🚀 go-pugleaf

On Jul 14, 2:25 pm, "David Morgan \(MAMS\)" <fin...@m-a-m-s.comC/Odm>
wrote:
<snip>

> Obviously, you're too damned young and ignorant to remember the early 70s.
>
> Not only was gasoline rationed, but energy consumption was regulated
> with great success in controlling the resultant pricing schedule.

I remember that time;  I dropped out of college and leased a Gulf
filling station in my tiny home town.   Gas in a nearby larger town
was from 43-48.9 while I charged what the other two stations in town
charged for regular:  53.9, a profit margin for me of .16 cents/
gallon.  That was an unspoken price fix, I suppose, and even while my
distributor always bitched at me to lower prices (he told me eight
cents/gallon was plenty enough), I didn't because I knew I couldn't
compete with those other two guys who had been in business a lot
longer than me.  (and unleaded was introduced during that time, too)

Just a little personal BS and here's some more:  I am third generation
oil field trash and have worked in quite a few different areas of  the
exploration, production and refining of oil and gas.

It annoys me when people speak of price controls and then try to point
out a time in the past where it worked;   I can't think of any time
they ever worked...perhaps during WWII, but not the time you speak of.

In the early 70's,  Nixon placed price controls on the oil industry as
well as other sectors of the American economy in order to combat
inflation.  Eventually controls were lifted from everything else but
US-produced oil as so to protect consumers from the jump in world oil
prices caused by the Arab oil embargo of 73-74.   A windfall profits
tax was imposed in 1980 for the same reason due to the Iran/Iraq
war.   It was finally repealed in 1989 but not before it cost the oil
companies an estimated 79 billion dollars, money which could've been
used to invest in new domestic production and exploration leading to
1.6 billion fewer barrels of oil being produced in the U.S. from
1980-1988. The tax reduced domestic oil production as much as 6
percent, and increased oil imports as much as 16 percent.

You think their profits are too high?   They sure might seem
excessive, esp. when you start talking BILLIONS, some "real" money but
let's talk percentages of profit, not amounts.    At approx. 9%,  oil
company profits are below other industries such as computers,
chemicals, electrical equipment, beverage / tobacco and
pharmaceuticals and medicines (in that order, with the last having a
profit margin of over 20%.)

Kraft Foods profit margin went down a bit this last year,  but they
still managed to rake in 9.4 billion.   Why not put a windfall profits
tax on their 14% profit?

U.S. Energy Information Administration  http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/finance/
(EIA)
indicates that when the average price of unleaded regular peaked at
about $3 a gallon in the middle of 2006, major companies were making a
profit of about 10 cents a gallon on their U.S. refining and marketing
operations.

So, that's too much for you and Hillary and Teddy?

I don't have the figures right off hand, but gasoline prices sure have
gone up quite a bit since the late 80's;  65% was the figure up until
this last price increase, I believe, but in that same time food has
gone up 80%, housing 90%, rent 110%, medical care 210% and tuition,
school fees and childcare have gone up a staggering 325%.

I think the cost of a good premium tequila has gone up 300% since Bush
was in office, but I don't hold him responsible for the Mexican agave
crop failure of his first year.    Blame him for some of the
following, but they all have affects upon the price of crude oil:
Let's not forget the 2005 hurricane season, which shut down most of
the U.S. Gulf of Mexico's oil and gas production for several months
and wrecked most of its refining infrastructure. Throw in the war in
Iraq, unrest in Nigeria, the Iran crisis, the increasing demand from
China, India and other developing nations and that leads to
uncertainty over the long-term stability of supply.   That's what is
driving up the price of oil, not the "greedy oil companies".

U.S. oil refining capacity is now less than it was in 1980, and since
that time there's been a 25 percent increase in demand. Because of
costly environmental regulations, it's been 30 years since a new
refinery has been built. According to the American Petroleum
Institute, over the last 10 years, it has cost the oil industry $47
billion to comply with costly and sometimes useless environmental
controls. There are restrictions on exploiting the huge oil reserves
in Alaska, the Gulf and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Over the past 25 years, oil companies directly paid or remitted more
than $2.2 trillion in taxes, after adjusting for inflation, to federal
and state governments-including excise taxes, royalty payments and
state and federal corporate income taxes. That amounts to more than
three times what they earned in profits during the same period,
according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis
and U.S. Department of Energy.  These figures do not include local
property taxes, state sales and severance taxes and on-shore royalty
payments.

Teddy Kennedy said: "......we ought to have a bipartisan effort to
recapture, recapture these excessive profits that are going to the oil
industry and return them to working families and middle-income
families."

The Federal Gas Tax is 18.4 cents per gallon;  where the hell is that
money goin', Ted ol' pal?   Let's not worry about that just
now...we'll drive off that bridge when we come to it.   Ooops, here we
are, hang on:

State and Federal Treasuries "Profit" More from Gasoline Sales than
U.S. Oil Industry
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/1139.html

Gasoline Tax Rates by State
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp

New York State puts 31.9 cents on every gallon of gasoline. Let's look
at how that breaks down:

Includes 8 cents per gallon excise tax, Petroleum Business Tax of 15.2
cents per gallon for gasoline and 13.45 cents per gallon for diesel
(rate increased .6 cpg 1/1/05). Statewide volume weighted average
sales tax increased 6/1/04 to 8.3 for per gallon for gasoline and 7.1
cents per gallon for diesel. Also a spill tax of 0.3 cent per gallon
is collected on gasoline and diesel and a petroleum testing fee of
0.05 cent per gallon is levied on gasoline. Does not include an
estimated 7.9 cents per gallon for gasoline and 6.7 cents per gallon
for diesel from weighted county average sales taxes that range from
3.25% to 4.75%.

And the govts., state, feds. local, whoever puts taxes on it, always,
ALWAYS profits even MORE from price increases,  they take a
percentage, it's a built-in cost-of-bidness royal consumer screwin',
what the hell does that tell you?   And you want them to take
more....<sigh>

*You* friggin' Yankees have the nerve to blame Bush for high gas
prices?   Screw you.  Sweep around your own front door first, then we
can talk.

What I really don't understand is how we allow OPEC to operate as they
do, why we don't put THEIR cojones in the vise.   We have laws against
monopolies, our own oil companies know that from the govt. breaking
them up at the start of the last century.

It would help if we didn't contribute to the reason for the high oil
prices, namely buying crapola made with plastics made from oil stock
by and then made in China.   The more we buy, the more they'll make
and the more oil they'll buy to make the crap we buy, it begins and
ends with us, we're the ones who have the power to lower oil prices
simply by changing our own purchasing habits.    Buy American if you
can, but if not, buy from Taiwan or Canada or Australia or even Mexico
or hell...even France, but avoid Chinese goods.