Quote:
Originally Posted by Shazam
But you see, our consumption isn't really the cause of this. It's China's and India's consumption. Since oil and oil refined products are fungible, we pay for their consumption.
Not saying that this absolves us in any way, but I don't think this means that gas should always be sold at a profit. A stable gas price would be better for most people because it allows for budgeting and would reduce outrage everytime the price moves. But that'll never happen now because oil companies would need to collude to fix the price.
And even oil companies don't actually like $70 oil, because it suddenly makes alternative energy sources viable. Good for us, I suppose.
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North American consumption is the cause of this, you can't just blame India and China. North America probably consumes over 1/3 of the daily world demand for oil (I haven't checked the numbers recently but a year or so ago world consumption was bout 80 mmbl/d the US used about 20 mmbl of that a day). If North Americans responded to price increases by altering their consumption you would notice a decrease in the world price.
Are you advocating price fixing of gasoline? Price fixing does not and will not work. And why would the gas retailers collude to fix the price, this is an absurd notion. You also wrote that gas should not always be sold at a profit, this makes no sense. Of course it should be sold at a profit or there is no incentive to sell gas. Are gas retailers supposed to be charities?
Oil companies LOVE $70 a barrel oil. Are you kidding me? The whole argument about big oil being afraid of alternate sources of energy is bunk. Oil companies are the ones most likely to have the capital required to invest in these areas.