Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.Oh, brother. This will make the 5,678th time the oil companies have been investigated by the fed for price gouging or price fixing. They've never come up with the slightest evidence of this at any other time, but the sheeple demand we go through the motions yet again.
These environmentalists have long said that one of their goals was to drive up the price of gasoline so that people would be forced to reduce consumption and also so that alternatives would be able to be competitive.
The excessive regulations and the constant legal hurdles and lawsuits have made it so that only extremely large and established companies have been able to to compete in this market.
Now we have a situation where demand has outstripped supply and expanding supply will take considerable time and expense.
That means that those large oil companies who have weathered the regulatory nightmares are now in a position where they are going to make a lot of money because the government has not allowed the market to expand to keep up with demand.
The problems of short supply of gasoline are government created.
The environmentalists are getting exactly what they wanted.
The oil companies who put up with the regulations and invested wisely are reaping the benefits of those investments.
Consumers are paying the price.
And now our politicians which facilitated the creation of this situation are now saying that the solution is for the government to interfere even more in the market and stop profiteering.
Socialism 101. Sell out the people to special interests and then claim that the solution to the problem you created is more government intervention.
That's great.
The President has the responsibility for keeping us safe from terrorists and price gougers, not necessarily in that order.
Who, then, has responsibility for keeping the free market in petroleum -- America's lifeblood -- free? The Commerce Department? Homeland Security? The FTC?
I didn't like it when a Democrat President, John F. Kennedy, "jawboned" Big Steel in the 1960s.
I like it less when a Republican threatens to do the same thing.
Like he cares...
Oil companies aren't public utilities and are entitled to anything that the market will bear.
If they want to charge $20/gal and can get enough people to pay it, more power to them.
Time to break out the bicycle. I could stand to lose some weight
I don't know if it is possible to bridge the growing gap between fiscal and social conservatives. Fiscal conservatives see energy costs and immigration as economic issues that are part of a larger economic landscape. Solutions need to be teased out of a wide range of competitive nuances. I suspect many people, like me, who think of themselves as fiscal conservatives wonder if social conservatives ever really think about anything other than their own gut reaction or "feelings" on complex issues.
Murphy station at Marsh and Tollway has spotters that go around the neighborhood to see what other stations are charging and than changes their prices to conform......price fixing.
SmartMoney.com
Tripping Out
By Ray Hennessey
April 18, 2006
"VACATION'S ALL I ever wanted," the great philosopher and humanitarian Belinda Carlisle once said. "Vacation, have to get away."
Now's the time of year when Wall Street analysts tell us summer effectively has been cancelled. This time round, the culprit is oil, which is topping $71 a barrel. That, in turn, has helped drive prices of gasoline higher. That's causing sticker shock, so much so that you, the American consumer, will be loath to fill up your tanks and go off on vacation. In fact, you'll probably just stay at home. Luckily you filled up the air-raid bunker in your basement with Yoo-Hoo and Glenmorangie when you were worried about the Millennium Bug back in '99.
Rubbish.
Are gas prices a problem? You bet. I own a Saturn, a boring one that does nothing to increase my dating rating but certainly doesn't burn fuel like a Hummer. Still, I raise my eyebrows and whistle when I see what I'm paying to fill up my tank. No doubt the airlines will struggle with higher jet-fuel costs. (Luckily, there's never been a problem that industry couldn't handle with skill, grace and intelligence.... Oh, even I can't finish that sentence without giggling like a toddler.) Cruise lines will pay through the nose, too. In fact, any industry that uses oil-based fuels will have to pay more, and that cost will be passed along to you and me.
But will we really not pay? Will a trip to Au Bon Pain replace the flight to Paris? Of course not. As a people, we Americans relish in our vacations. We don't quite carve out the time for vacations like the French and Germans do, but, then again, with the state of their labor markets, their vacations really don't count. One has to hold a job to qualify for a holiday.
Yet, Americans are big on vacation. We work hard and we play hard (or so the beer commercials tell us). We do it with the same aggressiveness we use to do everything else. All-you-can-eat buffets on cruises are not an opportunity, but a dare. We develop strategies for beating the lines at Six Flags that can outfox the brightest brass at the Pentagon. We own Winnebagoes larger than our homes.
So, a spike in gas prices isn't going to stop us. It's just going to make it more expensive. And you and I both know we're going to pay it. Why? Because it ain't that much. Let's face it, even if there were a $20 surcharge on your airline ticket, is that really enough to tell the kids that we're cancelling the vacation to Europe and will instead play Clue until Mommy hits Daddy over the head with a candlestick in the billiard room? We just have to dig a bit deeper, but dig we'll do — in our wallets and on the sand in the O.C.
The reasons for telling you this are twofold. First, from a personal-finance perspective, it's a great time to rework the sums on the back of your envelope to factor in the higher prices. You'll pay more for fuel, and you'll pay more for other things. Plan to deal with it. Save a little more each week. You can handle it.
From an investing perspective, you'd be wise to ignore the chatter that these prices will dampen summer travel. Last year, analysts suggested staying away from companies leveraged to leisure travel. If you did that, you would've missed a nice run-up in Carnival (CCL1) and Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL2) from the spring through the summer. In fact, once most people figured out that the gloom-and-doom predictions for summer travel weren't playing out, it was too late: The money had been made and investors bailed on travel stocks. That pattern isn't guaranteed to happen this year, but it certainly could. Many of the same themes from 2005 are being muttered about now: high oil, strife in the Middle East, rising interest rates, a spat between Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest. Companies dealt with all that just fine last year. They can do it again now.
Finally, this is a great chance to take yet another swipe at conventional wisdom. In investing, it almost never holds, nor is it often profitable. It's the contrarian view that often leads to the biggest gains. While other investors are placing bets on a slowdown in the economy by getting defensive, it may be worth taking a look at the companies leveraged to discretionary spending. That's where the bargains will be found, I'd wager.
Of course, I might not be around to see if the theory plays out. I'll be on holiday.
3 Ray Hennessey is editor of SmartMoney.com. Email him at rhennessey@smartmoney.com4.
URL for this article:
http://yahoo.smartmoney.com/editorspage/index.cfm?story=20060418
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.Provided with an excellent opportunity to illustrate "you reap what you sow", he chooses instead to pander.
Anyone who wasn't asleep in Econ. 101 knows what's going on with oil, and GWB holds an MBA from an Ivy-League institution of higher learning.
This is one reason I will never be elected to political office, because my comment would have been "If you think the oil companies are making obscene profits, then buy their stock. The dividends and capital gains will offset the expense of filling up your tank to your benefit."
Sheesh!
If anyone is interested I blogged about this article and, generally, other aspects of government and gasoline:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/gasoline_and_government.htm