Anyone want to comment on these prices??????? >Salley

-- Salley P. (SalleyP.@aol.com), February 25, 2000

Answers

Compared to fuel prices in Europe, that's a bargain.
Compared to fuel prices in Iran, it's highway robbery.
Everything is relative (as my relatives say)

-- spaceman spiff (spiff@space.com), February 25, 2000.

Spaceman

"Compared to fuel prices in Europe, that's a bargain." You can't compare fuel prices paid here in US to what is paid in Europe. We in the US pay less than $1.00 per gallon in taxes. In Europe they pay around $3.00 a gallon in taxes.

-- Apples & Oranges (GetOnTheS@mePage.com), February 25, 2000.

Taxes are integral to the price of fuel. If the price of refined fuel was 0", the tax would still be applied to it at whatever $/Gal that it is applied now in whatever location you may care to name.
Also rising price of OPEC crude affects fuel prices even in countries that import zero OPEC crude, like Canada.
It's the Glowball Economy. If you want cheap gas and no freedoms, move to Iran.

-- spaceman spiff (spiff@space.com), February 25, 2000.

One of the shills on c.s.y2k was trying the tax gambit last week. Must be one of their current talking points.

Europeans pay the same price on the NYMEX as Texan's do.

-- Tom Beckner (becknert@xout.erols.com), February 25, 2000.

Salley is commenting on the pretax prices there, Spaceman. To add taxes into the equation on an intercontinental level throws in some red herrings that don't belong in the debate. The "pure" price of crude and distillates reflects the marketplace and its influences. So why do YOU think prices are acting this way so coincidentally after the CDC?

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), February 25, 2000.

I shouldn't have gone on a tangent, but in Iran gas goes for something like 30" a gallon, Oil futures would be irrelevant if you lived there.
Reason for higher crude prices?
OPEC's quota is a goal that they cannot attain. see http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000225/bs/energy_opec_10.html
Reason for higher heating oil prices?
too many refineries breaking down, unless one takes the lame excuse of DOE that high winds is at fault! The pre CDC claim that all storage was stocked up with product was not only false, it was actually about 10% below Dec 1998 levels (see threads on c.s.y2k)
We entered Y2k with too little reserves to ride out the storm, or even a cold snap. I have yet to hear much about why natural gas is scarce that caused a run on heating fuel/kero. Natgas does not come from OPEC.
I am no polly, but how we see the problem and how much it impacts our pockets depends on where we live, hence my "relative" argument above.
If gvts can lower or raise interest rates to suit the occasion, they can do the same with taxes, in this case, specifically fuel taxes. Better yet, we should stop burning oil and only use it as raw material.
I don't think any of this will ever be officially blamed on Y2k computer problems, at least not for a few years. Corporate /gvt f*ckups will only be admitted in the past tense.
The permanent plateau of prosperity is definetly looking sharply slanted from here. The money invested in the get rich quick bubble shoulda been invested in long term energy solutions. We have started paying the price for the cheap oil of the past years and a lack of investment in exploration/maintence of crude.
This oil crunch maybe the impetus to move on to fuel cells for home, running on Natgas, and charging the batteries on our electric cars.

Dreaming the Technicolr Dream...

-- spaceman spiff (spiff@space.com), February 25, 2000.