US to Watch for Gas Price-gouging: Bush

Reuters ^ | 4/18/2006 | Staff Writers

[rhombus]

Pass an Executive Order to begin drilling in ANWR, effective immediately.

No way the Constitution Party is against all executive orders and want them eliminated but of course they hate Bush anwyway. ;-)

[Iscool]

Yep. Sad how few understand this, as they beg and/or demand that the gov't "do something" about "price gouging". In a free market, these sorts of issues take care of themselves.

As I understand it, the freemarketeers feel there is no such thing as gouging in a free market...'If you own it, you set the price'...

Seems at one time, our gov't came up with laws that prevented this from happening by allowing (and demanding) competition, thus preventing monopolys to exhist as they currently do in the oil business...But the monopolys bought the gov't...

So what's the recourse???

Guess we'll just continue to pay the price, on our knees...

[DustyMoment]

Too bad he's not "concerned" enough to author a real energy plan!

Hear, hear!!! I've had the same thoughts.

[WalterSkinner]

..my local Shell station (Royal Dutch Oil) is only a couple of pennies below 3 bucks for regular.

I could go down the street to ARCO (British Petroleum) and save a few cents.

Bottome line: yes, out in here in SoCal I feel gouged--but I just haven't been able to find a good deal on a hydrogen car...

[Nathan Zachary]

Exactly. That is the whole problem in a nutshell. These traders can line their pockets at will- every time there is a hint of trouble.

[AIC]

Here is what the problem is. The people or companies that buy futures are gambling. The oil it self has not really gone up. It's the people who trade in the futures market that are making the oil and gasoline go up. Look U.S. crude oil futures hit a record of $70.88 a barrel on Tuesday on fears of supply disruptions

See that ON FEAR that is the only reason. That has always been the case, even before the war.

[rhombus]

Take your pick!

To be honest, I think he's just plain tired and getting a lot of bad advice lately.

[chimera]

Why would Exxon not use the 400 million on researching alternative fuels investing in a refinery etc? But instead they spent 400 million on a retirement package.

I was just discussing this today with one of my colleagues. That is a lot of cash to be throwing away when they could have plowed it back into the business to grow it further, maybe alternate fuels, as you suggest, or even run-of-the-mill things like furthering exploration of new deposits or building additional refining capacity. Shareholders should be up in arms over this waste of company resources.

[RandallFlagg]

This could also be implemented on any river. Simply substitute the floatation devices with a paddlewheel attached to a turbine.

It takes very little electricity to separate the hydrogen from the water. We did it with twelve measley volts in seventh grade.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

My wife is pissed, but we will not this summer be taking our usual drive to Destin, Florida.

[Blue Jays]

Hi Nathan Zachary-

Very rarely are there calm seas along the shorelines of the lower-48 for more than a few hours at a time. The reason everyone doesn't have one on the end of their boat dock is because what are they individually going to do with their warehoused hydrogen stores?

~ Blue Jays ~

[ANGGAPO]

Gouging= golden parachutes, Maga-bonuses, stock options, etc.

[Nathan Zachary]

Water turbines, etc. have been around for a century. They just aren't very practical.

Besides, there are plenty of hydro electric dams in the world. Every river that can be damed- is.

[SAJ]

Spot on, professor, and well said. Sadly though, folks with santorumlite's misconceived notions cannot be persuaded by sweet reason.

Nor, ftm, would such folks ever dream of putting their capital where their mouth (er, keyboard) is. I'm coming to be very much afraid that nothing will satisfy this crowd short of a replay of the 1970s: shortages, outages, long lines for gasoline, ''old oil'', ''new oil'', ''new new oil'', the lot. All of which to be brought (back) to us by the respective founts of all wisdom, to wit, gov't regulators.

Sigh.

[CollegeRepublican]

Take your pick!

Ouch! You are asking the Bushbots to deny their god.

[freepatriot32]

ping

[concerned about politics]

Wrong. The declining dollar is causing oil prices to rise.

Soros (head of the ANSWER group) plays the money market. The more the American dollar declines, the more money he makes (which is why he's hard core democrat. A recession is a boom for him.)