take their cut of XOM profits, then again take a cut of that same money when the shareholder receives his dividend.
So XOM may have only paid $27.9 B, but XOM and XOM shareholders likely paid more like $45B. Even the mob is a more understanding silent partner.
That is partly true. But markets, especially futures markets, hate uncertainty. Oil prices are influenced by numerous geo-political factors which change on virtually a daily basis. There are predictions that in five years we will be seeing $200/barrel oil. I sure wouldn't bet against it.
The Tourist
Moderator
HKuser said:
Far too many American workers are two-faced when it comes to their employers.
They expect "someone else" to leverage money, a take a major financial risk, and then build them a nice A/C factory near a Starbuck's. They expect incremental wage increases based not on excellence, but simply on time in service. Promote the guy who really does the work and the sluggard stomps off to his attorney. Had he spent as much time working as he did complaining the job would have been his.
They whine about the price of groceries and fuel, and yet expect their employer to pay premium wages. Ask them to work extra hours to achieve that level of improvement and they call their union stewart.
When profits dip beyond projected sales, early retirement and attrition, those same employees now complain when some guy in India does the job better for less.
If the business fails and the employer sells off his factory and land to a strip mall to pay off his debt and derive some profit, the same employer is accused of destroying their town.
I was a State of Wisconsin employee for two years. I knew real people who fit all of these criteria.
I don't claim to be an economist, but I have read a few books on the subject, the latest being "Bad Samaritans : the myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism" by Ha-Joon Chang, New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2008. It points out that "free trade" isn't as free the average person might think, and never was.
As to gas prices: world demand is growing rapidly, in places like China and India with expanding economies where cars, until recently, were comparatively rare. Supply and demand and whatever the market will bear can't help but influence commodity prices. Same goes for everything: manufacturing follows cheap labor. I've read that even China is now getting "overpriced", and corporations are looking for cheaper workforces in places like Bangladesh and Africa.
As to gas prices: world demand is growing rapidly, in places like China and India with expanding economies where cars, until recently, were comparatively rare. Supply and demand and whatever the market will bear can't help but influence commodity prices. Same goes for everything: manufacturing follows cheap labor. I've read that even China is now getting "overpriced", and corporations are looking for cheaper workforces in places like Bangladesh and Africa.
Thank you Tourist. You post was, as usual, a bullseye. Have you been away or have I just not been seeing your posts?
Employees don't see what it takes for a business to be in a position to offer a job. Short that perspective, many project the role their parents had onto their employers. We are to provide for them. The simple exchange of services for money is perceived as an obligation to provide what they are unwilling to purchase with the money they earned. Don't make enough money? Then get more motivated, more skilled, more educated, or open your own business and show us how it's supposed to be done if you really believe you know better.
The fuel prices are doing what the global warming hoax couldn't. got folks motivated to look toward alternative fuels. Where that ends up will be determined by the buyers (aka the free market ). To demand people in the OIL business to provide alternatives to OIL is preposterous. It reflects that lack of perspective I referred to above.
To see the profits a business is making and demand they be stolen from them to perform some community activity is also demonstrative of that projection of provider on that industry.
Have no worries. That industry will be sufficiently punished for it's prosperity as to chase it off to foriegn residence. But then again, that would also be villainous right? Don't like that China has such a grip? Thank the husband of the candidate that is looking out for the people. he traded campaign cash for preferred trade status and she promises to stop industries from moving jobs overseas? They would be back in a year if the excessive regulations and tax burdens were lifted. But instead we are proposing they have their profits be stolen, tax incentives be taken from them, and that they aid in the emergence of a directly competitive industry.
American people and their businesses can and will adjust to market demands and still prosper if the government will give up their role as parent and get out of the American Adults' way.
Employees don't see what it takes for a business to be in a position to offer a job. Short that perspective, many project the role their parents had onto their employers. We are to provide for them. The simple exchange of services for money is perceived as an obligation to provide what they are unwilling to purchase with the money they earned. Don't make enough money? Then get more motivated, more skilled, more educated, or open your own business and show us how it's supposed to be done if you really believe you know better.
The fuel prices are doing what the global warming hoax couldn't. got folks motivated to look toward alternative fuels. Where that ends up will be determined by the buyers (aka the free market
). To demand people in the OIL business to provide alternatives to OIL is preposterous. It reflects that lack of perspective I referred to above.To see the profits a business is making and demand they be stolen from them to perform some community activity is also demonstrative of that projection of provider on that industry.
Have no worries. That industry will be sufficiently punished for it's prosperity as to chase it off to foriegn residence. But then again, that would also be villainous right? Don't like that China has such a grip? Thank the husband of the candidate that is looking out for the people. he traded campaign cash for preferred trade status and she promises to stop industries from moving jobs overseas? They would be back in a year if the excessive regulations and tax burdens were lifted. But instead we are proposing they have their profits be stolen, tax incentives be taken from them, and that they aid in the emergence of a directly competitive industry.
American people and their businesses can and will adjust to market demands and still prosper if the government will give up their role as parent and get out of the American Adults' way.
The Tourist
Moderator
Bruxley said:
No, I've just been lurking. I have posted mostly on THR and KnifeForums lately.
The reason I felt I had to join this debate is that it dovetails my former "adult job," that being saving distressed corporations. The economy is going to get really ugly.
You know the old canard about "the rats leaving the ship"? Trust me, they packed and scurried away weeks ago. Even my conservative banking buddies were dumping debt and being very selective about new investing. Not many are buying large amounts of gold, but we discussed it.
The issue here is the global nature of the down-turn. Yes, Japan and China are becoming very adept players. The problem is the markets in which they play.
Let's suppose I owned all of the food in the world. I'd be rich, right? Well, not if an egg was priced at 1,000 bucks and loaf of bread required a credit check. You need customers. In fact, governments and allies might make things worse for me instead of better.
This isn't a realtively localized "all American" issue. Even during our Great Depression people made money. Corporations were spawned. Look at the innovations of that era. This is the period where televison was being refined for actual marketing.
Yes, we had areas depicted in "The Grapes of Wrath," but we also became a world invester during that period. That economy was so vital and productive that it played a very large portion in curtailing The Axis. And remember, at the peak of The Depression it is questimated that fully 25% of the males were unemployed.
In a global discussion, that's a bump in the road.
In a very dynamic sense, Carter's bumblings, leading to the new idea of "stagflation" hurt this country a lot more.
Now it's on the the world stage, akin to Jimmy Carter running the world economy. There are plenty of products--a sea of gasoline--we just can't afford it like we could only a year ago.
Pay off your credit cards, work some extra hours if you can, float new ideas about revenue streams to your boss, call your clients for discounts on unscheduled sales and maintenance and squirrel a bit of money away in tried and true mainline methods of of old fashioned savings.
A business cycle is faster than a generation ago, but still slow for commerce. The cycle is now about 12 years from high to low to high again.
You're going to have to ride out two years at least.