FTC to probe Gas price hikes

[wetbandit2003]

Gas prices have not gone down since Labor day weekend...

[Newsjock]

1. Here, I'll save them the trouble

"The commission spent $25 million on an exhaustive study into the summer 2003 gas price fluctuations and found no anomalies that could not be explained by normal market forces."

You'll see that around, oh, next spring or so. Just save the $25 million and put out your damn phony report now.

[zbdent]

2. Remember when they said about doing this in 01?

strange how it took the control of the Senate shifting from 50R-50D-1VP to 50D-49R-1Ind-0VP to actually bring the costs down to a respectable level that summer.

[rapier]

3. Gas IS too cheap

This is pro forma political cover. A headline today. In a few months the report will see some slight areas of concern in gasoline pricing but it will be ignored.

Face it people, gas should be higher. We might wince and not like it especially if the extra dollars are flowing into oil company coffers but this is seperate from the fact that gas is too cheap here, causing huge waste, pollution and other problems, of which Iraq is one.

My crackpot theory is that the oil companies/refiners have bent over backwards all year to keep gas prices moderate in order to bolster Bush. Till the blackout the refineries were running balls out all summmer, the normal maintainence season. It is standard practice for the industry as a whole to keep refineries offline, manipulate supply in other words, from time to time to boost prices. For most of the year they didn't do that. Now I think they broke ranks.

Setting aside the short term, oil is going up in price. The fears of the early 70's are finally going to come to pass. World oil production is peaking. Virtually the entire oil geological community agrees. Within 10 years, if it hasn't peaked already, total world production will start to fall. (2002 was the first year EVER with lower world production than the previous year. That might be explained by the poor world economy. MIGHT)

The only thing which could foretall higher oil prices would be if we more directly controlled ME production. If that's what we are trying now obviously that isn't going to be too easy to do. In fact the probabilities favor disruptions of supplys there, not increases. (Saudi Arabia and some other OPEC members could increase production. They do have the physical capacity. The peak production views of the experts has to do with new discoveries or the lack thereof and declineing output of existing fields.)