One night, I was surfing the internet when I came across a picture showing a gas station with the gas prices on a sign sitting in front of it. The gas sign said that the price for regular was "an arm", the price for plus was "a leg" and the price for premium was a "first born". As I marveled over what Photoshop can do, I began to think about these high gas prices and what is causing them. Everyone talks about, complains about, and jokes about the high gas prices, but no one does anything about them. Many people told me what they thought was causing the high gas prices, but I was always wondering what really is causing them. Is it corporate greed or is it supply and demand? It is actually a combination of both corporate greed and …show more content…
I don 't have anything against environmentalists, but sometimes I think they go overboard. It seems like they care more about two animals on a wildlife acre then they do about the American economy that helps employ hundreds of people, however, I don 't think more drilling would really solve the problem. An article in Time magazine stated that, "Refinery capacity is not the major driver of higher gas prices. The greater shortage is in the oil itself. Gas prices have been rising along with the price of crude. If gas prices were climbing while crude oil 's remained flat, that would tell you there was a bottleneck pushing up prices. That hasn 't been the case" ("Why Gas Won 't"). So while drilling more would help, it would not solve the problem and might end up creating more problems like pollution. According to CQ Researcher, refineries release many toxic particles into the air which can cause many people to get sick (Cooper "Air Pollution"). More refineries will cause the air to become more polluted. Many people think that it is corporate greed and that putting a cap on gas prices would solve the problem. Remember the 1970s, when people had to wait in long lines for gas? The reason for that was because many places didn 't have any gas to sell. Gas companies stopped selling gas to them because the gas companies couldn 't make a profit. They couldn 't make a profit because there was a cap on gas prices. Learn from
demand for gas to drop. Another option that would eventually decrease the demand for gas would be for people to not
The top five Oil and Gas companies are: Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, National Iranian Oil Company, ExxonMobil and PetroChina. These company work together by using some sort of scare tatic in order to raise fuel prices. Take ExxonMobil for example, these companys have combinded forces in the United to States. These companies tell the American people gas prices went up due to the fact that there oil refineories are under maintaince. As a result gas price increase Where as in the 1990’s when these were two serpeate companies they had to compete with each other and prices were much lower. The growth in capitalism has
Despite the real life anecdote described above, a lot of people don't understand why and how gas prices rise and fall. There's an increase in attention to gas prices when they're higher or lower than usual because that directly concerns them as a consumer. Even when gas prices are higher, consumers keep paying because there's not really an alternative out there besides buying a new environmentally friendly car. However, there's currently a much deeper problem in the United States related to gas prices. Today, in particular, gas prices are a lot less than they have been but most Americans brush it off and wonder something along the lines of ""Who is that bad for?"". I mean, fuels costs eat up a large share of earnings in the
Gas is something we need in our day-to-day life to operate vehicles that bring us places we need to go. Without gas we can't go on living our normal lives. Sadly the prices of gas are not pleasant to the consumers at times, but we have to deal with it. Around the year 2012 gas was a staggering $ 3.60 average and was $4.00 at time, the people were asking the government to mandate gas prices. Although if the government were to mandate gas prices, the prices would be more appealing to the consumers, but not for the long run.
Summery: Now you know that the rise in gas prices is because of three main factors, the price rising of crude oil, continues increase in internal regulations in the United States and the huge increased demand for the product in and out side the United States.
There has been some talk about an “oil-extraction tax.” With this tax in place, it would force companies to fork out more of the tax instead of the consumer. If higher taxes are put in place for the producer ultimately they are not the ones paying the higher price the consumer is. Either way producers will receive revenue and in order to do that they will just raise their prices. The demand for fuel is based on necessity forcing consumers to pay outrageous prices because they need it. In addition to the tax, oil companies would have to disclose more information about their supplies and prices. Since the companies have market power, some believe with the tax in place it would reduce the price of the good.
Environmentalists are one the biggest critics against the notion of increasing domestic oil drilling. By increasing the amount of drilling we do in the United States, we increase the risk of disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Disasters are hardly the only source of economic damage either, to find oil reserves under the ocean, seismic waves are generated into the ground. These waves bounce off the ground back up to the ship, where computers and scientist can use the results to make educated guesses on whether or not oil is located under the surface. These seismic waves can wreak havoc with marine animals like whales; where in one case over 100 whales beached themselves to get away from the painful experience (Nixon). Using seismic waves does not even guarantee that oil might be located underneath the surface, the only way to tell is to actually drill into the potential finds causing even more destruction for what might be for no gain. Once oil is found and drilling has begun, the amount of damage done to the environment can become unimaginable. The recent example is that of the Deepwater
Once upon a time Americans hopped into their cars on warm spring days and took long drives to admire the beauty of nature. Teenagers took joy rides around town to meet friends and rode from one “hot spot” to another. Those were the days when gas prices were affordable to the average American. Over the past few years, gas prices in the United States have been on the rise. What is causing the increase in gas prices?
Another reason against drilling much research has shown that all the oil that will be produced will only last for about six months. The fact that the British Petroleum has greater potential to produce more oil and natural gasses (Markey 2004) than ANWR so why bother with it , supporting the case that drilling is pointless. Then there is the percentage that after oil production of ANWR, the foreign oil dependency will only drop from 56% to 50% (Markey 2004).Then the oil produced would reach the market ten years later after it was produced, leaving the gas price decrease to one percent(Lamar and Markey 12). There was also the reality of natural gases. ANWR does not confirm any sign of them, when President Bush ordered exploration for natural gasses (Klyza and Ford-Martin 1).Again proving drilling pointless.
America has been in an oil crisis for many years, it should stop. People and companies are using more oil than they should. Oil supplies are fragile. If the United States drills for oil in several other countries it would cost a lot of money and gas prices will increase. There is an option of drilling in Alaska for oil. If the United States did drill it would be cheaper because it is domestic. If the United States collected oil from Alaska's wildlife it would have an overall positive outcome.
I am a husband and a father of four lovely children. We need a large vehicle to haul all of us around town. And of course I would do anything to keep them safe and I always want to provide them with the best. Therefore, after the birth of our fourth child two and a half years ago, my wife and I decided to upgrade our Ford Explorer to a Ford Expedition. We got everything from the side-curtain airbags to the TV and DVD player. What we did not know was we also purchased a rather large unleaded gas bill. The first time we filled the tank it cost us roughly $35; today it costs us right around $75 to fill the tank. Obviously the price of gas has increased significantly in the last two years. The price
It turns out that the market for natural gas is a very competitive one and that there is in fact a shortage in supply that is causing the price to increase. Natural gas must be drilled for and there are only a certain number of active companies that drill and they all have a set amount of capital. In the short run the supply of natural gas is very inelastic because they cannot just produce more gas. They would need
Drivers realize that the price of gas is tied to the market value of crude oil, and has a direct impact to their daily commutes, errands, and vacations. However the reality is that the price of fuel has implications much grater than most consumers realize. Fuel prices affect nearly everything we purchase. For example, the price of farm commodities and food increase because farmers pay more for the fuel for their farm equipment and trucking firms pay more for fuel to get the commodities to market. These shipping “fuel surcharges” impact all goods
She is the one I want, the one who’s there for me, and the woman I am going to marry.
While the first article I concern myself with predicts an increase in gas prices, the second article confirms an increase in the price of oil. From the onset, the first article, titled Increased Gas Prices? Don't Blame Unrest in Egypt, points out to readers that they could soon find themselves digging deeper into their pockets for a gallon of gas. However, even though it acknowledges that the unrest in Egypt could be to blame for the increase in gas price, it warns against apportioning all the blame to the said unrest. The second article, titled Market Watch: Oil Prices Rise on US Economic Outlook, confirms an increase in the price of oil most particularly in the London and New York markets.