High Gasoline Prices

[Eddy Jean]

I'm not talking about tar sands and offshore exploration. The US not
only has a lot of oil held in reserves but also there's plenty of oil
drilled in Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas and California. Consumers have clout
but not using it. If workers united and stopped showing up for work, the
price of gas would likely decrease. If Americans had boycotted buying
merchandise produced by the companies that moved their operations
overseas, I have no doubt things would change in favor of the consumer.
The problem is Americans don't complain. Apathy is a major problem here.
EJ

[A B]

Post by Eddy Jean
I'm not talking about tar sands and offshore exploration. The US not
only has a lot of oil held in reserves but also there's plenty of oil
drilled in Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas and California. Consumers have clout
but not using it. If workers united and stopped showing up for work, the
price of gas would likely decrease. If Americans had boycotted buying
merchandise produced by the companies that moved their operations
overseas, I have no doubt things would change in favor of the consumer.
The problem is Americans don't complain. Apathy is a major problem here.
EJ

Well, maybe you're right. Living in England I don't know that much about
what the situation really is in America.

I have my doubts about how the American government, and the corporations
that run it, would take any attempt at workers uniting on a grand scale for
any purpose at all. I don't think they'd have an easy ride over here,
especially not now the Tories are in government again. The UK's unions have
never recovered from the LAST time the Tories were in.

[Kenn Smith]

The chances for a US nationwide consumer/worker strike range between
slim and none. It just won't happen. Most workers are just happy to
have a job and certainly won't do anything to jepordize hanging on to
it.

The problem leading up to our current high prices in the US, still much
lower than Europe, is a combination of fear mongering to drive the
speculative price of oil futures up, increasing demand by developing
nations and a lack of real knowledge about the amount of
undeveloped/undiscovered oil remaining under the surface. Everyone
knows or assumes that it is a finite number but no one has any idea of
what that finite number is. Some of the international price structuring
is dependent on guesses of when the last drop of available oil is pumped
to the surface. Ten years? One hundred years? Pick a number, any
number except infinity (which isn't really a number anyway).

I found it interesting yesterday when the US Senate voted down a
Transportation Bill amendment by Senator Viter of Louisiana to open up
more off shore, off the continental shelf areas for exploration and
drilling. Other than pure partisan politics it's hard to understand why
something like 52 senators (out of 100 for my Brit friend) would vote
against further exploration. The West Coast senators (California,
Oregon and Washington) don't want any offshore drilling on their
coastlines - fishing and recreation are big dollar industries in all
three. But, that's only 5 senators - what motivated the other 46 or so?
US politics does make for some strange bedfellows.

[A B]

"Kenn Smith" <***@webtv.net> wrote on 9th March:
<...>

Post by Kenn Smith
I found it interesting yesterday when the US Senate voted down a
Transportation Bill amendment by Senator Viter of Louisiana to open up
more off shore, off the continental shelf areas for exploration and
drilling. Other than pure partisan politics it's hard to understand why
something like 52 senators (out of 100 for my Brit friend) would vote
against further exploration. The West Coast senators (California,
Oregon and Washington) don't want any offshore drilling on their
coastlines - fishing and recreation are big dollar industries in all
three. But, that's only 5 senators - what motivated the other 46 or so?

Altruism can't be ruled out. Surely it's not out of the question that some
of them are cautious about pollution even outside their own state. Or that
some think it's time America switched more of its efforts to developing
energy sources that won't distort the climate even further.

Admittedly I don't entirely believe that that accounts for 47% of the
Senate, any more than you - you don't get that high in politics by being
self-sacrificing.

Post by Kenn Smith
US politics does make for some strange bedfellows.

Agreed. On both sides of EVERY debate. (And you could remove "US" from
that sentence.)