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Do we need more Oil? or more refineries?

jj said:

Well, down here in the USA (you're in Canada, if I recall correctly) we have less in taxes, and more clearly, the taxes haven't changed by 100% in the last two weeks, even though the price of gasoline has changed by close to 33%...
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You're right, I am in Canada, and our taxes certainly are higher here than in the US.

And while taxes may not have increased lately, places that charge sales tax will see the overall price of gas rise faster than if no sales tax were applied. (Here in Canada, we have a collection of fixed taxes and sales taxes.)

jj said:

As to the blackout, I don't know if we'll agree.
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We may never agree, because I've never really made my mind up. There are good points and bad points to privatizing the power system. Although I'm leaning towards private control, I'm not yet 100% convinced of it.

jj said:

I think that the evidence is clear that at least in the USA the transmission lines have been nearly abandoned because nobody sees any profit in taking care of them, and also because it's actually higher on the price/investment curve to let them break down close to 1% of the time.
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Here in Canada, the power grid isn't in very good shape. Our publically run utilities haven't invested the money in it either, and they've run up large debts. (So, basically, people are being charged a lot for electricity, they just pay through taxes rather than utility charges.)

There is talk that we need to improve the situation, and private investment into the power grid is often talked about as the way to go.
 
subgenius said:
If the price increase is due to increased costs why is big oil poised to take huge profits from it?

Look for big profits from Big Oil
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CNBCTV/Articles/TVReports/P59662.asp

Somebody 'splain that so that even someone as dumb as me can understand it.
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I'll give it a shot.

The stocks of both already have done well this year, with Marathon's up about 34% and Exxon Mobil's up about 10%.
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Well to someone as "dumb" as me it looks like their profits are being driven by the increased demand in the stock. Now I am not an oil industry annalist so I can't tell you if those prices are inflated, but it sure is helping them with profit.

One more thing, do me a favor and go on google and search for price gouging probes and see how many of them were conducted locally, state wide and federally and what they found. Here is just one of the
latest examples
A California Energy Commission investigation of the state's soaring gasoline and diesel prices has concluded a 36 percent price increase between Jan. 1 and March 17 was the result of world events and inherent market imbalance, not oil companies manipulating supply to increase profits.
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If the higher prices don't generate higher profits (from sales) then why would the stock value go up. Why would you pay more for stock in a company whose profit margin is stable, and is subject to vagaries like supply problems?
Just asking.
 
subgenius said:
If the higher prices don't generate higher profits (from sales) then why would the stock value go up.

While you are probably right abou ttheir profits, please don't assign any rational behavior whatsoever to the stock market, which is one of the biggest examples of herd-panic followed by greed-panic by herd-panic .... in the world at present.

To assign any rational meaning to the up and down fluctuations of the stock market, you'd have to reach miles, either from the way that a stock that only announced 20% growth would drop by 75% (yes, there were some instances of that in the late 90's) to times when an announcement that "we avoided bankruptcy" would result in doubling a stock price.

There is a rational element to the stock market, but that rational element seems, to me (and, yes, do I have a bit of the requisite mathematics and understanding, to say the least) to result from rational responses to the panicing herds.

Why would you pay more for stock in a company whose profit margin is stable, and is subject to vagaries like supply problems?
Just asking.
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Because someone else did, making the stock rise. Not MY idea.
 
They are making a higher profit margin (at the pump) despite the claims of higher costs, right?
But that's the beauty of the free market, we could get alternate energy from their competitors. Ooops, I guess not.

Anyway, we all love Big Oil because they've done so much for the American people, so we don't mind, do we?
 
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