blkalero

Seems to me there are quite a few people on here that support obama
maybe they could help clear some things up for me.

1) windfall profit on oil/gas companies
obama's idea or perposal to lower gas prices is to have a windfall profits tax.
please help me understand how increasing taxes on a company makes them want to sell their product for less.
I owned a business at one time and whenever my expinses went up I passed on the savings to the customer. why would oil companies be any different?

also he was quoted saying he sees no problem with the high gas prices except they went up too quickly.
how do i know if elected that he would or could do anything about the price?

2)the DC gun ban /supreme court ruling.
before the ruling obama said he supported the ban.
after he said he agreed with the suppreme court's rulling.
how can you support the ban and agree with a ruling against it?

thats it for now.

Willravel

With windfall, it's about punishment. Obama is going to force big oil to give the American people some of their money back. Sure, gas prices will rise to try and compensate, but the loss will be there and the oil companies will be hated even more when the prices rise. Big oil loses money in the short term and PR in the long term. It's punishment. In addition to that, it takes pressure off independent oil and alternative energy because big oil will be occupied. Mind you, I'm not providing Obama's explanation. Obama's explanation is that it will help American families.

Obama doesn't want to talk about guns. I can't really blame him, I mean I wouldn't discuss them if I were running except to say, "I support the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Second Amendment" or something to that effect.

ubertuber

Regarding your first point, I have a couple of thoughts.

First, the actions of the oil companies clearly demonstrate that no savings will be passed on to the consumer until the political climate is so deadly that they must in order to forestall government action. How else do you explain the co-incidence of record high prices and record high profits, without record high constriction of supply?

Second, I don't think the idea behind taxing oil company profits is to lower prices at the pump. It is to use the money received to do something else. There are many people (myself included) who feel that truly low gasoline prices are absolutely against our interests in the long term. When gas is $2 at the pump, its price does not reflect its cost, in terms of environmental, political, health, and international-relations damage. Finally, at $4/gallon, we have found a price which instigates changes in people's behavior -- driving less, carpooling, combining trips, buying less extravagantly wasteful vehicles.

In my mind, the best long term energy policy would involve imposing a tax on gasoline which would keep the price above $4/gallon and using the money taken in to fund renewable energy research and subsidize the creation of a renewable energy infrastructure. This would cost consumers more now, though, which makes it essentially non-viable as a policy during an election. However, I think the long term benefits would far, far, outweigh the short term pain. To be clear, I don't think that this is Obama's intention, but with this as my view, I have a different perspective on the importance of lowering gas prices compared to yours.

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blkalero

gas prices effect everything
since most frieght is done by truck. freight cost go through the roof. small independant truckers cant even make money because of high fuel cost.
the sticker shock at the pump gets people to buy less. not just cars but not so needed items, travel industry also suffers.
so the problem I have with your over $4 plan is that everyone suffers for what? so we can promote alternitive fuels and find another energy sorce to become dependant on?

pan6467

Punishing an industry???? No, punish the rich CEO's and limit their perks.

All you will do by punishing the industry is raise prices watch layoffs and hear them cry about how they have no money to explore, drill or research alternative fuels.

The big boys aren't going to lose shit. And least you forget big oil can also say, "go fuck yourself we're rationing your gas.... China, Russia, India, etc will not punish us for gains... so go fuck yourself" and they will pull out.

Obama really doesn't offer ANY leadership or new ideas.... he goes the way of polls. A leader leads..... a follower follows... Obama is a follower.

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blkalero

very good point
I could see this happening especially since china is growing so fast

ratbastid

Here's what Obama is (I suspect) thinking on gas prices, but can't say out loud: At $4 a gallon, American finally started to have some financial incentive to do what it should have been doing long ago. SUVs and other horrifically wasteful vehicles are finally out of style, and people are interested in alternative fuels. I heard on Diane Rehm today a debate about whether plug-in-hybrid cars or all-electric cars would be the better way to go for most consumers. Even a year ago, that conversation would NEVER have happened. So, as much as it sucks to pay to fuel my dinosaur-burner, halle-fucking-luia that gas is finally expensive enough to trigger a widespread interest in something other than dinosaur-burners. Incidentally, $4/gal is still RIDICULOUSLY cheap compared to most of the world.

Also, you got to remember that those $4 were worth a whole lot more a year or two ago. Gas is a global commodity, with prices set globally. When our currency devalues, it takes more of it to buy the same amount of commodities like that. Gas hasn't gotten more expensive--we've gone broker.

Obama can't say all this because of the yahoos who only think in terms of the dollar signs on the gas pump. And yes, some of those yahoos have a real beef (the poor people who can't get to work because they can't afford gas, etc). Others are mainly whining about having to spend an extra $30 to gas up the Hummer. Either way, they're still thinking in a very late-20th-Century paradigm, and they still can vote. So Obama has to make some sort of gestures about lowering gas prices, although it's clear he is more interested in side-stepping the whole issue by having fewer and fewer Americans need to consume petrochemicals for their transportation.

I don't know anything about the DC gun ban. The OP is the first place I heard him state an opinion on it. Can you point us to his statements on it, blkalero?

blkalero

it was on fox news.com transcript from an interview he had shortly after the suppreme court ruling.
my internet at work is very limited but I'll see if i can find the link still.

as for gas being more expinsive elsewhere this is true but it is also way cheaper in some countries too
and you will notice the price backed off some as soon as americans started to complain and demand something be done.
face it big oil wants the price to be just below unbearable to keep us from looking at alternitives.
over the last few years price has contenued to rise and we has kept paying.
I'll also read a thread on here about pricing and speculation

last I checked this was susposed to be a free market so I dont really think government involvment in pricing is right.

I also have herd our refineries run at almost full capacity all the time so more drilling wouldnt do anything because of that.

Willravel

Gas is only cheaper in places like Venezuela because of socializing oil. I doubt someone who likes the free market would be okay with the US federal government socializing oil, especially considering we barely produce any.

ratbastid

So you think the gas companies backed prices down in response to consumer pushback? It's not inconceivable, I guess. Although this is the summer wind-down season, when consumption traditionally drops and prices fall with it. I don't really smell conspiracy here.

You're right that opening up to new drilling is the chump's answer. It sounds good for the plebes, and it fits the macho GOP "solve everything with a tool that is vaguely phallic" approach to world problems, but it wouldn't make any real difference, and certainly no difference right now. It would be awfully good for the oil companies, though.

I can't quite get my head around the thinking that goes: It costs me an extra $30 to fuel my SUV. So we should be raping the planet faster!!

The_Jazz

I'm at work, so I can only touch on a couple of points:

Obama is talking about taxing profit, not revenue. As uber pointed out, these are interesting times with supply still going strong yet profits being made hand over fist. He has said so (nor has anyone to my knowledge), but I would hope he would use the money generated by such a tax to reform the rail industry.

Blkalero, you mentioned that most goods go by truck, which is true. However rail is a much more efficient way to move any good in bulk (it takes 1 gallon of deisel to move 1 ton 500 miles). It is often more convenient to move goods by truck, but I think that the days of longhaul trucking are ending and sooner than most people think. It is too inefficient and dangerous - the national average for longhaul fleets is $0.07 per 1 mile driven in bodily injury and property damage. Some truckers are better; many are worse.

Finally, I expect that the gun ban was something that Obama supported before it became unconstitutional. Now that it is, he recognizes it as the law of the land, just like flag burning, nude dancing and separation of church and state. Its not Obama that changed - its the sitation.

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Willravel

Awesome.

The alternative thing is really quite funny. We've had the biofuel and hydrogen option for decades, they're nothing new. There's a youtube video from 1978 where Jack Nicholson is driving a car that runs on hydrogen (which is separated from oxygen by solar power) and exhausts water ( ). It's virtually the same crap we're getting in "concept cars" today. Biofuels can be traced back tens of thousands of years. We're not getting them as real options because we're ignorant to the ease of their production and use. Sure, there could be a safer and more efficient way to store hydrogen, but the hydrogen cars now, like the Honda HFX Clarity, are just as safe as gas cars. Shoot, the jalopy Jack Nicholson was in in 1978 has worked for decades without exploding.

I'm sure most people have seen "Who Killed the Electric Car?", and are aware that the electric car effort in the 90s was all show and was designed to fail. In addition, the government and corporations are championing crap like ethanol, which is also destined to fail.

This is what we're up against: they think we're stupid. They're lining us up to fail by lining up alternatives to fail.

Rekna

blkalero tell me how Mc'Cain is better positioned to fix the shady dealings of the oil companies? Especially when he is in the pocket of big oil just like Bush.

scout

Oh my I suppose if you looked closely there is representatives, senators and presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle closely tied to big oil.

Lifting the regulations and allowing hedge funds and retirement accounts to invest more of their capital in oil is probably the real culprit behind everything. Don't you find it odd a few days before a vote is to be called on a bill that limits the amount of capital hedge funds and retirement accounts can invest in oil the bottum falls out of the oil market then a vote on the bill was delayed or postponed. We have all been played big time on this one.

Rekna

I agree with you on this one in so much that the oil prices are artificially being raised on purpose via shady methods. Yes big oil controls interests on both sides of the isle. That just means we need to vote out people on both sides of the isle. The oil companies are pulling an Enron on the population and getting away with it.

blkalero

this thread is about obama. and if you read my other post I siad I dont see how drilling (mc'cain's plan) would really effect us if refineries are running at capacity.
-----Added 14/8/2008 at 08 : 26 : 34-----
agreed. I seen something on here a while back how speculation or trading futures in oil has made the price rise like crazy too.

funny I remember a while back opec siad they didnt know why the price was as high as it is.
I know the value of the dollar didnt help
and cutting the intrest rate to help people made the dollar worth less.

seems the more the government gets involved to help the worse things get in the long run.