No, I'm not...and that's twice you've insulted me bitch.
If OPEC can hold back production to drive up the global price of crude, why can't we do the same with fuel?
You want other people to invest and take the risks while you reap the rewards.
US consumers have been unwillingly "investing" since 2008 and guess who's been reaping the rewards....go ahead, we're waiting.
There has to be a private sector formula that helps both the US economy and the domestic producers. Some numbers wizard could easily figure this out.
The same thing has been practiced by the pharmaceutical companies, they give their product to socialist countries and charge the crap out of us here.
It should be the other way around.
And unlike the fatass nosepicking speculators, we actually take possession of our "investments"...something else that desperately needs to be changed.
The U.S., as well, is reducing the global supply of crude by prohibiting crude exports. We are therefore increasing the international price of crude (Brent) and decreasing the domestic price of crude (WTI). Yet the U.S. does not restrict the export of gasoline and other refined products, so U.S. businesses must pay a higher international price for gasoline while domestic producers of crude are penalized with a lower price for their product. We are thereby discouraging domestic exploration and production and discouraging domestic business activity, while giving a bigger crack spread to domestic refineries. If that isn't bad enough, domestic refineries, in the absence of an adequate supply of domestic light sweet crude, have been refitted, at enormous cost, to handle foreign (Canadian and Venezuelan, etc.) heavy sour crude. Now that tight oil production has increased the supply of light sweet crude, refineries lack the capacity to refine that light crude, so the U.S. export prohibition threatens to limit tight oil production. How will several million barrels a day of forecast additional light crude production be refined if it cannot be exported?
With the impact of the heavy hand of government in the export prohibition now clear, what is the linkage to domestic gasoline prices, which are theoretically an international market? If the export restriction was removed, then over the next few years, the U.S., with domestic production increases, might export say, three million barrels per day of crude oil. Other things being equal, that would decrease the international price of crude. That would decrease the international price of gasoline. Also, because the additional supply of gasoline would be relatively local, as in Canada, Mexico, etc., lower transportation costs would dictate that U.S. gasoline prices would be lower again: lower than gasoline prices elsewhere.
So I take exception to your being accused of not supporting the free market. It is your accusers who are hiding behind a government restriction on free market activity in the form of the crude export prohibition.
I am sorry you feel insulted by my words. What actions I thought you were suggesting seemed to fit that. Perhaps I misunderstand what you are suggesting actually be done to correct the problem you see. If you could explain what specific actions you suggest taking, we could have a more reasoned discussion.
If OPEC can hold back production to drive up the global price of crude, why can't we do the same with fuel?
Now I am confused even more. I thought you wanted to lower prices, not raise them.
US consumers have been unwillingly "investing" since 2008 and guess who's been reaping the rewards....go ahead, we're waiting.
I greatly disagree, there has been massive US investment in the production from our shale fields and associated work with that production. It is why the demand for experienced hands in those fields has shot up very high along with the work hours and wages.
There has to be a private sector formula that helps both the US economy and the domestic producers. Some numbers wizard could easily figure this out.
If you could be more descriptive of what you think should happen, it would help. Because of the relatively high prices, we have had large investments in domestic production and climbing production rates.
In post #8 you said your reduction in gasoline price should be a buck. That is $42 a barrel. The means gasoline selling for less than the price of oil used to make, the transportation pipelines, refineries, distributors all working for a loss?
In post #16, you said we should ban exporting refined products. That means shutting down refineries, loss of jobs, loss of refinery capacity and more money paid to imports from other nations while they build up the refineries.
It is action like those you suggested that drove my descriptions. If you are just complaining and expecting magic to happen, then we can stop our discussion.
The same thing has been practiced by the pharmaceutical companies, they give their product to socialist countries and charge the crap out of us here.
Perhaps if we started by exporting our lawyers and politians that make doing business so expensive and difficult in the US...