Alaskan Pipeline Corrosion

[Bluecheck546]

Since I haven’t read the whole discussion may comment maybe out of place... But, how I see it... The profits thing and exploitation of customers started since Exxon and Mobile Oil merged. Those two large companies used to compete for our dollar and as result maintained fair price for their product. Now it is less to compete with, so they set the price and customer will pay! Remember "MaBell". Ever since the break up of the big company occurred, the phone service, prices, options have improved for the better from my vantage point. The same should happen here with exxon-mobile. I firmly believe the prices again be fair, nobody would be questioning those big profits anymore.

 

[LMTC]

MikePA,
In 1973 president Nixon imposed, by executive order, a ceiling on the price of crude oil During the oil crisis.
Why can't the Gov't do this again? Or impose some sort of Winfall tax?? While I'm not going to try and explain how this worked here on this forum, And I am not going to pretend to know everything about what and how this happend, ( I was only 3yrs. old at the time) This pretty much should answer your questions if you do some research.

Or, we could just simply bury our heads in the sand, let the price spiral out of control and just go along with the status quo.

For the guys here that think everything is just fine and this is business as usual, I ask you this. At what price are you personally going to say enough is enough already? $5-$6-$10 a gallon????
If we just do nothing and the price gets to $10 a gallon America WILL (not might) be shut down.
Truckers will not be able to afford to haul our goods, along with the railroad. And those two transportation businesses are the backbone of America.
Airline companies are already barely getting by now. The big 3 automotive manufacturers will shut down. A major depression will quickly rear its ugly head.
See where i am going with this ???

As a matter of fact the largest trucking company ( Schnieder) is already shutting down for one day and fuel is only at $3.10 now !!!!
So what is your personal price????

So at $10/gallon America will be shut down, the trucks will not be able to afford to haul our goods. The result of that would be that the gas will no longer be delivered to the gas stations, grocery store shelves will be empty, HH Gregg will be out of big screen TVs....and the oil companies will thus be out of business. That certainly makes good sense. So all the "Big oil" execs and those of us getting rich off the stocks will then do what? Sit at home and laugh about the money we have that won't buy anything because the store shelves are empty and the gas pumps are dry? Ummm...yes, I see where this is going.

 

[scesnick]

What , you think that the trucks will be running? You never answered the question. When is enough enough for you personally??? What price??

You run a tractor dealership right? At what price does the fuel prices have to get to before you can no longer afford to deliver your tractors ? Or, recieve shipments of new tractors?

 

[George2615]

With the billions in profit the oil companies have made the first two quarters they should be able to build a new bypass pipeline without passing on the costs to us, the consumer. That is what small business have to do, reinvest the profits in the business. When the pipeline shutdown hit the news here the price of gas went up 5 cents per gallon that day and have continued to increase. Diesel was $3.14 here on Sunday when I filled up. I get sick everytime I read about another CEO's multimillion dollar salary plus perks and bonuses.

 

[scesnick]

It seems like the more people that chime in the less Ducati and I are alone on this.. Who would have thunk it ????

 

[LMTC]

What , you think that the trucks will be running? You never answered the question. When is enough enough for you persoonally??? What price??

You run a tractor dealership right? At what price does the fuel prices have to get to before you can no longer afford to deliver your tractors ? Or, recieve shipments of new tractors?

There is no price at which I believe any government entity should intervene.

 

[scesnick]

I'm not asking that. I'm asking when do you feel like the price is too high. that is all.

 

[MikePA]

MikePA,
In 1973 president Nixon imposed, by executive order, a ceiling on the price of crude oil During the oil crisis.
Why can't the Gov't do this again? Or impose some sort of Winfall tax?? While I'm not going to try and explain how this worked here on this forum, And I am not going to pretend to know everything about what and how this happend, ( I was only 3yrs. old at the time) This pretty much should answer your questions if you do some research.

Or, we could just simply bury our heads in the sand, let the price spiral out of control and just go along with the status quo.

For the guys here that think everything is just fine and this is business as usual, I ask you this. At what price are you personally going to say enough is enough already? $5-$6-$10 a gallon????
If we just do nothing and the price gets to $10 a gallon America WILL (not might) be shut down.
Truckers will not be able to afford to haul our goods, along with the railroad. And those two transportation businesses are the backbone of America.
Airline companies are already barely getting by now. The big 3 automotive manufacturers will shut down. A major depression will quickly rear its ugly head.
See where i am going with this ???

As a matter of fact the largest trucking company ( Schnieder) is already shutting down for one day and fuel is only at $3.10 now !!!!
So what is your personal price????

Thank you for having the decency to answer one of my questions. If I've read your response correctly.

2. Who will set this amount? The Government (Congress) will determine what a fair profit is by implementing a windfall profits tax. In the case of Exxon/Mobil, they dumped about half of their profits back into exploration. If the government takes some of their profit, less will go into exploration and less to the shareholders, including retirement funds that depend upon those profits.

The situation in the early 70s was different. There were oil shortages then and Nixon's price controls made the situation worse. I know, I lived through it.

Oil companies were and are not stupid. They know price controls wont last forever, so they did and will cut back on production, or they will sell their products elsewhere where they can get market prices, thus creating a shortage. What good is a lower/stable price if there's no fuel to buy?

Or, we could just simply bury our heads in the sand, let the price spiral out of control and just go along with the status quo.

Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but this statement implies that people who disagree with you are burying their heads in the sand.

For the guys here that think everything is just fine and this is business as usual...

You are jumping to a conclusion. People who disagree with you do not think everything is fine. Most, if not all, do not want 'the solution' to make things worse as they did in the 70s.

 

[LMTC]

I'm not asking that. I'm asking when do you feel like the price is too high. that is all.

Too high for what? If your question is "when do I think the price is too high?" my answer is "it is too high when less is being sold than is available and the companies that process/store/crack/refine it start to have a surplus".

 

[livincountry]

I brought up the comparison of a Public Utility Commission setting prices last month: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82780

Wow I was ahead of my time...I'm smarter than I look

Before long food additives will hit the news again! an inside joke for those that read that topic.

We can all opt not to buy a Tiger Woods endorsed product or a Mel Gibson movie, I don't begrudge these guys their $$. Most of America has no choice but to buy gasoline to get from point a to point b. Most of us here on this website live miles from public transit.

At some point we'll change our habits and only drive when we need to. Prices may never come down with China coming online and consuming what we conserve on the world market. We need to become more self sufficient with our energy needs. We should be reaching the point where mining the shale oil will be profitable. We supposedly have more shale oil than most of the middle east. Let's consume their oil first though so they can become a non-factor in the world and go back to living in the stoneage as they did before oil was found under their deserts. If Rwanda or Sudan had oil we'd be there to address their issues.
Like it or not we need energy and need to deal with it now, globally, until we find a new way to fuel our needs.

One quick note: I heard at Sunoco or Shell or some fuel retailer has a "million gallon give-a-way". It's a "gasoline for a lifetime" game piece you get when you visit their store. I thought we were running out of fuel? Will this pay out until 2010 like the tree huggers claim or what?????

 

[_RaT_]

Too high for what? If your question is "when do I think the price is too high?" my answer is "it is too high when less is being sold than is available and the companies that process/store/crack/refine it start to have a surplus".

EXACTLY! Order up that brownie button for Wayne. Did you take Econ 101 at the same school as me?

 

[scesnick]

Thank you for having the decency to answer one of my questions. If I've read your response correctly.

2. Who will set this amount? The Government (Congress) will determine what a fair profit is by implementing a windfall profits tax.

The situation in the early 70s was different. There were oil shortages then and Nixon's price controls made the situation worse. I know, I lived through it.


Perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but this statement implies that people who disagree with you are burying their heads in the sand.

No, I did mean they do not see the price hikes. I meant that we should just go on with letting the price spiral out of control and just chalk it up to as " Business being Business" and go on like nothing can be done about it.

 

[scesnick]

I'm talking about you personally. At what price will you have to say. O.K. this is not going to cut itanymore I am paying $X a gallon and my business can not survive if I have to keep paying #XX a gallon. You know what I mean.

 

[_RaT_]

I'm talking about you personally. At what price will you have to say. O.K. this is not going to cut itanymore I am paying $X a gallon and my business can not survive if I have to keep paying #XX a gallon. You know what I mean.

Something will change. Your consumption will reduce be it from fewer trips or better mpg just as it will for your neighbor and the next state over. This is not unique to the US by the way. Demand goes down, a surplus is created and the price will go down. I have not seen anyone or know of anyone who has reduced their driving habits in my area resulting in less demand. We are no where near that point yet. It was said back in the early 90's that it would take about $5 a gallon before folks drastically changed their driving habits, I'll bet it is up some from that. Until then, prepare for higher energy costs. The rest of the world already knows this (look at the vehicles they prefer to drive), were still suffering from sticker shock.

 

[livincountry]

As a matter of fact the largest trucking company ( Schnieder) is already shutting down for one day and fuel is only at $3.10 now !!!!
So what is your personal price????

I'm not doubting you but can you point me to that news on the web? I searched and couldn't find it. That is HUGE and hasn't made the news that I've heard. I used to own a couple rigs and when diesel was $1.46 on average for a 12 month period I was just getting by and that was a few years ago. I know the surcharges have gone up but yikes I'm glad those rigs are out of my life.

Someone check my math: my Detriot 60 Series in 9 speed Freightliners averaged 6 mpg. If you run 60 mph that is 10 gallons of fuel consumed per hour of highway travel. At $3.00 per gallon that's $30 per hour of COST not including, repairs, PM's, depreciation, driver wages.

 

[LMTC]

http://www.schneider.com/cgi-bin/RnewsMain.cgi

news page for Schneider National


http://www.schneiderstrucking.ca/news/news.htm

news page for Schneider Trucking

Didn't see anything there, but perhaps the poster will point us to it.

 

[WhyNot]

Folk's
After reading this thread I figure I will put my 2 cent's in. I work for a large corporation that is heavily regulated by the government. After working in this environment for about 5 year's now I can honestly say that you and me as consumer's do not want any gov't regulation on anything. Example someone made the point about Mabell and the break up Since that time Japan and other nation's have blown past our communication's network to an all fiber or wireless network. The reason being govt reg. has created a world whereas the larger telco's place all their money into the new technology only to have to lease it to the smaller companies fat or below cost which forces the large telco's not to invest in new technology until recently. This has nothing to do with oil but is the best example I could come up with to show how gov't reg. is not good.

Now as far as the record profit's are concerned I look at it like this, It is the job of every buisness owner/CEO to make sure their company is profitable. If there are record earning's (no matter how high) to be had they better take it because they don't know what will happen tomorrow it just happen's that the oil companies have a product that is in very high demand right now and are getting all the press since oil is something that everyone need's. The only way to fix this is to decrease the demand but, I and a lot more like me don't want to change my lifestyle because of a few extra dollar's a week not to mention all the new homes being constructed that need oil to heat them and the contractor's that need the oil to build them. Also as mentioned by Eddie the gov't makes more off the oil than the oil companies do but, nothing get's said about that. How about the gov't quit's wasting money and using the saving's to reduce the price of oil?

This was not a post meant to bash the gov't or to say the prices are to high but, I just wanted to put my two cent's to hopefully help see this heated topic in a different light.

 

[NewToy]

Or we could put the folks adrift on that iceberg that have prevented us from developing our own reserves in Colorado and ANWR so that we would have better sources. Why is it ineptitude? Stuff has to be fixed. Buildings shut elevators down all the time for maintenance. If there were building environmentalists who fought to allow only one elevator per building, then there would be no running elevators when the one was down for routine maintenance. If there wasn't so much opposition to drilling and building pipelines and refineries, this shut down would have far less impact.

Let me see if I can clarify for you.
Pipelines are not the same as elevators. Since they have many fewer regulatory angencies looking up their pipe.
The only people objecting to building more refineries are the oil companies.
The pipeline has been problematic for years, hence the ineptitude. They can't even estimate the repair time, hence the iceberg.
Regards,

John

 

[ducati996]

Ducati, that sure doesn't make much sense to me. Most of us ask questions when we don't know the answers and hope someone else does. Personally, I thought Mike asked some good questions and I'd like to hear any possible answers. Do you really think a person should not ask a question without answering his own question.

The question was loaded and the position was already evident with the tone of the question, so I choose not to answer - not because there is no answer.

 

[ducati996]

There is no price at which I believe any government entity should intervene.

Well you will think different when the economy goes full boar into a recession and nobody buys your tractors - because they cant afford the diesel or your prices....thats when you will cry....and I will say sorry dude you should have not been in the service industry -

Its clear that there are those who feel they have enough wealth and affluence to ride out any storm. I dont and will never flaunt it and their positions of it being fair market or capitalism at its best, and to leave it alone just unnerve me to know end. Im tired of seeing folks get screwed over a barrel (friends and family) especially when there is zero choice in the matter -again there is no choice - contrary to what LMTC thinks - you still here for more abuse?