NoWingsAttached
Unobtainium Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2006
- Messages
- 4,871
- Location
- Columbia, SC
- Aircraft
- Air Command Tandem w/ Arrow 100hp; GyroBee w/ Hirth 65hp; Air Command Tandem w/ Yamaha 150hp
- Total Flight Time
- >350
FIRST: Resasi, I met you at Bensen Days, but didn't know who you were! DO you remember me???
SECOND: I have been out of this thread for a long time, due to Bensen Days festivities. I just got around to mellowing the post #50, thanks for the suggestion. Sometimes I say some mean things cuz I get too many beers in my belly and I am addicted to the comraderie or RF herelate at night and just want to say stuff. I don't really care at that point what it is I say usually. I just start going off like...well, like a moron.
THIRD: I can't even believe it every time this thread pops back up. I kinda started it as a farce, then I got passionate, then I got goofy, and then I started to actually do research to find some facts. You know what? It is all still the same to me. I still believe we were had. I can not take it, the coincidences are toooooooo much. You have to really be blind mice to think this is all coincidence.
I used to wonder how this happened. My god, man, most businesses operate on a 7% profit margin to do well. When gas prices first doubled, I did the math. The cost of producing and delivering a gallon of gasoline remained virtually unchanged. Profits for the franchisees remained virtually unchanged.
SO. Take the price of crude at $16.00/bbl, and figure the Exxons were doing a handsome profit for 3 decades. The price of the crude affected the bottom line by what, 20%? Let's be generous and make it 25%. You double that, making crude $32/bbl. Does that justify doubling hte cost of a gallon at the pump? HELLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOO???? No. By all accounts, if this were TRUELY a competitive commodity, it would mean an incremental increase, not an exponential increaze.
some just don't see the handwriting on the wall.
Gas, pre Bush era (not blaming him, just setting this in time), was steady at ~ $0.80/ gal. Let's say crude accounted for $0.20/g. Let's give the oil companies a HEALTHY $0.10/gal profit, and say production, taxes, delivery and franchisee profits account for $0.50/gal. None of that changes, but the price of crude doubles and goes up to $0.40/g cost. THe price at the pump SHOULD be $1.20 to $1.25/g. Instead it goes up to $1.60, with ALL of the excess profits lining the pockets of the few who have us by the kahunas. That is a leap from $0.10/g to $0.50/g - in one year. Quadrupled profits for a commodity that has been on the market for over a century, not a new dot com whatever. Whe is the last time the profits of the dairy farmers quadrupled? Never. Not in the entire history of man on earth. My Republican Right-wing friends said it was China gobbling up fuel, but the numbers clearly do not support that claim.
Then the price of crude climbs up to $48/bbl, and the price of gas at the pump should be, say $0.60 for fixed costs as above, and $0.60/g for the cost of crude, so where did we come up with $2.50/g????? That is like 50% profit margin for the Exxons, man!!! THis is BEFORE the investors went totally ape crazy on Wall Street over the commodites investments of crude. Now it is just nuts.
Is anyone going to sit back and say there is no price fixing? Is anyone going to insist that this is a truely free market economy? If that were truely the case, wouldn't some company be trying to undercut the others to get an edge somewhere? Somehow? how is it that every last single one of them changes their pricing over night, on the same night???? I had been expecting this for years, knowing that they were waiting for just the right combination of circumstances to pull the rug out from under us once again. That is the game. It always has been, it always will be. Some of the people are takers, but most of us are taken. What is sad is that so many are so easily fleeced, and still believe in "it", the system, and accept it at face value as OK, we have all the facts, we have all the numbers, everyone tells us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yeah, I want to stir up stuff. Yeah, I am going off half-cocked much of the time, but it is good. It gets people involved, gets people talking, and gets people sharing ideas and truths, right or wrong.
I have to wonder, how much does it cost to transport crude to the US? Why is domestic fuel virtually the same price as fuel from crude that comes from half-way around the world? Therre are reasons for all of this. I just don't think we have the answers, any of us. All we can do is do or die, not question why. But I want to question it.
SECOND: I have been out of this thread for a long time, due to Bensen Days festivities. I just got around to mellowing the post #50, thanks for the suggestion. Sometimes I say some mean things cuz I get too many beers in my belly and I am addicted to the comraderie or RF herelate at night and just want to say stuff. I don't really care at that point what it is I say usually. I just start going off like...well, like a moron.
THIRD: I can't even believe it every time this thread pops back up. I kinda started it as a farce, then I got passionate, then I got goofy, and then I started to actually do research to find some facts. You know what? It is all still the same to me. I still believe we were had. I can not take it, the coincidences are toooooooo much. You have to really be blind mice to think this is all coincidence.
I used to wonder how this happened. My god, man, most businesses operate on a 7% profit margin to do well. When gas prices first doubled, I did the math. The cost of producing and delivering a gallon of gasoline remained virtually unchanged. Profits for the franchisees remained virtually unchanged.
SO. Take the price of crude at $16.00/bbl, and figure the Exxons were doing a handsome profit for 3 decades. The price of the crude affected the bottom line by what, 20%? Let's be generous and make it 25%. You double that, making crude $32/bbl. Does that justify doubling hte cost of a gallon at the pump? HELLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOO???? No. By all accounts, if this were TRUELY a competitive commodity, it would mean an incremental increase, not an exponential increaze.
some just don't see the handwriting on the wall.
Gas, pre Bush era (not blaming him, just setting this in time), was steady at ~ $0.80/ gal. Let's say crude accounted for $0.20/g. Let's give the oil companies a HEALTHY $0.10/gal profit, and say production, taxes, delivery and franchisee profits account for $0.50/gal. None of that changes, but the price of crude doubles and goes up to $0.40/g cost. THe price at the pump SHOULD be $1.20 to $1.25/g. Instead it goes up to $1.60, with ALL of the excess profits lining the pockets of the few who have us by the kahunas. That is a leap from $0.10/g to $0.50/g - in one year. Quadrupled profits for a commodity that has been on the market for over a century, not a new dot com whatever. Whe is the last time the profits of the dairy farmers quadrupled? Never. Not in the entire history of man on earth. My Republican Right-wing friends said it was China gobbling up fuel, but the numbers clearly do not support that claim.
Then the price of crude climbs up to $48/bbl, and the price of gas at the pump should be, say $0.60 for fixed costs as above, and $0.60/g for the cost of crude, so where did we come up with $2.50/g????? That is like 50% profit margin for the Exxons, man!!! THis is BEFORE the investors went totally ape crazy on Wall Street over the commodites investments of crude. Now it is just nuts.
Is anyone going to sit back and say there is no price fixing? Is anyone going to insist that this is a truely free market economy? If that were truely the case, wouldn't some company be trying to undercut the others to get an edge somewhere? Somehow? how is it that every last single one of them changes their pricing over night, on the same night???? I had been expecting this for years, knowing that they were waiting for just the right combination of circumstances to pull the rug out from under us once again. That is the game. It always has been, it always will be. Some of the people are takers, but most of us are taken. What is sad is that so many are so easily fleeced, and still believe in "it", the system, and accept it at face value as OK, we have all the facts, we have all the numbers, everyone tells us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yeah, I want to stir up stuff. Yeah, I am going off half-cocked much of the time, but it is good. It gets people involved, gets people talking, and gets people sharing ideas and truths, right or wrong.
I have to wonder, how much does it cost to transport crude to the US? Why is domestic fuel virtually the same price as fuel from crude that comes from half-way around the world? Therre are reasons for all of this. I just don't think we have the answers, any of us. All we can do is do or die, not question why. But I want to question it.
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