Bush wants to lower Gas prices

[superdave]

Do you think he'll be successful? Or is it just a political move by the Republicans and Democrats for November elections? Sadly, I think its for political gain only. The appearance of actually doing something.

I've seen some of the Republican senators already blaming the high gas prices on environmental whacko Democrats on TV.

The Democrats like Schumer wants lower gas prices too. Hopefully between the two parties' bullshit they'll get gas prices lower.

[thesightless]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

nope. you can write all the policy you want but its a worldwide free market. if they pay higher prices, they will charge us more. you want cheap oil? find a new source and dont sell it outside the EU or North america. that way you can dictate the price.

[Balanc3]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

this is exactly what Kerry pitched in his campaign. Or was it open up the reserves?

Short term fix to a long term problem. If we had a petro alternative and everyone was onboard, the cost of hybrid cars would be like buying a KIA.

[thesightless]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

thats the thing. in all seriousness and even with current prices, we cant even begin to think about touching the reserves. along the lines of hope for best/expect the worst, we need the reserve in event of a full out war in the middle east and furthermore we lost a lot of key allies in south america. while we do indeed own a lot of the factories along with britih companies and other european countries, we dont own the land where said oil is found.

seriously the best thing right now is to find alternative sources since nearly every expert says the oil will run out in lass than 100 years.

if we want a shortterm solution, then the whole industrialized world needs to tariff the shit out of thier exports there and try to put them in an economic and humanitarian stranglehold and force them to lower the asking price if they wanna exist.

[toasty]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

I agree with superdave that it's likely primarily political. People are plenty unhappy with Bush's whole program anyway, and whether he actually has anything to do with it or not, gas prices are like the universal index that everyone can look to and agree that things are or are not on the right track. Before everything started blowing up in Bush's face after the last election, his worst pre-election numbers were when gas prices were at their apex -- about the same prices we're paying now. With all that is going wrong for him now he's got to at least look like he's trying to do something if he doesn't want the country's unhappiness with him to get out of control.

Will what he's suggesting actually lower prices? Here's hoping it will. As people have suggested, though, this isn't a quick-fix sort of problem, and what he's wanting to do probably isn't a long-term solution.

Hey, though, at the end of the day, if it ends up creating an excuse for people to seriously think about what we're going to do about our dependence upon foreign oil, I'm all for it.

[superdave]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

More I think about this, we need long term solutions for this problem. Everyone I talk to wants short term solutions to save money now. That's fine, but we need to do things that help us years from now.

Btw, isn't there a tax per gallon on gas? Why doesn't the government simply exempt the tax on gas? To me that would be a good short term solution until we get a steady supply of gas.

[neoee]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

Btw, isn't there a tax per gallon on gas? Why doesn't the government simply exempt the tax on gas? To me that would be a good short term solution until we get a steady supply of gas.

I'm not so sure anything to alter the prices should be done. I think we need to let the market dictate. If we artificially lower prices demand will increase, if we remain where we are at people will be forced to be more conservative in their usage of fuel, causing a fall in demand which should bring the prices back down, unless of course people are willing to pay current prices (without reducing consumption).

I do like Sean's idea of placing tariffs on the oil producing countries but again I think when the demand falls off it will hurt them anyways, especially since the cost of almost product imaginable will increase.

[FM]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

funny how some stations are running out as well...

But as Sean said, it's a free market...worldwide. These products are so heavily traded and tied around into so much that to simply try to put regulations on it doesn't work.

If you took all the markets in the world (Nasdaq, NYSE, Oil, Gold, Silver, Platinum, FOREX, Euro, Yen, other currency, etc.) one would realize that billions/trillions of dollars change hands on small movements DAILY. Oil goes up a quarter? Fuck, people just made out. Oil goes down 10 cents? Fuck, other people just made out. Gold goes up? Cha-ching.

[tsesan]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

If Bush really wants us to stop depending on oil, he should give car manufactueres tax breaks so they can sell hybrids at the same price as regular cars. He should increase federal funding for local mass transits. This is just all talk, no action, political crap. Don't forget, he is a Texan, and guess where are all the oil companies???

[FM]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

^^^he must be losing money in his stocks/trades or something...

[superdave]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

I'm not so sure anything to alter the prices should be done. I think we need to let the market dictate. If we artificially lower prices demand will increase, if we remain where we are at people will be forced to be more conservative in their usage of fuel, causing a fall in demand which should bring the prices back down, unless of course people are willing to pay current prices (without reducing consumption).

I do like Sean's idea of placing tariffs on the oil producing countries but again I think when the demand falls off it will hurt them anyways, especially since the cost of almost product imaginable will increase.

I'm don't think the free market works in this instance. Government price controls may be necessary. ExxonMobil paid their departing CEO a $400 million severance. They also had all time record profits of $36 billion dollars. If you look at the top gross revenue companies in the world or U.S., oil companies are right at the top.

[FM]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

^^^the problem is that price controls will mainly work only in the short-term, bring things down a bit and everyone's "happy" again...then next year at this time when it spikes back up, the vicious circle continues...

Even if legislation gets passed, like it'll ever get enforced or followed (or for that matter overwritten by something else)

[neoee]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

I'm don't think the free market works in this instance. Government price controls may be necessary. ExxonMobil paid their departing CEO a $400 million severance. They also had all time record profits of $36 billion dollars. If you look at the top gross revenue companies in the world or U.S., oil companies are right at the top.

Like FM pointed out its only a bandaid solution. Even if we do something within the US to reduce fuel prices the price per barrel of oil is still going to rise- as long as there is an increased demand for it.

They say if you can't beat em', join em. That's pretty much what I started doing earlier last year by buying into these companies with record profits. Needless to say the stocks have done fairly well. I chose Conico Phillips (COP) which is Unicol76 (SP?), year to date its up 24%.

[FM]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

indeed...I used to buy into the liberal crap of "the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer" until I smartened up and actually started looking into WHY this is the case...the more record profits these companies keep making, if you're in on the ride the better you'll do as well.

This shit certainly isn't going way down again, that's for sure...now if it tops off over $4 this summer, then things will start to hit the shitter (then it goes back down under $3 come falltime, watch)

[PROG]

Re: Bush wants to lower Gas prices

you guys dont remember bush saying gas prices will drop yrs agao? geez