A rebuttal RE: Boo-hoo (Wuz: Great gas out!;

["Avi Meron" <avi@cosmoslink.net>]

Shaun,

I read your message with interest.......there were a few things there (in
your note) that  caught my eye.

* First and foremost the price of petroleum is totally manipulated by the
oil companies and governments  (and the oil producing nations), it has
absolutely nothing to do with supply and demand.
* The petroleum companies are manipulating the supply of oil in order to
increase their revenues, it is a repeat of the 73 artificial oil price
increase, (blamed on the Arab countries).
* The supplies of oil  are not shrinking,on the contrary, they are the
highest they ever been, and will go higher. The techniques of drilling  and
reaching untapped sources of oil are much improved over the past.
* The problem never have,and never will be  limited supply (with the
exception of Nazi Germany),it is  the simple fact that they (the oil
companies) want more revenues for the same amount of oil sold.
* There are two ways to increase revenues, sell more, or increase the price,
it is not possible to sell more (not enough demand, world economy is very
slow), but it is possible to increase the price (that you and I are paying).
* The price of oil in the rest of the world will not increase in any
meaningful way (unless the governments want that to happen). ONLY in this
market (prices will increase), reason is, we are (the customers) the ones
that pay for the fuel, where in the rest of the  world Governments buy the
fuel (IN BULK) and resale it to customers, it is very easy to screw us over.
* Rest assured that we (US customers) pay THE HIGHEST PRICE IN THE WORLD for
fuel (sometime ,not always) because we buy it a gallon at a time.
* The only reason that alternative mode of transportation will gain
prominence is because petroleum is not as "healthy to the environment" as
some other fuels (a concept that I still have difficulty with!)


I go on for many more pages................but I think that I made my point,

Avi







-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net [mailto:owner-quattro@coimbra.ans.net]
On Behalf Of Shaun D. Mullen
Sent:	Saturday, April 03, 1999 9:55 AM
To:	Mike Arman
Cc:	quattro@coimbra.ans.net
Subject:	Boo-hoo (Wuz: Great gas out!; gas prices, gas pains, gas gas, etc.)

The q-list is invariably interesting when the subject is quattros.  It can
be
downright hilarious when i'ts about something few of us know jack spit
about.
Like the world petroleum market.  The one certainty -- the one absolute
certainty -- about the historically cheap gas prices in the U.S. over the
last
few months -- was that they were going to go up.  The one certainty -- the
one
absolute certainty -- now that they've begun to go back up, is that sooner
or
later they'll come back down.  Not in the long term, like the next 30 years,
perhaps, but certainly in the short term, like the next 3 years, if not the
next 3 months.  Beyond that, there are an incredible number of factors and
market forces at work in the petroleum market that have little do with
common
sense, the size of the allowance mom and dad give some of our more
adolescent
listers, shrinking natural energy resources or alternative fuels.  Non-U.S.
listers have every right to feel less than sympathetic to the hankie-ringing
among those of us peeved that our little at-the-pump party is over, however
temporarily.  I myself have pumped 94-octane at US$1.10 with disbelief for
months now.  I too am sorry the party is over, but it's a wonder it lasted
so
long.

Shaun Mullen
West Grove, PA