gas prices - Carter's fault?

[MissMillie]

I have a friend who drives a big Lincoln Town Car. Whenever I talk about supply and demand being the issue w/ gas prices, he comes out with some story about how Carter removed the price controls on gasoline and how that is causing the high prices today.

It's my understanding that:

1) Carter did indeed drop some of the price regulations, but what he left, Reagan got rid of.

2) Dropping the price regulations made prices go DOWN, not up.

3) Once prices went down, demand went way up again, but the oil companies did not keep up with their ability to refine enough to keep up with demand--causing today's problems.


Am I missing anything, or am I way off base? Or does this guy actually have a point?

[villager]

1. So your GOP friend is in favor of price controls? Ask him outright

And make him answer.

[MissMillie]

2. I don't know that he's a GOPer

I think sometimes he just says things to be contrary to me and to get me riled.

[villager]

3. Fair enough then -- but that Towncar seems to be a clue....

Nonetheless, is he asking for a return to price controls?

[Skidmore]

4. Typical GOP - party of responsibility response.

They always mean its everyone else's responsibility and not their own.

[niyad]

5. carter has been out of office for 25 years, and it's HIS fault? the only

response to that kind of bs is to laugh hysterically and walk away,shaking your head.

[MissMillie]

6. Well, I like to debate more rationally than that

even when my opponent doesn't.

[niyad]

12. a debate implies two rational parties. you are wasting your breath.

[MissMillie]

16. Maybe, but I still won't stoop to that level (n/t)

.

[niyad]

19. you are not stooping to anything, you are merely responding in a way

that they can grasp.

[Skink]

7. Doesn't Carter drive a Hummer these days?

[Beaverhausen]

9. Only when his friend Prince Bandar is in town

[Warpy]

8. Oil companies CLOSED REFINERIES during the 90s

so your friend could be blaming Clinton for allowing them to do so. Blaming poor Carter is really reaching.

Carter inherited the utter failure of both Nixon and Ford to deal with OPEC.

[1monster]

11. How could Clinton be blamed for the oil companies closing refineries?

The last I heard, the oil companies were NOT nationalized and were never regulated to the point that government told them how much refining capability they had to maintain.

Or did I miss something?

[Warpy]

17. If it happened in the 90s, Clinton will be blamed

He should have been micromanaging the oil industry along with everything else, yanno.

Remember, the fools blame Ruby Ridge on him, even though that one happened in 1992 when Poppy was still in office.

[whistle]

10. Your friend seems to have his freeper head stuck up his neo-con ass

...Bush and Dick (mien kampf) Cheney invaded and are now holding Iraq hostage precicely to limit the supply of oil so his friends at OPEC could raise prices and make a windfall killing.

<snip>
Keeping Iraq's Oil In the Ground
By Greg Palast, AlterNet. Posted June 14, 2006.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/37371/

[frazzledmom]

14. Palast explains in detail in his book Armed Madhouse the whole

Iraq/Bush/Opec oil pricing scam, it's a must read for anyone wanting to cut to the chase. To blame current oil prices on a 30 year old administration is... well.. nuts.

[Joe for Clark]

13. Oh no - Carter really handled it well.

Saudi Arabia was largely behind that 1979 scam.

Carter went right in their face - formed US Syn Fuels Corp - and amazingly, oil prices started right back down.

You should ask your friend why Reagan shut down US Syn Fuels Corp right after he took office - why???

You are sure not way off base, anyway.

Joe

[Strelnikov_]

15. Price Controls Would Not Work Very Well For The 70% Of Crude

we import.

Also not really well for the 30% we produce domestically, either.

I think 'Fuck you, we sell to China' would become a common refrain on the oil trading floor.

Refining capacity is a ancillary problem. The run up in pump prices are being caused by a worldwide run up in raw material (crude) prices. I am sure there is some extra profit being made downstream of the refinery, but it is probably cents on the dollar IMHO.

On Edit: I don't mean to say there is not some beneficial way to implement price controls. It is just that they would have to be part of a massive, all-encompassing transformation of our energy infrastructure, and not just a simple piece of legislation.

[SoCalDem]

18. OIL companies CLOSED refineries to control quantity

why?

because a lot of those refineries were OLD and big time polluters.. They got extra time to clean up their acts, but most just ran right up to the limit, and then just closed..

Why not use some of their billions to build new state of the art refineries?

Why would they do that?

They have a commodity that EVERYONE needs and WANTS, they have a built-in shortage by having too few refineries...they are making barzillions of dollars... More supply means lower prices.. even I know that..

They stuck a thumb in our eye..

We tried to force them to follow pollution guidelines, they played us, and now we're ready to pay any price, and let them pollute at will.. they won

[Joe for Clark]

20. Man, they just held tankers off the coast until the price was right.

They really did.

It happened and it was legal.

Refinery capacity is about the same today as it was then, by the way.

They are not the same oil companies as back then. Then they were run by geologists and engineers. Now they are run by lawyers and accountants - it is really true, sadly.

They don't "explore" too much nowadays - they are really just a distribution operation. And conducted as such.

Joe