| Author | Message | ||
     Toronto_s3 |
Would you support such a thing if it meant lower prices at the pumps? | ||
| Spatten1 |
When has the government running any large operation been done efficiently or cheaply? It would be a joke, and even the idiot that proposed it is back tracking as fast as she can right now. She is so ignorant that she did not understand the implications, but has apparently been educated by her party in the past few days. | ||
| Cowboy |
$500.00 toilet seats and claw hammers=$25.00 per gal. gas, who in hell dreamed this up. | ||
| G234146 |
In order to artificially lower prices, the gov would have to subsidize the cost. Which means it'll come out of our taxes. The only difference being, instead of it coming out at the pump, it'll come out at your paycheck. http://banderasnews.com/0806/edop-gassubsididies.h tm Unless there's another option out there.  | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Worst. Idea. Ever. | ||
| Strato9r |
Read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". Then tell me any government should be granted such enormous power. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I have said it for years, lets admit we are in the middle east for oil. Seize every last f'n bit of it, the refineries, the pipelines, the shipping facilities, drilling platforms, storage POL farms, airports, rail heads, vital shipping points and let the rest of the damn country have their civil war. They are far better at killing each other than we are. Leave the nation building to the cohosts on Tv that think it is a good idea. What every happened to good old fashioned manifest destiny and gun boat diplomacy? While we are at it, there are 6.2 million people incarcerated that could use a summer vacation in scenic tropical desert. | ||
| Blake |
"Would you support such a thing if it meant lower prices at the pumps?" It wouldn't, so I don't. The airlines used to be nationally regulated, remember what happened when that ended? Prices plummeted. Too much regulation is problematic. It hinders competition and the ability to profit, thus fewer businesses will find the industry attractive and those in the industry will find less incentive to further develop the resource. What is it about an 8% return on investment that socialists find so objectionable that they want the government to take over the industry? We always hear the socialists decrying "big oil" for their record profits. Since when is profit a bad thing for American businesses?  We don't ever hear socialists talking about the vast amounts of taxes paid or the large number of Americans gainfully employed by "big oil", or the contributions of "big oil" to the economy. Back in the mid-'80s when "big oil" was suffering losses, we didn't hear the socialists demanding that the government take steps to ensure the industry remained strong and viable. Let them find and produce all the oil they want as long as they do so with respect and concern for the environment. Not developing the field in ANWAR or allowing development of additional offshore fields is an obscene joke and when those idiotic restrictions are done away with, the price of oil futures will drop overnight. Increase the margin on oil futures options from 5% to 50% and restrict trading more inline with other market/commodity rules. Again, the price of oil would drop virtually overnight. And yeah, develop viable roadworthy electric vehicles and nuclear power plants to supply them. | ||
| Blake |
How many of the 30,000+ Americans employed by Exxon-Mobil are you willing to put out of work? Care to guess how much on average those employees earn? You want to outsource those jobs? | ||
| Glitch |
Oh yeah, government oil company. That's the ticket. It's hard to believe there is someone out there that actually thinks the government is meant for running anything, other than the military (and they hardly do that efficiently enough). Who would be the government head of oil? I don't know about y'all, but there's no one in government I'd put in that position. Bunch of dumb asses. | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
The airlines used to be nationally regulated, remember what happened when that ended? Prices plummeted. I don't want to hijack this thread, but the deregulation of the airlines is coming back to bite us in the ass. This is coming from someone who has first hand knowledge what it really has done. | ||
| Court |
Profit, from C. L. Canfield Constructors, Inc, was what bought and paid for my first Buell about 20 years ago. | ||
| Benm2 |
Care to elaborate on that? From my not-involved-with-the-industry perspective, the old-school airlines still look like top heavy behemoths accustomed to protection having their butts handed to them by leaner, more efficient upstarts. | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Care to elaborate on that? Sure can. My old man is a retired airline pilot. Started his US commercial career in 1976. The airline industry has always had a razor thin profit margin. During regulation they were able to provide quality service to smaller communities without the mad scramble for profitability. Most of the runs that weren't coast to coast (i.e. NY to LA) or international were not profitable. They didn't run 100% seat occupancy. The airline employees were fairly compensated. Equipment was maintained with a cost is no object mentality. It was a golden area. Yes tickets were not cheap, but the system worked. After deregulation the air carriers were forced into a defensive mode. They had to fight the unions, they had to cut service, and amenities. Quite a few airlines went under. Most of the little startups (sans southwest) were truly flight by night operations. They would start up on heavily loaned money, dash in, slash prices, forcing the larger carriers to also do so (sometimes to less than cost) then usually they would burn out in debt. All the while the CEO got a golden parachute. And the employees and customers were left holding the bag. In modern terms the big airlines have cut everywhere they can. The employees in some cases have taken over a 50% paycut. Some jobs have been outsourced all together. Up until recently the smaller carriers business models have been an interesting one. Let's take jet blue for example. They started up with a huge loan backed by GE capital. Then head over to boeing to buy NEW 737 (of course powered by GE equipment) with a service contract. Then they show off these shiny new aircraft to the public with fancy leather seats, TV's, and low cost tickets. What they aren't saying is how they underpay their employee and how they do not spend a dime on maintenance. Your profit outlooks looks good when you do not have to pay for maintenance on your new aircraft. Everyone else with older craft have to factor in those cost. But Jet Blue forced the other carriers to cut prices to their level. Hence them operating in the red. Funny thing is Jet Blue doesn't have a plan on what they will do as their planes age, and their maintenance contracts run out. It is happening already, and they have been in trouble for some time. Some carriers are deferring maintenance as is. My father predicts they will be an air disaster in the coming years that will be totally the fault of lackluster maintenance. Problem is, the bus crowd is now used to paying $130 to fly cross country, when in reality it costs $350 (not real numbers, but you get the point). It is the classic race to the bottom. Now the only saving grace for the larger carriers are two fold. They can negotiate better fuel contracts, and the USPS. Yes the post office. Because of the larger reach most US air mail is carried on commercial airlines. The fuel aspect is showing it ugly head. Look how many small carriers have, or are about to go under. The airline industry needs to be looked at in the same way public transit is. Most foreign governments have been doing this with great success. It needs to be (mildly) regulated as to keep it safe, on time, and most importantly actually alive. | ||
| Toronto_s3 |
What if oil hit $200 or $300 dollars. At what point would you want the government to step in to take control of things to save the economy and your standard of life? | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
"How many of the 30,000+ Americans employed by Exxon-Mobil are you willing to put out of work?" I think Exxon-Mobil can afford the severence packages. Look how many low-income families they're putting the squeeze on. | ||
| Hootowl |
What exactly would the government control? If you add up all the oil US companies generate, it isn't as much as ARAMCO (The Saudi state owned oil company) puts out. We're a drop in the bucket of global oil production. How would nationalizing the oil industry increase output when the folks holding up production are in the government? | ||
| Benm2 |
I wouldn't. If oil gets expensive enough, alternates will be found. Technology will leap forward, but that will take some time. In the short term, people will have to adapt: car pool, walk to the grocery store, etc. Oil has always been a finite resource. When demand finally has gotten high enough to cause an issue, the calls come out for government controls. I call a solid BS on that one. The time for government controls has passed: CAFE standards should have been raised years ago, and the SUV/Truck market should not have been exempted. | ||
| Ceejay |
so is steel, but we seem to keep thinking that we should continue to lease new cars and trucks because they save a gallon here and there. So we drive/idle more, walk less and have our hand soap pumped out by battery so we can continue to act like our hands are clean of the situation. Just like our electricy situation-out of site out of mind. The more centralized our money/society/ideaology gets the less freedom we have within it. | ||
| Spatten1 |
How would nationalizing the oil industry increase output when the folks holding up production are in the government? Great question for the idiot that proposed it. | ||
| Cowboy |
To much goverment control now, wells that are capable of much higher production are flowing through some very small chokes (4/64) now if we want more oil we need for goverment to get the Hell out of the way. | ||
| Strokizator |
If the govt gains control of the oil industry, they'll be telling you what you can and can't drive. I imagine the govt's idea of the perfect peoples car is a Yugo. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Confiscating all the oil in the Middle East would start WW3 - sorry. Deregulation of the airline industry has brought that industry into line with the rest of corporate America. Most corporations suffer from the woes you described, CorpMonkey. Welcome to the club | ||
| Spatten1 |
Problem is, the bus crowd is now used to paying $130 to fly cross country, when in reality it costs $350 (not real numbers, but you get the point). It is the classic race to the bottom. This is a problem for the American consumer? Sounds like proof that deregulation worked to me. If they cut your pay too much, get a different job or start your own business. This ain't the Soviet Union, you are free to learn new skills and move to a different town. I know it sucks, but for every "underpaid" airline employee there are hundreds of passengers saving hundreds of dollars. I figure if the pay sucks too badly, the employees will leave, and the company will have to improve compensation. I am with you on the golden parachutes for executives, that does rub me the wrong way. | ||
| Toronto_s3 |
I'm going to direct you guys to this website... http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html Now before you all start saying what a load of crap it is and all we have to do is open up Alaska or start pumping oil out of oil shale formations I would suggest you read the entire website. It only takes about 15 minutes to get through it all. I have been thinking about getting out of some of my oil stocks and decided to spend the day researching other investments etc. The more research I did the more I realized that oil stocks really are the place to be currently. Russia is actually cutting production currently because they love where the cost of oil is right now. For all the talk of the Saudi 500k bbd increase that just happened it really is just a drop in the bucket so to speak of what is really needed. If you look at some of the numbers it looks pretty scary for a potential drawn out recessionary period for the next 5-10 years because global demand is up and current global production is static presently. Even a 1% decline in daily global production has huge ramifications on the present price of a barrel per day and ultimately at the pump. The website has a decidedly apocalyptic bent to it which I don't think is realistic or plausible but I certainly feel that the economic effect of long term oil inflation will have negative effects on the U.S. economy for the decade looking forward. Any thoughts? | ||
| Slaughter |
Better yet - nationalize real estate! Real Estate is worse than fuel. High fuel prices will FORCE conservation, high real estate prices??? EVIL! You can walk, take public transportation or relocate - but you GOTTA live somewhere. Get the government to regulate all property, NOBODY needs more than 250 square feet of living space. I actually know families of 5 who are convinced they actually NEED 1300 square feet of house!! Really, I'm not making it up. Greedy bastards. If the Government would get into real estate, then they wouldn't have to nationalize all the transportation systems because all the Citizens would be living in high-density population centers and be taking the mass transportation to their work. It's a win-win - the Government wouldn't even have to ban private transportation - it'd die of its own accord. | ||
| Cowboy |
250 sq.ft.??? I am sure the wife and I would kill each other. To maintain sanity you need at least 1000 sq. ft per person with a large barn plus a work shop. Harmony is elbow room. | ||
| Thumper74 |
Toronto... We're feeling it already. I've know about Peak Oil for a long time, but I don't feel it's feasible or likely. I'm no expert, but I can't believe that 'The Man' isn't exploring alternative energy resources. If it does get that bad, I can see the shit hitting the fan. Anyone see "I Am Legend" where they show the gas stations at like $8.00/gal... yikes! | ||
| Damnut |
Problem is, the bus crowd is now used to paying $130 to fly cross country, when in reality it costs $350 (not real numbers, but you get the point). It is the classic race to the bottom. This is a problem for the American consumer? Sounds like proof that deregulation worked to me. Doesn't sound good to me. Since the airline companies are not getting enough money on the tickets they're cutting on other things like maintenance. Since my job REQUIRES me to fly to my customers this is something that I am not comfortable with. I'm sure my family will not be happy if I die in a plane crash because of lack of maintenance or because they can't pay a skilled worker to do a job right. Think about it, if you get paid shit for a job what are you going to do?? A shity job. Sorry but my life depends on the maintenance crew to do a good job and I need skilled workers to do that job. Why do you think your Big Mac doesn't look like the commercials??? Cause the kid that cooks it gets paid shit and doesn't really care if he does a shity job. Why should he??? If a 5 Star restaurant made the Big Mac it would look exactly like the commercials. Why?? Cause the cook gets paid for a job well done. | ||
| Blake |
"What if oil hit $200 or $300 dollars. At what point would you want the government to step in to take control of things to save the economy and your standard of life?" Socialists throw out the idea of "Government control" like it is some kind of magic cure all for the various pet issues--they like to call them "crises"--of the day. Please explain how a socialist takeover of American refineries by government would help deflate the price of oil on the global market. Even if the government were to comandeer all of "big oil" and run it as a non-profit, the price of a gallon of gasoline would drop a whopping 8%. That however would never happen as the inefficiency of government bureaucracy would eat that up in no time flat. Again, simply look to the airline industry. "Since the airline companies are not getting enough money on the tickets they're cutting on other things like maintenance." That is pure baloney and entirely illogical. Airliner maintenance for flight safety is mandated by the FAA. There is no skimping allowed. Pretending that there is skimping on airliner maintenance to save money is just fearmongering. And it is absolutely in the airlines best interest to maintain their huge investment in their primary capital assets, their fleet of aircraft. And of course it would be financial ruin if lax maintenance led to a crash. The first thing the FAA checks are the maintenace records. (Message edited by Blake on June 24, 2008) |
