Posted on 05/03/2008 9:19:47 AM PDT by jlasoon
"In many oil producing nations gas is absurdly cheap. In Venezuela it's 12 cents a gallon. In Saudi Arabia it's 45.
The governments there forego the money from selling that oil on the open market - instead using the money to make their people happy and encourage their nations' development."
see how cheap oil is when even a half wit like hugo chavez has enough common sense to dig for oil in his own backyard.
Roads, sewer, water are all government operations. Maybe we should go to government operations for oil. So far all we have seen from oil companies is extreme greed that hurts the economy and people. They use public lands and waters to drill, process, and transport oil products but then get to charge us extreme prices simply because they have a monopoly and can. The ability for individuals to start an oil company is zero.
It’s really just a subsidy by the government to keep the population happy and dumb. If one looks at oil industry R&D, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia are hardly on the cutting edge. In fact, like Iran, Venezuela has serious problems in its oil production infrastructure.
Does anyone know if gasoline is plentiful and easily available in Venesuela?
Hope you're not Jewish. Or a woman. Or a non-muslim. Or a non-arab. If so, you'll do just fine.
Yeah, but like 6 people have cars there...
OK, maybe more, but they don't have bread, milk or eggs, so there. ; p
Life for the average Muslim Arab sucks rocks. You have to be part of one of the connected families to live well.
“instead using the money to make their people happy and encourage their nations’ development.”
development? those countries are sewers, especially Saudi Arabia.
One of the 10,000 princes (give or take) you mean?
Turn oil and energy production over to the Federal Government of the United States? ARE YOU NUTS? They can’t run the corner lemonade stand!
Hey, food prices are rising...let’s nationalize all the farms. US automakers are failing...let’s nationalize all the auto industry. Hmmm...what else, maybe the corner lemonade stand, too?
Look, your plan has been tried before. It was done in a country called the USSR. You can read about it in history books. It went out of business because it was a bad business plan.
“The governments there forego the money from selling that oil on the open market”
I think that pretty much sums things up.
No thanks, comrade.
LOL......you may be right there.
Yet somehow, the US, with almost 2 trillion bbls of known oil reserve (in liquid petroleum, Shale oil, and oil from coal) need to buy our oil from foreign suppliers, thus holding our economy hostage to the whims and vagaries to the world oil market.
I don't see anyone in places where gasoline is "expensive" banging down the doors to get into countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, do you?
I remember when they taught us in school that we would use up the world’s oil in my lifetime...LOL
We need to drill our own and tell the world to shove it. We will never know if we can’t be self sufficient till we do.
Totally well said!
You're either a communist troll or a complete friggin idiot. Pick one.
The idea that we are “feeling it” more because we had 1 dollar gas a few years ago is absurd.
Why?
Gas in Europe used to be 4 or 5 dollars. Now look at the map.....7.80 is about the lowest, on up to 10 or so.
They have had a significant increase as well. Maybe they do not feel it quite as much since they were already paying 4 when we are just now starting to get close. But, they are still paying dollars more for gas than 5 years ago just like us.
The mindset there is very different. Here, for the most part, we still believe in the Puritan work ethic. There, they believe people who work are stupid, and the goal is to get into a position where you can sit on your butt and have other people doing everything.
The average Arab, without connections, though, is still living only slightly beyond stone age. That's far less true in places like Kuwait and the United Arab Emeritus, though, where they're building an economy that extends beyond petro dollars and looking for tourists.
seychelles is about it...:)
nice and cheap gas there, though since it is an island.....no doubt that is about the only cheap thing!
Last I checked, Government didn't buy the drilling equipment, lease the land, hire the drillers, drill for the oil, construct the refineries, purchase the refining apparatus, hire the refinery workers, refine the gasoline, purchase the delivery trucks, hire the truck drivers, deliver the gasoline, construct the gas stations, purchase the gas station equipment, hire the gas station attendants -- all for 10% operating profit (by contrast, magazines like Time and Newsweek make 30-40% OP).
Don’t forget that gas taxes in Europe and the UK are much higher than they are here, which is why their gas is more expensive.
To the author who tries to blame us the citizens of this great country for the high oil price is just being another shill of the Democrats.
When supply becomes less than demand the price of anything goes up that is a hard and fast rule. Just like the rule that 80 percent of the wealthy in this country pay 95 percent of the taxes these morons in Washington come up with. You want to really see some numbers I would love to see the difference in property taxes between Louisiana, Alabama,and Texas, and Alaska who receive huge royalties from Oil Co who drill off there coasts as compared to Florida, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and of course Conn. Check out them facts and then write your real story not that pile of trash you wrote. Typical Democrat half truths.
who knows what would happen if we got started.....and if all it accomplished was to bring down OPEC’s price it would have brought the price down and accomplished something.....I am by no means an expert, but sitting around doing NOTHING hasn’t worked.
I don’t necessarily believe in calling people names but you’re a friggen’ idiot!!! Oil companies profits are less than 10%, around 9.7% or so....the reason oil is so expensive is because it is controlled by a cartel called OPEC....and do you know why? Because this same “brilliant” government you want to turn it over to WILL NOT allow any more drilling to enable us to get on the path to energy independence. Moron!!
Don’t forget the massive spending on regulations compliance for both their endless lines of equipment but also all of their employees. Are you in the industry?
I thought that would be the reaction. Fishing for feedback was just too easy. Of course we should never let government control anything. This article says their governmen gives away the oil, yet, why do they continue to live in poverty? In other words, high oil prices are an issue but lower prices do not mean prosperity.
No. Just an observer. It's really sad how many people have been utterly duped by the socialists and their sycophant media. And, the behavior of our government vis a vis energy policy (now, even creating FOOD shortages) has been morally reprehensible and borderline criminal. The Revolutionary War was fought over less oppression than we currently endure.
Been there. done that. I can’t recommend that too highly. When they posted world Gasoline prices, The US had the Highest ex-tax prices of any western Nation. What you are saying is that Venezuela and K.S.A. don ‘t tax the people. When I was in Ven in the 80’s they raised the price of “el premio” to .50.
El popular was still .25. Devaluation of the Bolivar has reduced the price in terms of the Dollar.
barbra ann
Please. Your comment is below contempt.
If you owned an oil well and refinery and retail outlets, I seriously doubt that you'd be selling distillate for $0.12/GAL, when the market price is closer to $3.00.
When governments like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela sell gasoline below market price, it is merely to manipulate the population. Besides which, they are making economic decisions for their populations. They don't have the choice of converting that "cheap" gasoline into cash to purchase other goods. Consumption is artificially diverted into gasoline, when given choice, the people might buy less gas and more of other goods.
BTW, the overwhelming evidence shows that government supplied goods and services cost more and are of distinctly inferior quality. Think education.
I also feel absolutely no envy towards the people of either Venezuela or Araby. Judging from the reports available to me, I vastly prefer living in these (imperfectly) United States.
True. Remember the whorehouse, the Mustang Ranch that was, at one time, the largest brothel in Nevada? The owner got sideways with the IRS and the feds took over the operation.
Now we are talking about just one (1) cathouse. They had one (1) product they sold. They had a full and operating clientele.
But that was just too hard for the feds, they actually LOST money. Running a whorehouse.
Unbeleavable.
Great reasoning.
Should we then raise taxes to meet their prices?
We have enough oil to be paying a dollar a gallon and not be subsidizing other countries.
Why should we be paying highly inflated prices just because someone else is?
Nothing is stopping anybody but himself.
You can rent a 2500 square foot luxury pad for oh, 1500 a month. Cars are cheaper. Household durables are cheaper except for electronics, which you can ship via Amazon anyway.
Saudi is a hellish place for civil liberties, and at the same time an absolutely fascinating study of a laissez-faire economy: no taxation, no onerous government regulation of the economy and so on. The economic results are remarkable, even controlling for the effects of oil wealth.
And don’t go shopping or get a haircut during prayer times.
“We need to drill our own and tell the world to shove it.”
The American people have been saying this for, I don’t know how long but government always sides with the environmental wackos.
So you want US oil production to look like PDVSA and PetroMex?
Chinese oil giant Sinopec says 1st quarter profit drop 69 percent on price controls
By JOE McDONALD,AP Business Writer AP - Monday, April 28
BEIJING - China's second-biggest oil company, Sinopec, says its first quarter profit fell 69 percent due to government controls that bar it from passing on record crude costs to consumers.
Net profit for the three months through March was 6.1 billion yuan (US$871 million; �560 million), the company, whose full name is China Petroleum & Chemical Co., said late Sunday.
Chinese gasoline and diesel sales are soaring due to rising incomes and a boom in car ownership. But at a time when global oil giants are reporting record profits, Chinese producers are being squeezed by controls that have frozen retail prices, forcing them to absorb the rising cost of crude. The companies have been subsidizing refining losses out of bigger profits from their oil drilling units.
The government says it will pay subsidies to help make up Chinese refining losses. But Sinopec said profits still were down despite a 7.4 billion yuan (US$1 billion; �676 million) subsidy that it counted as part of its quarterly revenues.
Sinopec said its sales of gasoline, diesel and other refined products jumped 10 percent to 211 million barrels.
"The prices of international crude oil continued to go up. The prices of oil products in China were still under tight control," the company statement said.
The report gave no details on Sinopec's refining losses. But the company said earlier its refining unit lost 13.7 billion yuan (US$2 billion; �1.3 billion) in 2007 due to price controls.
Beijing froze retail gasoline and diesel prices in September as part of efforts to contain rising inflation. It raised prices by about 10 percent in November to curb surging demand but has rejected appeals by the oil companies for more increases.
Sinopec, Asia's biggest refiner by volume, has been especially hard hit because it refines more oil than it produces. China's biggest oil company, China National Petroleum Corp., produces more than it refines and has benefited from soaring crude prices.
Both companies said last week the government would pay them subsidies to cover refining losses -- an indication that Beijing has no plans to ease price controls in the near future.
The Finance Ministry said earlier that both companies would receive a rebate on taxes for importing refined fuel to ease shortages.
Too many Congressional oversight visits?
They ate up all the profits?
The half wit hugo chavez didn't dig for oil in his own backyard; he stole the oil from full wits who produced it. This is the Marxist way.
Right. The first "peak oil" was, what, 1980 or 1990?
And the idiots on the Left acuse us of using scare tactics.
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