The price of gas is too high. Why doesn't the government stabilize the price for us?

Most people are really feeling the pinch of gas prices at the pump. Wouldn't it make sense for the government to lower the price? It could be done in several ways.

First, the government could just make it illegal to sell gas for more than $3.00 per gallon.

Second, the gas companies could sell for whatever price they want, but we could get a rebate check for $1.00 or $2.00 for every gallon of gas we buy. A variation on that would be to allow the subsidy but make is so only poor and middle class folks would qualify for the rebate.

There are other ways to lower the price that I'm willing to hear.

Who do you think is running the show? Did you think it was about us, the American people?

If we want to stop global warming, we're gonna need to make it more expensive than this.

I understand your POV that unless it gets high enough companies won't work on implementing alternative energy. But what you also must understand is that they should be doing this anyway, without people having to loose everything first.

The higher costs are hurting those who can least afford it, the most.

Most homes are no longer equipped to heat with wood and working class people have no money left to purchase new equipment.

The reality is that here in the NE is will cost upwards of 1000 per month for families stuck heating with oil.

These same families don't have the funds to switch to electricity and natural gas is not available everywhere.

This winter it is going to get very bad. Very Very very bad.

Heat, food, gas......it's going to be very bad for the working class.

The price of gas has been too low for too long. As a result, we have become spoiled. We have also become accustomed to a life style which means that these high gas prices result in a lot of pain.

We would have been better off charging high gas taxes all this time. Imagine if gas had been expensive for the past fifty/sixty years. We would have built smarter, more dense communities instead of sprawl. We would have funded good public transportation instead of the impractical patchwork in most areas. The SUV would have been a toy of the wealthy and a work vehicle for farmers and contractors - not something every middle class white collar executive or soccer parent feels entitled to drive. We wouldn't have gotten so wasteful, so addicted to consumerism.

We could always have taken revenue from gas taxes to help poor families heat their homes in the winter, or provided some sort of tax credit.

We could have followed the European model.

We're a large country, where individual European countries are far smaller.

I don't know what the numbers were 20, 30 years ago, but today we have almost 4 times the size of Germany's population, and that percentage only goes up with each country on down the line.

If we had 50 individual countries, instead of 50 united states, then we might have been able to do what European countries have been doing.

That is not going to help working families this winter. There hasn't been enough assistance money to meet the need during the last few Winters. This Winter will be even worse. I am speaking as a mother who will be taking on a second full time job just to pay for heat this winter. (My boys will have to fend for themselves)

We need two things:

For someone to take the initiative and put a stop to the record profits of the oil companies. Stop the corporate welfare to these companies. Require them to use that money for real research , development and implementation of renewable energy. Use a good portion of it to add more money to the heating assistance fund. Otherwise you will end up with alot of deaths and/or fires this winter.

For someone to take some real initiative and jumpstart wind and solar industries in this country. It will both create jobs and make power more affordable in the long run.

We need to change things in this country while at the same time making sure not to run a good chunk of our population into destitution.

AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH! Govt regulators actually regulating! HORROR OF HORRERS!

they are making money off us, and those oil companies CEO's are rolling in it now. Cheney's wet dream has come true.

that's the answer right there!

1. Increase supply
2. Reduce demand

increasing supply looks not to be an option. Either because the E&P companies don't want to get more in order to keep the price high, or (more likely) because the planet is seriously depleted of oil and the supply either isn't there or it's just cost prohibitive to get to.

Reducing demand is the only option. Putting government controls on prices would only increase demand (since it would be cheaper for everyone). People need to change behaviors. Making it cheaper for people to buy gas will not only not address the underlying issues, but actually make them worse.

We need to reduce the demand for oil by investing in other energy sources. Whether they be wind, sun, water, or even (maybe, I'd have to look into it more) nuclear.

Supply is up and demand is actually down from this time last year. The problem is liquidity and fluidity: instead of 4 transactions between me and the oil well this time last year, there's currently an average of 12.

http://omrpublic.iea.org/

"Global oil product demand is expected to average 86.8 mb/d in 2008, 80 kb/d below last month’s estimate, following the reduction of price subsidies in several non-OECD countries. Global growth is cut even more steeply by 230 kb/d to +0.9% or +800 kb/d when historical upward revisions to 2006 and 2007 data are factored in.

Global oil supply rebounded by 490 kb/d in May to average 86.6 mb/d, lifted by higher OPEC crude supply. The rise however comes after extensive downward revisions to 1Q08 non-OPEC production and lower biofuels and NGLs for the rest of this year. Despite this, a recovery in non-OPEC output is forecast for the second half of 2008."

So, global demand still exceeds global production by 200,000 barrels per day, AND global demand is expected to INCREASE by 800,000 per day in 2008, further increasing the gap between supply and demand. And we all know what happens when demand exceeds supply of a non-fungible good.

If you have to point a single finger here -- particularly in a direction where the government can actually do some good -- point at the tripling of the number of transactions from well to pump.

which is antithetical to the RW.

or rationing by quantity, which ensures everyone gets a baseline quantity at an affordable price.

Simply setting up a government price subsidy program will not work, as it will lead to shortages, as is currently occurring in most importing nations that have only price subsidies.

and it costs a gas station more than $3 just to get a gallon of gas to sell us, why would they even remain open? I'd hang up a sign "Out of Gas" rather than lose money on every gallon I sell (if I owned a gas station).

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKPEK17515620071029

If it costs a refinery $3.25/gallon to produce diesel, but the cap is set at $3/gal, the refineries just shut down. So, your first idea is pretty much unworkable.

The second idea, to offer fuel rebates to the poor and middle class, sounds better, but where does the government get the cash to pay for these rebates? Our last round of checks from the IRS this spring was borrowed money, which ultimately makes things worse in the long run for our economic well-being.

My bigger worry in all this would be that subsidizing fuel prices would just encourage consumption of a non-renewable resource that is becoming harder to find on a daily basis. I would prefer that the US went down the same path as much of Europe has: keep gas prices high, but use the taxes to build public transportation and fund research into hybrid and electric vehicles so that ultimately fewer people would need to drive.

Price controls always produce the exact OPPOSITE effect of their stated intent.

By mandating a price of $3.00 or less, many gas stations will be forced to get out of the business of providing gas....since doing so would be a net loss to them. It would cost them more to buy the gas than they could get in return.

As more and more stations go out of business, gasoline would become more scarce in this country, as the providers would take their business to other countries where they could sell at a profit.

This scarcity would create a "black market" for gasoline in this country in which the price was MORE than $3.00.... much more... because of the basic laws of supply and demand. The real price to CONSUMERS would be higher.



This is the worst part of socialism..... price fixing. It always results in the exact opposite of the desired results.

The government needs to get OUT of the business of price controls in EVERY area. The American public will, through their choices, either cause the price to go down (by having less demand) or alternative forms of energy to become more viable (when their costs are less than the costs of gasoline).

Republicans are wrong about a lot of stuff..... but the laws of supply and demand know no political party. They are undeniable.


To sum up:

Price fixing limits supply...which leads to expensive black markets and eventually HIGHER prices.



Please...please....please... take a basic Economics course. Lack of understanding of basic economics is why so many Hillary supporters were in favor of the stupid "gas tax holiday".


We do ourselves no favors when we work to restrict the free movement of goods and services.



There are only TWO ways to lower gas prices:

1. Increase supply
2. Reduce demand

That's it. There are no other solutions. The Republicans are focusing on #1 ("drill, drill, drill") and the Democrats are focusing on #2 ("explore alternative fuels, conserve more").

The Republicans' priority increases green house emissions, speeds up global warming, and delays getting this country onward to the next generation in energy.

The Democrats' priority results in a cleaner environment, slows global warming, and accelerates getting this country to the next generation in energy.

Use my same answer (#5) but do so better than me. That's not very nice.

:rofl:

pro-producer "regulation".

Only pro-consumer "regulation" is bad, apparently.

not THAT is an excellent question!!!

That all depends on what the endgame is.

If the endgame is to decrease the impact we have on the habitat, then no, it would not make sense.

If the endgame is to increase the impact we have on the habitat, then yes, the government should not only subsidize the price of gas, but give everyone extra money so that they can buy even more stuff that was made with newly subsidized energy.

We might be able to subsidize gas stations enough to stay in biz, but the other side of the coin would be that you could only buy say, five gallons a week.

Without the subsidies, we would have to nationalize oil or have no stations. Without the restrictions on amount, crisis sized shortages, and household hoarding of an explosive.

In Canada, we export far more oil than we use. Even oil sources such as the Alberta Tar Sands are profitable because of the high world prices. One thing the Canadian government could do for Canadians, is to set an internal Canadian price lower than the world export price. This could be done easily, and would have a huge benefit for all Canadians. The only drawback would be that there would be a small drop in profits for the oil companies and the oil-producing provinces (mainly Alberta).

If the government made it illegal to sell gasoline for more than $3.00 per gallon, the gas stations would officially "sell" at that price, BUT they wouldn't have any gas to sell at that price. Then to get your gasoline you would have to buy it on the black market at much higher prices than the official $3.00 a gallon.

When there are price controls on a commodity in short supply, that commodity ALWAYS ends up available ONLY on the black market.

If we legalized weed, the price would go down. There is copious evidence to this effect. Regulating the price of gas would only work (in the short term) if you also implemented rationing. Otherwise I have a good incentive to drive my (imaginary) Hummer up to gas stations, fill it up, drive round the corner and siphon most of it off, and repeat.

The whole scenario is based on the idea that we're the only market for gas. It collapses as soon as you consider that there are investors outside the US who can bid up the price of oil contracts (not necessarily in order to attack the US either; they could be just investing a particular amount but if the dollar is sinking against their currency it will be pushing the price up). It's complex and there are no magic wand solutions.

because our "leaders" are oilmen! it's THEIR money!

And the lines to get gas were long.

Bad, bad idea. Nixon tried capping the price in the seventies and we wound up with gas that was still too pricey and almost impossible to get. Not a bright move.

As far as a rebate check, with what money? We're deep in debt now, such a rebate check as you claim would add a huge chunk to that debt, which we the taxpayer would have to pay back with interest.

There are no quick fix, easy solutions. We're going to have to bite the bullet, drive less, conserve more in the short run and in the long run start getting together a plan for alternative fuels and energy sources that are both clean and renewable. Wind, solar, algae based biodiesel are all good alternatives that we should be exploring now.

take care of US for once, oil companies. Exporting oil is at record levels out of the US. If we took care of our own and stopped worrying about making the allmighty buck, then all would be good, but hey, that is a dream that will never come true, the oil companies aren't going to lose any money for the good of our country.

We started drilling in ANWR and offshore (and had that oil supply immediately - which is impossible) AND stopped exporting oil, we'd still only meet about 50% of our nation's demand for oil

You can rape the American people but not the CEOs

Naah, it actually involves effort!