"Less consumption" is something completely incomprehensible to the MAGA idiots who think they "need" monstrously oversized diesel-guzzling 4x4 pickup trucks even though the bed of their truck is spotless from never having hauled anything. Need someplace to display that dumb "MOLON LABE" sticker that they think makes up for inadequacies elsewhere. Need a big truck to intentionally block EV charging stations. Need to spend hundreds of dollars illegally modifying the truck to push excess fuel at the push of a button so that you can cover bicyclists and Prius drivers (and your own truck) in thick black clouds of greasy black soot. This is the moronic right wing idiocy America is dealing with. And now they want us to share in their outrage over high gas prices and join them to blame "Biden" for it. |
Tefinery capacity is down 1,000,00 barrels/day since 2019 and having significant effect on pricing above and beyond crude prices. Plus added costs for transport and jobbers. |
Hey if refiners and oil drillers need subsidies to survive the green transition, I'm all for it. We WILL need fossil energy for the next few decades as we transition to renewables. This is a 40-60 year transition process.
But I want the USG to get equity stakes in any of these companies. These companies want subsidies, tax credits, and leases from Uncle Sam but they don't want to share in the upside. I want the taxpayer to get a cut for providing financing. Get a deal done, Joe. |
The incoherence is that there are only “long term” solutions to “short term” supply issues. New investment in oil production and and refining are done on 30 to 50 year time horizon. If you want a company to invest in projects that have a 30 to 50 year return profile but you want those projects to be out of business inside of ten years you really have to alter the economics in favor of the oil/refining company or else it would be irrational for the oil/refining company to invest in additional production/capacity. Would you build a sky rise that you knew you wanted to tear down in five years? |
Sounds like a good reason for nationalization under the auspices of national security: this is a market failure. |
Great, now tell that to your fellow Republican trolls bleating about Sleepy Joe and high gas prices. |
Nationalization will almost certainly make shortages worse in the short to medium term. But go ahead and try it. Failure to deliver long term investment into a product that government officials and material portions of the population don’t want to exist long term is the exact opposite of a market failure. |
You’ve got it reversed. POTUS and his admin need to commit to (a) higher fossil fuel prices and the political fallout therefrom or (b) lower prices and the political fallout therefrom. Biden finds himself in the same exact spot Obama was in with regards to Obamacare—he knows exactly what he wants but he is unwilling to pay the political price for it. So instead he’ll pursue half measures that don’t really fix the problem in hopes that he and his party won’t be punished at the ballot box. |
It's incoherent to ask oil companies to make investments that are against their near- and long-term interests. If I told you that America needs you to dump your money into gas stocks right now, while also telling you I'm going to heavily regulate gas and make it unprofitable within a decade, you would be smart not to invest the money. It's the same way with companies. |