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Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Greed and Excessive Profits
T
he cost of crude oil in the mid-'70s was $13.55 a barrel. Today the price is $64 a barrel. This reflects an increase of 475 percent.
H
owever, the gas price at the pump in the mid-'70s was slightly over 25 cents per gallon. Today, the prices have reached more than $2.55 a gallon. This is an increase of more than 1,000 percent, which is more than double the increase in the cost of crude oil.
H
ad the percentages been equal, the cost of gasoline should be only $1.23 a gallon today.
W
e are told that when the price of crude oil drops, it takes three to six months for the price to be reflected at the gas pumps. But you will notice that when the price of crude goes up, the pump prices go up within 24 hours.
W
e are told that there are rising energy costs that account for the increase in fuel prices. Who controls the energy costs? The same people who are raising the fuel prices also control the energy costs. We are being lied to every step of the way down the garden path.
D
uring the 1970s, the U.S. oil companies began capping the oil wells in this country because foreign oil was cheaper to import than U.S. oil wells were to pump. This can no longer be the case. The time came 10 years ago to begin uncapping our domestic wells. This was not done, even though the cost would have been cheaper at that time.
A
ll this boils down to is greed and excessive profits for the oil companies and their shareholders at the expense of the American taxpayer, while the U.S. government looks the other way and has done so for over 10 years.
Posted by fm on August 30, 2005 at 12:17 AM