No pain - no gain - the price of gasoline should be allowed to float freely -

[hedgehog]

because as long as the US government steps in to keep the price artificially low and stable, people will continue to buy low mpg cars and live in un-walkable neighborhoods.

[ixion]

1. And if the price is artificially high from, you know: speculation

that's okay?

[slackmaster]

5. If that happens, people will buy less of it and force the price down

Just as they do with wheat and soybeans.

[Javaman]

16. That would be fine and dandy if it weren't for the inconvenient fact...

that the US dollar is closely tied to oil.

The gold standard was effectively replaced with the oil standard.

If you decouple the dollar from oil, very very very bad things happen. This is what happens when a nation paints itself into a corner by basing its monetary system on a a finite resource.

[obxhead]

25. The only way I can use less gas is to quit my job and sell my car.

Lots and lots of people are in that position now.

Yet the oil companies are still making record profits, paying little to no taxes, and nobody in our government will address the problem at all.

[ixion]

28. Well, in small part, but overall, people have to drive a minimum amount

so there's only so much cutting back that can be done in that regard, and it still doesn't justify letting speculators speculate on oil.

[Autumn]

2. Fine if you live in the city.

If you have to drive 30 miles to a grocery store that kind of sucks.

[Le Taz Hot]

23. You're supposed to walk, damnit!

Or move -- you capitalist oil-loving fascist! I don't think I need this, but just in case: :sarcasm:

[Autumn]

46. I'm going to sue Wal Mart and make them

put up a hitching post.

[kentuck]

3. The oil companies don't mind...

if people buy half as much gasoline as before if they can double the price. They make the same amount of money either way.

[Thunderstruck]

8. You imply that oil companies can set the price of gas. Could you please

explain how they do that?

[kentuck]

13. They are monopolies.

They manipulate the market, along with the Goldman Sachs energy traders. There is no supply and demand at work.

[Javaman]

17. Oil is traded on the open market.

as much as opec does have influence upon the price of a barrel of oil, they don't have the luxury of telling speculators what to do.

oil speculation has been going on since it was first traded as a commodity.

I am always amused by people who get mad at speculators when the price is high but don't utter a peep when the price is low.

The reality is this: Until the various oil producing nations release the state and quantities in their reserves, nothing will change. It will always be speculation.

Just the facts.

[Thunderstruck]

22. Yep.

[Thunderstruck]

21. Oil companies control only 5% of all the oil on earth. So, tell me, how

do they have the power to manipulate oil and gas prices?

Also, please substantiate your comment that, despite what oil industry experts say, "there is no supply and demand at work."

[Nye Bevan]

24. "They are monopolies"

:rofl:

I just *love* DU economics threads.

[Dappleganger]

33. Yes. They spend millions of dollars each year on lobbyists which help to make the rules

of the game in which they play. Just how much more rigged can it get?

[rucky]

4. Regressive

No more punishing working people and squeezing them dry, please.

[county worker]

6. Ignorance has no bounds!

Sure everyone can pick up and move to some other more walkable neighborhood where their job is just around the corner along with all the other necessities of life.

And won't it be nice to see all the gas guzzlers junked on the side of the road were people have left them to buy a nice electric car with the money they save by not paying off the car loan they now have.

[Javaman]

20. Isn't it funny when people come up with these various "solutions"?

those same "solutions" work great for themselves but ever rarely work for everyone else.

selfishness takes many forms.

[FreakinDJ]

7. Tell that to China and India who subsidize Oil

[elocs]

9. The rich will always be able to afford the price of gas, working people will be hurt by high prices

as well as the poor who cannot afford newer cars with higher mpg and many of them already live in un-walkable neighborhoods and not by choice.

[Javaman]

18. As I wrote back during the last run up in gas prices...

just having a car will, one day, be a status symbol.

[PVnRT]

27. They also have to live farther away from work

What, people think those janitors and fast food employees near Lake Forest, IL can actually afford to live there? I made OK money working in a suburb nearby and could only afford to live about 30 miles away near the state line.

[liberal N proud]

10. High prices only hurt the middle class and the poor

[hedgehog]

11. Depending on a form of transportation subject to political and weather events all

over the world as well as speculation has hurt the middle class and poor since Jimmy Carter's administration!

The only way to get people off the roller coaster is to make them feel the pain of being on it!

[uppityperson]

34. Food costs are raising rapidly due to increased transportation costs. Should we just eat less?

[hedgehog]

37. So, because our dependence on cheap gas leaves us vunerable

to high gas prices, we should continue to subsidize cheap gas?

[uppityperson]

38. What is your plan for food costs increasing due to gas increasing?

[Javaman]

47. That's just it, there is no plan...

everyone likes to spout off "solutions" without looking to deeply into the details.

It's all fun and games until we have to start skipping meals.

Like I posted in another thread, plant a garden and if you live in an apartment, start a couple of container plants.

That's the only solution I have.

[WatsonT]

12. Agreed

it should be subject to the same market forces as everything else.

[Ron Green]

14. We've got to "un build" the world we've built.

If someone has to go 30 miles to a grocery, that person ought to be GROWING groceries.

A transportation system composed of individual multi-cylinder vehicles operated by amateur drivers on a grid of pavement that has taken over a significant portion of our living space ought to be, over the next couple of decades, replaced with one that makes sense.

[PVnRT]

26. I know, because everybody that far out has enough land to have their own farm

Let them eat cake!

[Ron Green]

29. Of course they don't all have enough land for their own farm,

but if they're willing to drive 30 miles to buy groceries, what incentive is there for a grocery store (or farmers' market) to exist nearby?

My point is that WILLING dependence on automobiles by large numbers of people is a cycle that must be broken.

[Romulox]

15. Part of "floating freely" means NO MORE WAR to protect oil interests.

I think you've overlooked this important point. :hi:

[hedgehog]

30. Good point ! How many Americans are bearing the real pain for

having access to Middle Eastern Oil? How many of tyhem are on their third or fourth deployment bearing that pain!?

How many Americans are now lying in hospital beds with severe brain damage because we sent our troops out to defend "our" oil?

Kind of puts $4 a gallon in perspective, doesn't it?

[Strelnikov_]

40. Good hunk of DOD budget subsidizes worldwide gas prices

I have seen figures from a $5/gal to $14/gal additive to the price of petroleum products in the US to reflect that portion of the defense budget that supports maintaining market access to the oil crescent.

[BoWanZi]

19. The more money you make, the less pain high gas prices cause you.

The poor are the ones hurt most by higher energy prices and higher gas prices.

[hedgehog]

31. How much does it cost each year to run any kind of automobile?

How much money does a poor person lose each year when he or she misses work because the junker didn't start and there is no public transportation? How many people have actually lost jobs because they missed too much work depending on a used car?

Believe me - the poor are far more hurt by depending on an automobile than if they had an alternative.

I have a daughter working a low wage job in Chicago. She gets around on public transport - even when she needs to fly out of O'Hare! I estimate it's cost her 20% of her net income to own a car.

[uppityperson]

32. One big thing you are missing is food costs which correlate to gas prices

As fuel goes up, so does the cost of food. Yes, eating local and, if you can, growing what you can will help, but even if you do not own a car, even if you only walk, still your food costs will be greatly impacted.

[MadHound]

35. Ready for your grocery bill to go up by a couple hundred percent?

What about your heating and electricity doing the same? Even if one walks everywhere, the fact of the matter is that such free floating energy prices would kill the lower and middle class. In fact, given the nature of our economy, being so dependent upon transportation and such, the entire economy would collapse as well.

Is that what you want, an end to our society as we know it? I sure don't.

[hedgehog]

36. If we are so dependent on the price of a single commodity,

then yes, we need to end our society as we know it. We need to move on to something better!

BTW - there is serious discussion that we are already past the point of peak oil; that from now on it's going to cost more and more to get at what's left. Doesn't it make more sense to get off the oil habit now by choice rather than to wait until it happens by force?

[MadHound]

39. Well, we are that dependent upon oil

Look around, there is oil in that keyboard you're typing on, oil that transported that computer to you, oil that fertilized the food you eat, oil that processed that food, oil that transported that food to your doorstep. Oil in the making of the clothes you wear, oil in the construction of your house or apartment. Oil in the artificial heart that ticks in your chest, oil involved in the medicines you consume. Oil, oil, oil, it is either an ingredient, or involved in the manufacture and transportation of virtually every single good that we consume.

If we suddenly allowed the price of oil to swing freely in the wind, all the prices, on every single product in this country, would shoot through the roof. It would destroy us. Yes, it would end our society.

Yes, we need to move on to something better, but the fact of the matter is that we can't do it all at once, nor can we do it through the price shock method. The better alternative would be for our government to get behind a concerted effort to replace oil with green renewables, wind, solar, algae based biodiesel. Start us on a timetable that makes the switch over a few decades rather than trying for everything right now. That way you allow the economy to ease into the new energy paradigm, allow for the economics of scale to be used in your favor, allow for science to come up with new replacements for plastics and such.

We didn't become an oil dependent country all at once, and we can't go off of oil all at once. If we tried, yes, it would end in disaster.

[Gemini Cat]

44. That's the most sensible idea I've heard. nmt

[hedgehog]

45. The problem as I see it is that as long as the price of gasoline is

subsidized behind the scenes, the American people will not go through the pain of making a switch. We're in a lot of pain right now; just look at our current economy. We've just gotten used that pain, so we're afraid of the pain of switching.

[DefenseLawyer]

41. Those stupid fucking poor people should all buy a new Prius

or if not, start biking their kids to school before peddling to work from their new houses in a walkable neighborhood.

[uppityperson]

42. They need to dress in cotton and wool and only eat food from their gardens too.

[Gemini Cat]

43. No, no, no!

They need to get with the programme and just die. That way I can ride my expensive bike to work and my wife can drive her Prius and we won't need to worry about those nasty oil addicted poor people clogging up the streets with their unsightly junkers while we do so!