Patrick,
I agree with everything you say except the part about Texas. The reason
why the economy went bust in Texas during the '80's is because OPEC oil
became much cheaper. That meant that the much higher wages paid to US
workers to get the oil out of the ground made it more expensive to pump
it as opposed to buying it from abroad. Another factor is the upkeep of
older wells that are not producing as much as they had in the past. It
is cheaper to cap them and wait until prices again rise. It had nothing
to do with any government equation. It' is a simple matter of
economics.
Joe
"Bowen, Patrick A. RP2" wrote:
>
> Scott, if I may answer your questions. (please read I do not agree with
> how this works, but it is how it works) The cost of Gasoline, as well as
> many products, is not pushed by how much it cost the reseller to purchase
> it but how much it will cost the reseller to purchase the replacement for
> it. It is irrelevant if he bought the gas at $1.00 a gallon if he knows
> the next time he refills that it will cost him $1.20 a gallon than that is
> what he will charge. As for why our gas is so much cheaper than other
> countries, believe it or not, it has little to do with taxation as much as
> it does the fact that our government tightly controls the "mixture of
> gasoline that we use. The government says that for every gallon of gas so
> much will be from alaska, gulf of mexico, middle east and so on. They
> control this mixture to ensure high quality grades and to control the
> market. In all honesty Texas has huge amounts of oil beneath it still, why
> are we not using it? Texas does not fit into the governments equation and
> they actually pay people in Texas to cap off and fill in their wells. Add
> this and the fact that the industrial process of refining which accounts
> for the largest cost of the gas is much cheaper here than it is elsewhere
> in the world.
>
> Here is the average breakdown of a gallon of gas being sold for $1.69 - .45
> for Crude, .42 Tax, .10 reseller, .72 refining.
--
"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
-- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
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