Posted by hibiscus

As for fat cats getting fatter off these profits, it’s true in many cases — particularly in Lee Raymond’s case — but remember that the vast majority of the profit that is not reinvested goes to shareholders, and that many of those shares are held in retirement plans and mutual funds (which, in turn, are also held in retirement plans). In these days when so many people have something invested in the stock market, it’s getting harder and harder to punish the fat cats without hurting the little guy too.

My personal take is that the oil companies haven’t really done anything wrong. They’re in a commodity-driven business, and when demand for that commidity rises faster than the supply, so do their profits. (The flip side is that they have to eat some pretty nasty losses from time to time.) High oil prices might produce high profits now, but by encouraging people to conserve or switch to another fuel altogether they’re probably not good for the oil companies in the long run. Therefore, the oil companies need to either find more oil and build more refineries, or they need to diversify.

Finally, if I’m not mistaken, oil imports are down something like 8% since the price started ramping back up last February, so those mysterious market forces do seem to be working. 

Posted by Alan

Until I reached the botton of this post, I thought it was authored by Hedgehog, not Saurubh.

My solution: allow everyone to telecommute. 

Posted by judevac

w/regard to mass transit: it seems as though metro areas are in a big bind on this right now. it seems like desirably profitable people are choosing where to live based on minimum cost, not ROI. unless some part of the up front costs of expanded transit system can be born outside the metro area, you risk becoming “too expensive.” but because of this any state or federal resistance to paying for mass transit is the same as a tax - forcing the city to grow in the way that most benefits out-of-state industries; and thus forcing the city to spend a greater part of its overall gains on system maintenance and environmental mitigation. it’s probably silly to argue that refusal to assist with developing mass transit is a “taking” - until the day finally comes that american city governments actually demand that the “grants” come a wee bit closer the tax revenue their cities generate, things are stuck, i think. even farther out is the idea that money invested to make cities more energy efficient is an big financial benefit, particularly for new industries.

there seem to be a few other obstacles to getting people really behind new public mass transit measures. tough debt maintenance pricing. unwalkable services distances. child and elder care. general traffic congestion(!). and, most of all, healthcare obscenities. all those costs need to drop to bring functional mass transit within reach. IMO w/o H, as usual. (boondoggle transit is always possible!)

it’s amazing how much seems to hinge on healthcare. by proxy the earth is suffering for aetna’s sins. 

Posted by hibiscus

The fundamental problem is high demand. Even if supply is high enough for now (OPEC pumping at full capacity) it’s not so high and so competitive that the people who actually sell us *gasoline* (not light sweet crude. . .mmm, light sweet crude) don’t have plenty of control over what they charge given our implacable concern. I filled up my tank the other day for the first time in a long, long time. I was sitting there reading my book when I looked up and noticed the price hike and I almost yelped. Yet I still filled up the tank. All the playing around with taxes and subsidies in the world wouldn’t get rid of the reasons I was filling up the tank, though they might, finally have made those reasons less important than huge cost. At the point, however, that you’re forcing someone like me choose not to do the things I was burning the gas for because they cost too much, you’re almost certainly really mucking up the lives o a lot of poorer people. From my little point of view, the most effective way to stop spending on gas is to improve public transit–make it run more frequently, more reliably, and later at night.  

Posted by Saheli

Posted by Saheli