Ted Cruz & the price of gas

[PAL]

Wasn't your life was worse under Trump because of Covid? You lost your job. Admittedly not his fault but the way he handled it...
You're right, he was no angel. He only incited an inssurection. Yes, he did.
And you don't rant?

[dorankj]

You’re ranting! But absolutely YES, my life is worse now then when Trump was in office. I’d certainly take mean tweets and $2 gas, and Trump got several other things right. He spent way too much and I didn’t care for his style, he was no angel (I would never vote him pastor) but his policies and how he handled world problems was pretty spot on.

[PAL]

Need links as your opinion doesn't hold water. You believe we do not need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuesl. I would think if cared about your children's children or even if you don't have any, you state you care so darn much for babies and children, then you would know that they will be living in a heated up world. That's what the emissions are doing along with Mom Nature being pissed off.
Trump, Cruz, etc. did not set the gas prices. Zip influence as Jim Wright says. Hmm, Trumpie did cozy up to the Saudis.
And there you go again, with name calling-partisen hack.
Please tell me what effective policies you are talking about, especially when it comes to fossil fuels? What was Trumps policy? Pilage and plunder. He was for tar sands extraction. Again, not economical. The Balkans, not economical. They went bust.
Pipeline oil is exported as the article states.
Profits are up for the oil companies as he says. I guess Trump wouldn't let that happen. He said he alone can fix it. He wouldn't have been able to.
Ken, we will always disagree. Is your life really worse off than when Trump was in office? He was President during the lockdown and he didn't do anything about the lockdowns, did he? He was powerless. He alone can fix it. A crock.

[dorankj]

No, I think my point is pretty clear and doesn’t need any ‘links’. (That’s your trick)

[Rideback]

Could you expand on your opinion with some links to prove your point?

[dorankj]

I did read it, if it encompassed the whole problem it might be more useful but it does what most progressive leaning people do, leaves out the part that makes their political views uncomfortable. If you can’t see that this administration’s war on traditional fuels started and is a tremendous part of our issues today, you show yourself a partisan hack unable to realistically solve problems because you refuse to acknowledge when the other side has effective policies. Whether you can stand DT, his policy regarding energy was far superior to this clown show and we must return to policies that so recently worked so much better!

[PAL]

Ken, can you read Jim Wright's article? Read it. It's long but is true. If the type is too small copy and paste it into Word.
But you will hang on to your beliefs, no matter what. You will not open your mind, as I have said before.
Ray, there is obvious gouging going on.

[Rideback]

P - for sure. I went and double checked the price of oil and it's gone up $4 in the last week for a barrel.

D - the answer to your question is in Pasayten's link and the Jim Wright post I put up.

[dorankj]

Maybe get it from the same place and use the same policies we did a couple years ago and it was $2-3 bucks a gallon, simple enough for you?

[pasayten]

CNN Business article listing multiple factors driving the price of gas up... Strange the barrel prce has been somewhat stable the last few weeks, but gas keeps going up... Very tough on the working folk...


https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/06/energy/r ... zBPJZGGt44

[Rideback]

In response to Ted Cruz's tweet: 'President Biden's 'incredible transition' away from oil is costing Americans nearly $5 per gallong'

Jim Wright:

'sk yourself who benefits from high gas prices.
Who gets rich?
If those are the SAME entities who CONTROL the price of gas, then what incentive is there for them to LOWER the price?
You know, it's ironic. If Ted Cruz put half as much effort into building a better future for all Americans as he does shitposting on Twitter, maybe his constituents wouldn't be paying so much to get around.
Let's take this latest lie apart, shall we?
Gas prices are linked to the cost of crude oil.
No kidding, right?
But there are several different types of crude oil and not all of them are created equal. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to make gasoline from light sweet crude than it is from heavy sour crude.
Light/Heavy refers to the API (American Petroleum Institute) Gravity of oil. Heavy crude is thick, sometimes almost solid, and contains a bunch of stuff that makes it hard to refine. It's good for asphalt and products like that.
Light crude contains a lot of volatiles, i.e. it evaporates easily and thus contains a MUCH higher percentages of the compounds used to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, Naphtha, etc.
Sweet/Sour are terms used to describe sulfur content. Sweet Crude contains very little (usually <1%) sulfur. Sulfur in oil causes all sorts of problems and the more sour it is, the more it costs to refine into useable products.
So when politicians like Cruz talk about drilling more oil, you should note that they very specifically DON'T tell you what KIND oil is involved. There's a huge difference between the oil from Kuwait, for example, and that from Canadian Tar Sands.
You can make gasoline from heavy sour crude, but it'll cost a hell of a lot more per gallon than you're paying NOW.
The Keystone pipeline? MOST of that is destined for export, to become heavy fuels, asphalt, lubricants, etc, and wouldn't make a difference at the pump.
When politicians like Cruz say "energy independent" that's on purpose. They don't say "gasoline independent" for a reason.
Because they are disingenuous partisan hacks.
Which is what Cruz is up to right now.
The price of light sweet crude per barrel is NOT determined by Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, or even America. It's a global commodity and is set by the stock market.
Two years ago, you couldn't give the stuff away. A barrel was trading on the NYSE for LESS than $0.
Why? Because of COVID. The global economy shut down and the demand for gasoline, and thus oil, drooped to near zero. Tanks were full. Tankers from the Middle East sat unloaded. Refineries idled.
That's how capitalism works. Supply and demand, and there wasn't any demand.
There's no way the Oil Companies were going to give the stuff away for free. They couldn't increase demand, so they cut supply. They capped wells, they shut down the rigs, they closed refineries, and they laid off their workforce. GLOBALLY.
Now, the world economy is roaring back to MORE than the previous levels. People are trying to make up for the year they lost.
Business is trying to make up for the year of PROFIT it lost.
NOW there's a huge demand, BUT oil companies are keeping the supply limited.
True, it's difficult to ramp oil production back up, to uncap wells, to restart the rigs, to crew the tankers and the trucks and the trains, to find the workers, to build new refineries to replace the ones that were shut down.
But it's more than that.
Oil companies got burned when we stopped buy gas
WALL STREET got burned
They're making money NOW. ExxonMobil announced they made a profit of nearly $9 BILLION in the first quarter of this year. And they're going to use that profit to buy $30 billion of their shares back.
The oil companies are buying back their stock, NOT investing in increasing production.
We're refining about 1 million fewer barrels per day NOW than we were two years ago. And there's no incentive for the US oil industry to change that.
This reduced production has very, very little to do with "government regulation" and a LOT to do with profit.
The Oil Industry took it PERSONALLY when we stopped buying.
This is were I remind you that prices are set by the GLOBAL stock market and not the White House.
But the biggest driver of high oil prices right now is war.
Russia is the 3rd largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and the US. Loss of Russian oil into the market just as economy kicks into post-pandemic high gear, is the PRIMARY cause of high prices.
Now, the US never got much oil from Russia. But Europe did (60%). China did (20%). If Europe isn't buying Russian oil, then they've got to get it elsewhere.
Supply and demand.
Basic capitalism. Less supply, more demand, higher prices. That's how it works.
So, when Ted Cruz blames Joe Biden for high prices at the pumps, what he's REALLY saying is that we, the alleged moral high ground, should throw Ukrainians under the bus for Russian oil.
Republicans like Ted Cruz would let Russia murder Ukraine for cheap gas.
The oil industry has us over the barrel and they are going to give it to us good and hard.
The hypocrisy here isn't the Oil Industry or Wall Street, but those like Ted Cruz who grow rich from Texas oil baron payoffs while slyly bemoaning how much it's costing poor Americans.
The ironic part here is the Biden Administration has approved ~34% MORE drilling and fracking permits in the first year of its tenure than the previous administration, earning it the ire of those who once pushed the Green New Deal and who maybe hate Biden more than Ted Cruz.
The simple truth of the matter is that so long as we are dependent on oil, we will be forever at the mercy of the Oil Industry and those who influence it on a GLOBAL scale, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Wall Street, ExxonMobil, et al.
If Ted Cruz TRULY cared about America, its future, its national security, its industry, its citizens, and its place in history, then he would enthusiastically back Biden's goal of moving us away from fossil fuels as the basis of our energy infrastructure.
But all Ted Cruz cares about is owning the libs on Twitter.
Republicans have become an ideology of hate and fear, they have completely given up on making a better future, they have become party of mean boorish little shitposters and nothing more.
Up above I asked: who gets rich?
Who gets rich and are they the same entities who control the price of oil? And if they are, what then is the incentive to LOWER the price?
But the real question you should be asking whenever Ted Cruz talks about the price of gasoline is this: Is Ted Cruz one of those people?