WTF? Gas Prices Almost $4 a Gallon Here!

Los Angeles roads in general are a disaster. In the city of Los Angeles they are considering yet another bond issue to try to fix local roads. In Calif it seems that the freeways are fixed first in Northern Cal and then in the San Diego area, and last comes Los Angeles. It's been that way for decades.

My biggest gripe with the high sales tax rate in Calif is that the sales tax is levied on top of the federal and state excise taxes. So literally you are paying a tax on a tax.

There is a long history of the abuse of the gasoline tax system -- with revenue diverted for other budget purposes.

If supply and demand doesn't determine price how do you explain that the glut of natural gas production has depressed the price of natural gas?

World oil surplus is about 2% more than production, which means that any disruption or threat of disruption can quickly create a shortage

First of all people should know that refineries and oil companies are not necessarily the same. As mentioned the big oil companies have gotten out of the refinery business. The Koch brothers control much of the refinery business. They do not produce the oil. In addition, the refinery business is not price based like the oil industry. Finally, fracking is primarily being done by a new set of small oil companies. The big oil companies would love to put them out of business.

Another big threat to big oil is the potential increase of plug-in hybrid vehicles. These vehicles would then run on coal and gas primarily as these resources provide the lions share of the baseload electricity. That is one reason big oil supports the climate change scam to raise the price of these energy sources so they won't be competitive with oil. All one has to do is notice where the EPA is focusing new regulations. It's not on the oil industry.

As for speculation, that does not have much of an effect on oil prices over time. Yes, as speculators see demand increasing in the future you end up with higher prices before it happens. However, the same happens when they see demand dropping in the future. It all balances out over time.

Rick

Just a minor correction: The Koch Industries subsidiary Flint Hills Resources owns 3 oil refineries with a capacity of about 800,000 barrels-per-day, . . . placing them below Conoco Phillips, Exxon, Valero, British Petroleum, and Marathon Oil Corp. among others in total oil refining capacity.
The Koch Industries refineries represent less than 5% of US refining capacity.

DonDiego respectfully suggests the Koch brothers do not "control much of the refinery business."

DISCLAIMER: Poor old DonDiego has no connection with or preference for Flint Hills Resources products. As far as DonDiego knows he has no personal or financial relationship with the Koch brothers or any of their enterprises.

I also think that Exxon and Chevron are major players in the fracking industry.

Shell is a major player in Pennsylvania.

No! They are good! - if they take care of their own externalities. That is, if they clean up all harmful health or environmental effects caused by their industry or they pay someone to do it for them.

So you know that guy who walks his big dog, never brings a plastic bag, and leaves big smelly piles in his wake? He's not taking care of the externalities, and he is in need of some regulation - just like some industries need regulation.

there are known cancer clusters in the neighborhoods downwind from the refineries here in Southern Cal.