1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Someone explain this BS to me

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Bubbler, May 13, 2008.

  1. The market is magic, Boom.
     
  2. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    Why do you hate america and our brilliant leader?
     
  3. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Wall. Street. Speculators.

    It's not just big oil any more (and it went up 11 cents here)
     
  4. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Market price of my house tripled in that time frame . . . before tumbling back to only 225% of original price in the past couple of years.

    Did politics have anything to do with the sudden, ridiculous rise?
     
  5. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    Fixed.
     
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Did Bill Clinton usurp the Congress and pass that law all by his lonesome? What say you? Congress was in the hands of the Republicans? Well, shazam.

    I went out to the store last night and drove past one of our more expensive stations. Last time I drove past it couldn't have been more than a few days ago, and as best I remember it was $3.69. It's now $3.89. I actually thought it would hold at $3.79 for a little while, because of the psychological effect of having premium go over $4. Guess not.

    And while we're on the subject, anyone want to try and explain this: That same station is across the street from another station. The other station is inevitably 10 to 20 cents cheaper (as of yesterday, it was 20). OK, that happens. Fine. I get that. But here's the thing: THEY'RE BOTH CONOCO STATIONS! Why does that happen?
     
  7. Lieslntx

    Lieslntx Active Member

    One of the stations is owned directly by Conoco and the other is an independently-owned Conoco.
     
  8. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    That makes no damn sense. I don't mean that to impugn your answer, by the way, because that's probably what it is. But it still makes no damn sense.
     
  9. Lieslntx

    Lieslntx Active Member

    The station owned by Conoco doesn't have to raise the price of their gas to make a profit. They actually get it cheaper than the independent owner. Independent owner has to raise the price a few cents just to make a little something.
     
  10. JBHawkEye

    JBHawkEye Well-Known Member

    I told this story over on the How Much Did You Pay For Gas Today thread.

    Last night on the local news, they did a story on area stations getting close to the $4 mark. The reporter and camera guy found a convenience store that was selling gas 20 cents cheaper per gallon than all of the other stations in the area. The manager wouldn't come on camera to talk.
    So the reporter and camera guy, as they're packing up to leave, catch him coming out of the store with his remote control (it was an electronic sign outside the station) and tape him as he jacks up the price 30 cents. They go over and ask him why he did it. "Everybody else is doing it," he said, and walked into the store.
    You can blame the politics of this all you want (although I somehow doubt if there's Obama in the White House and a Democratic House and Senate this time next year the price of gas is going to magically drop to $1.50). There's just a lot of profit taking all along the distribution ladder because the market is so volatile.
     
  11. Brooklyn Bridge

    Brooklyn Bridge Well-Known Member

    Not to defend the oil companies by any means, but there is a lot more at work here than just Bush sucks and oil companies are making money. That maybe true, but you have to figure in the rise in demand from India and China, who are taking in much more oil today than they were 10-15 years ago. Booming industry and a growing middle class means more people buying cars (what you think they wanted to ride bicycles everywhere?) Combine that with problems in Nigeria and Venezuela--Chavez replaced actual engineers with his dopes and guess what? Production goes down. Combine that with the fact that refineries in this country are 30 years old and no new ones are scheduled to come online and that slows the whole refining process down.

    Now Congress and your local/state/county gov't can also cut your gas tax--But OMG! We would lose precious revenue!
     
  12. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    Once again:
    Oil is traded as a commodity. Right now, that commodity is being valued extremely highly -- because speculators are piling in and buying up oil contracts figuring that consumers will not decrease their demand for oil and therefore the price will continue to go up.
    Last time I checked, oil had touched over $127 a barrel.
    It cannot be a surprise that this would lead to astonishing increases at the pump.
    It's not fun, but there's no evidence the oil companies are responsible for this. They're just the beneficiaries.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page