Why ARE gas prices rising?

[Mark Crnolatas]

Maybe someone can find the actual reason gas prices are rising. In my googling, all I am finding is dance steps that explain nothing, and have not found a clear reason the prices are going up. Maybe it's my "googling" and I'm missing something?

Mark Allan Crnolatas

[Stephen Eisel]

Maybe someone can find the actual reason gas prices are rising. In my googling, all I am finding is dance steps that explain nothing, and have not found a clear reason the prices are going up. Maybe it's my "googling" and I'm missing something?

Mark Allan Crnolatas

greed

[Jim DeVito]

Maybe someone can find the actual reason gas prices are rising. In my googling, all I am finding is dance steps that explain nothing, and have not found a clear reason the prices are going up. Maybe it's my "googling" and I'm missing something?

Mark Allan Crnolatas

greed

You got it. They know we are suckers who will pay no matter how high it goes.

[ryan costa]

it is kind of complicated and kinda not complicated. The price of oil has risen dramtically. This is for two main reasons: the supply hasn't increased as much as demand has increased. and the commodities traders bid it up and down with each other every day.

The goal of Globalism is American Economic Conservatives arguing against American welfare by instead putting the rest of the world on welfare. Whether this be by building a lot of factories in the third world, or trying to replace their governments. It has succeeded to a point in that their demand for oil is rising very fast, just like our own has. The supply of output hasn't risen with this, and it costs a lot more to get out the next batches of oil.

the commodities trading part of it is a bit more complicated. A mini example is how Enron jury rigged the "privatization" of electricity in California, then gouged consumers by trading it back and forth and trying to route it back and forth all over. That is ok, because Enron was an economic Superstar described as the "most innovative" companies.

Our own oil commodities traders are an hysterical bunch. I'm not sure exactly how they operate. but it was described pretty enthusiastically and candidly in a book called "Oil on the Brain" by Lisa Margonelli. I don't remember most of the details, but it was a comprehensive book and the author did not seem to have an axe to grind.

It could be argued that we need the higher prices to induce some notion of conservation and long term planning. If the commodities traders and oil companies get rich it is better than simply raising taxes on oil or having leaders give pep talks about conservation at all their speeches. pep talks on conservation can be depressing and hurt retail.

[Stephen Eisel]

Not drilling for oil on this continent also impacts the amount of oil supply available to us here in North America... just sayin....

[ryan costa]

the Continental U.S. is about the most thoroughly explored nation for oil in the world. Since Ford and the others got us all rolling real fast there was a serious supply issue by the 1920s. So the U.S. was drilled all over looking for oil. The free market small government past presented no no real barriers for drilling wherever you wanted.

Maybe we can drill a lot deeper now than before. Maybe ohio or the foothills or northern appalachia have a few trillion barrels a few thousand feet deeper than we looked last time.

On the other hand the problem isn't that there is so little oil, but that we need so much oil.

[Stephen Eisel]

I was thinking of the state that is not contiguous to the lower 48 and not an ocean away

[Stephen Eisel]

[ryan costa]

we don't need cheap oil again if we're going to blow it on continuing to hollow out cities and towns, "globalization", going too far with sprawl, monopolizing or outsourcing manufacturing and agriculture, more cable tv stations, and most of the stuff that's gone on in California in the last 80 years.

[Stephen Eisel]

we don't need cheap oil again if we're going to blow it on continuing to hollow out cities and towns, "globalization", going too far with sprawl, monopolizing or outsourcing manufacturing and agriculture, more cable tv stations, and most of the stuff that's gone on in California in the last 80 years.

They need to make alternative energy cheaper so we can dump the fossil fuels...

[ryan costa]

I'm not sure who "they" are or why they would be so motivated or competent to break the laws of thermodynamics.

gasoline would still be 99 cents a gallon if our culture had the ethics and behavioral norms to not use or need so much of it. As it is, the imperative of the last 50 years has been to drastically increase the distance products, workers, and consumers travel for each and every thing. There are dualistic dynamics involved in this. In manufacturing and office work it is to save on labor costs while also increasing the capital required to build the newer enormous factories and office parks which presumably operate on greater "economies of scale". In housing this is to provide more "affordable" housing while also building new "neighborhoods" that appreciate in value faster than the "declining" neighorhoods.

any miracle alternative energy breakthrough would lead to the same problems we presently have bigger and faster.

[Valerie Molinski]

Maybe someone can find the actual reason gas prices are rising. In my googling, all I am finding is dance steps that explain nothing, and have not found a clear reason the prices are going up. Maybe it's my "googling" and I'm missing something?

Mark Allan Crnolatas

greed

And asia... especially china. As more people start driving cars int hat neck of the woods, demand is going sky high. The prices are following

[ryan costa]

If this abiotic and deep crust oil idea were credible there'd be more people making money off it or promoting it. Consider all the stuff that gets billions of dollars pumped into it that is overhyped or trivial. the internet stock bubble years. enron. youtube. facebook IPO speculation. Myspace.

Haliburton would be making at least as much money here as they are getting from tax payers to do whatever they're doing in Iraq.

Yet there isn't much heat or press or propaganda to get it going. the heat and press and propaganda is celebrity gossip and the global war on terror(i hear we are winning!).

Most of America isn't within a real metropolitan area. its mostly small towns and state highway intersections and houses under 100k. the farmers outside these areas would make more money leasing to oil companies. if there were money to be made in abiotic oil way down deep.

the most ambitious estimates of reserves in Alaska are a small fraction of our expected demands.

There is plenty of heavily polluted former industrial/factory land to build refineries on.

there's no propaganda to drive smaller cars, unless there are 3 lcd tvs in the car for passengers to watch.

[Stephen Eisel]

If this abiotic and deep crust oil idea were credible there'd be more people making money off it or promoting it.

Tell that to the Russians... Abiotic theory = low oil prices

[Phil Florian]

there's no propaganda to drive smaller cars, unless there are 3 lcd tvs in the car for passengers to watch.

Great, now I want one. Thanks a bunch.