Yeah for big oil!!!
The price of oil is determined by supply and demand. Oil companies' profits are directly correlated with the price of oil. So it makes sense that since oil is trading at record highs, profits are at record highs. In recent years there have been huge increases in demand mainly from China but also from other countries (we are the biggest consumer). Supplies haven't caught up to that demand, so prices have gone up. But just because a company is making a profit doesn't mean they have cheated the masses by making them pay more for gas. It all boils down this: a limited supply of oil and a huge demand for it. I find it interesting that bottled water is more expensive and it doesn't have to be refined like oil does. Regarding innovation, the oil companies will probably be the ones the figure out viable alternative energy sources since they have a huge amount of capital for research. But remember necessity is the mother of invention. When we really need it, someone will invent it. I got to get back to work. What do you think I do, respond to forum messages all day?
What we are experiencing can only be described as a massive market failure. All of us are economic decisionmakers and we rely on markets to guide us. However, in order for us to make sound economic decisions the market must provide us information including the full cost of the products we buy. Unfortunately this is where the market is screwed up.
Oil prices in the US is one of the best example of this failure. Here is how the cost of oil is determined-discovery costs, pumping it out of the ground, refining to gasoline, and delivery to gas stations. This equals currently around $3.00 a gallon.
What does the cost leave out: climate change, tax subsidies (ex. the oil depletion allowance), military costs of protecting access to oil in troubled regions, and health care costs for treating respiratory illnesses from breathing polluted air.
Nicholas Stern (former chief economist at the World Bank) released a study in 2006 on the future costs of climate change and he discusses at length the concept of massive market failure. see, The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
If you are interested in this (and you should be
check out this book that is freely available for download: Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown. It can also be purchased in print form.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
Oil prices in the US is one of the best example of this failure. Here is how the cost of oil is determined-discovery costs, pumping it out of the ground, refining to gasoline, and delivery to gas stations. This equals currently around $3.00 a gallon.
What does the cost leave out: climate change, tax subsidies (ex. the oil depletion allowance), military costs of protecting access to oil in troubled regions, and health care costs for treating respiratory illnesses from breathing polluted air.
Nicholas Stern (former chief economist at the World Bank) released a study in 2006 on the future costs of climate change and he discusses at length the concept of massive market failure. see, The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
If you are interested in this (and you should be
check out this book that is freely available for download: Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown. It can also be purchased in print form. http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
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flashmaster
- Posts: 528
- Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 7:00 pm
I should have also added to my orginal post. Why the fuck aren't they pouring even 1-2billion into research. That minute amount would put a huge booster shot into advances in alternative energy resources. Its for the good of the earth. If they dont do something about it, there isn't gonna be anyone to sell oil to in the next hundred years anyway. That's what pisses me off. Not the fact that they are making all this money.
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ScrmnPeeler
- Posts: 223
- Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2002 5:46 pm
Big oil spends massive amounts of money in capital and R&D, only this development is specifically designed to produce return on investment. They are developing better and cheaper ways to get gas into your gastank.
Don't expect an oil company to come up with cheap highly available solar power.
That would be like expecting DunkinDonuts to develop better chinese food.
Oil company profit margins are the same as they were last year; they're just selling more gas.
Don't buy gas if you don't like it.
Don't expect an oil company to come up with cheap highly available solar power.
That would be like expecting DunkinDonuts to develop better chinese food.
Oil company profit margins are the same as they were last year; they're just selling more gas.
Don't buy gas if you don't like it.
So, you're a feminist...isn't that cute.
http://www.upi.com/International_Securi ... ange/9818/
Red Cavaney, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute on regulations: "Cavaney acknowledged that the industry's embrace of the climate-change debate was slow in coming, and said the turning point came when Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and it became clear some sort of climate-change initiative was on the way".
And in the same article this: Nobuo Tanaka, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, the energy arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ""It would essentially require a third industrial revolution, or an energy revolution, which would completely transform the way we produce and use energy and entail painful adjustment"
What honesty for once!
Red Cavaney, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute on regulations: "Cavaney acknowledged that the industry's embrace of the climate-change debate was slow in coming, and said the turning point came when Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and it became clear some sort of climate-change initiative was on the way".
And in the same article this: Nobuo Tanaka, head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, the energy arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ""It would essentially require a third industrial revolution, or an energy revolution, which would completely transform the way we produce and use energy and entail painful adjustment"
What honesty for once!
all you haters die slow.