welcome to the oil crisis

If they charge to high, another competitor comes in and undercuts them. E.g. Dell charges you as much as they can for their computers. Yet over the last few years prices have dropped while specifications have improved. Why is that? Competition. There is no point in history where economists claimed that capitalists do anything other than try to make as much money as possible. Pretending that capitalism has "suddenly" changed is wrong.

That is ridiculous scaremongering. $3 gas is not the apocalypse. In fact we've been here before.

That makes no difference. You are assuming oil has no value and the only costs which can be passed on are the extraction costs. But obviously the oil itself does have value, because it is a scarce commodity (like so many others). Your house is not worth the value of the plaster and concrete used to build it.

The market price is the fair price. The only way to lower it is to decrease consumption or raise production. Yet nobody wants drilling in Alaska, and most people want the oil price to go down so they can go back to doing exactly what they did before. It's like public transport - everybody complains about traffic jams, and they want everyone else to take public transport so traffic will get better. But everyone else is thinking the same thing.

 

I think Opec and the stock market [inturn effected by current affairs and natural disasters] reflect the majority of the price increases or decreases. The oil companys are at the 'mercy' of such pressures as much as we believe we are at the mercy of the oil companys.

I think it is a fact [but maybe i am wrong] the oil companys make their money from other parts of the business. Infact i think they generate more profit on consumables they sell , rather than from the petrol we buy. That of course could be a myth.


Does anybody know ?.

The UK oil prices are 'excessive' because the right honourable chancelor of the exchequer levys huge taxes on fuel.

Those boycots may have kicked up a stink, but they achieved very little.

IF the chancelor altered taxes everytime the market flunctuated it would create a right royal calamity.

We would be over the moon of course :sunglasse

I think we have to accept certain realities to a extent.

I don't think so.

'oil prices' are a ongoing issue.. regardless if war is in the offing or not.

I'd think 'war' [for other more complex reasons] or speculation effects the price of oil. Rather than ''doing all this to work up the public, so they can start a war with Iran''. I don't have any proof either, you could be right.

 

Pointbreak - sucking big-business' and big-government's enormous cock yet again. How does it feel to be a slave? Peon.

 

I did, that's how I came up with the margin. So far you've shown no evidence that you do any research yourself.

A 10% margin is a 10% margin. All you're giving me is what you think gas should cost, based on nothing.

Funny how it costs the same pretty much in other countries then, adjusted for taxes.

You say inflated, but why? Do you feel that you have a right to oil at a certain price?

Some people say that ethanol takes so much fossil fuel to produce that it does nothing to eliminate our demand for oil. But if you're so sure of it, why not invest in some biodiesel companies? They would quite happy to make millions sticking it to the oil majors, so go ahead and put your money where your mouth is.

So you lower demand until the price drops, then you increase demand back to the original level. Can't you see how this accomplishes nothing?

 

What do you think will happen when 'big business' makes huge profits from renewable energy.

I suspect they are in the 'energy' market rather than the 'oil' market.

So they will eventualy sell 'clean energy'. Do you think such uproar will occur then ?.

Is it just the amount of money they make rather than the substance they buy and sell: i think i'm trying to say.

 

That is only true for ethanol that is made from corn. However, that is not true from ethanol made from other sources like sugar, saw grass etc.

Your other arguments I will get to tomorrow I just do not have time to address each point right now.

 

Actually Dell makes more money from customer support - thats why their computers are cheap.

In fact the problem is in getting a market economy to run on ethanol - how are you exactly going to produce plastics from ethanol and lubricate machinery? besides also creating computers - because the economics of this whole matter are not the fact that we need oild for fuel - the problem is we need it for heating - and to make practically everything you own including the clothes you wear. This is the stated problem:
given that the amount of population in 1980 was X
in 2020 the population will be 2X (double)
The world is awash with oil but we cannot get enough oil out of the ground to satisfy demand which means that this has the same effect as though the oil were running out BUT there is an added factor the price rises and eventually people will not look for alternate sources of energy they will fight for control of existing means of supply.
There just aint enough ways of getting the oil to the surface. Its not a question of fuel for cars its a question of supply for all industry and domestic uses. LIFE AFTER THE OIL CRASH

 

Well, well.
So the 5000 sq ft McMansion with its 1500 squ ft lawyer foyer wasn't such a hot idea after all, what? Especially since God's air conditioning (the trees, my dear) were all cut down for miles around. (how to air-condition the global warmup?)
Not to mention the armored assault vehicle that mom soccer guzzles to the local food mart (12 miles to the gallon driven at 90mph just to keep up with the Joneses.)
Our whole brave new whirled spins on oil. We sweat the stuff.

Peak oil? End of oil? Not for some time now, rather.
Point is - it's the CHEAP oil.....that's what built Jack's house (and the gazzillion miles of "free" ways, and the computer shells, and the war machines, and the satellite rocket launchers, and all the sweet chariots that carry the mad motorists careering about in utopian sleepwalk, exurban entirely.
Technology - does not provide energy. Never did, never will. What does provide it is cheap fuel.
There is no fuel that ever provided this energy as cheaply as oil did (when it was easy to suck out of the ground.) That's what built all the sprawl, the asphalt, the Las Vegas strip, the Mcfranchised world, the dizzy Disney fantasy, the mega-gigantus container ships that need Panama stretched to fit their corpulence.

We could ethanol ourselves like good things - build windmills across the landscape - harness tides and ocean currents, scour and scrape dozens of alternative methods and still not come up with the rampant growth it takes to keep the planet safe from future recession, depression, stagnation..........
God forbid we scale it back. Shareholders would know the pain of diminishing returns. Forsooth!
Makes one ponder a bit - what have all these smart suits been doing over the past thirty years or so? Cavorting about the planet like crazed casino-junkies, gambling away the future.
Well, they never would listen to native wisdom, would they? Such a "savage" thing.

If we ever could get busy and scale back how we actually do things - we have plenty of fossil fuel to re-design our world. Sustainability, however - is not on the agenda.
Profits are demanded NOW. (why does this remind me of a size-two shoe stamped in wee tot fury?)

 

You forgot about Nuclear energy. That could divert a lot of the oil towards other things. I doubt the end of civilisation will occur because we may one day run out of cheap oil. Oil was just the best option for the last 100 years. not the finale. Possibly a hinderance to the options to come or to be implemented as we come off our addiction.

Native wisdom would take advantage of the resources around 'it'. You can't think that just because 'it' was seemingly in touch with something, we would not be in the predicament we are in today. I seem to remember 'natives' used guns with gusto. I suspect we would be in a even worse place now if we were within the paradigm you may wish. What with population explosions and whatnot. Do you think with 'native wisdom' that would have been slowed ?. Are you just talking about 'native americans' ?. I don't know if you are aware the world is a bigger place than that. Something was needed to carry us forward and not die out. Oil imho has been the best thing to happen to us. Now it is comeing out of fashion and popularity plus creating god awful strife around the world, maybe its time has come [to end]. What would 'native wisdom' have prevented ?.

It's not just about profits, that is such a easy rationale. Have you ever thought it is the sustainability of our populaces that drive the need for cheap fuel ?.

P.s.. I enjoyed reading your post, quite poetic in a lot of ways. Even if it was a little