[Coco] Eye of Ike approaching my home

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 15 September 2008, Frank Swygert wrote:
>Glad you're okay Roger! While ranting, I have one -- price of gasoline rose
> to just under $5 a gallon in SC in "anticipation" of the oil refineries
> being shut down for a while. We HAVE to have gov't regulation of the oil
> companies. I'm not one to typically want the gov't to step in (less gov't
> is best to me), but when pure greed takes over something we simply can't do
> without it's time. I'd rather see price regulation than the gov't take over
> refinery operations ("nationalizing" the refineries... I'd expect the gov't
> would give the oil companies a percentage of output or what it considered a
> fair lease price, couldn't just take them over). No one really wants gov't
> employees running refineries -- though they would be the same that work
> there now and it would take a while for "entrenchment" to occur.
>
>I can see prices going up a little in anticipation -- no one would complain
> too much about a $0.20-50 rise due to an impending storm. Gas was
> $3.59-$3.69 on average one day, $4.99-$5.15 the next. The SC governor
> passed an emergency law against price gouging and the next day the price
> went down a little to $4.69 in my home town (on average). My guess is the
> governor limited a price rise to $1 a gallon? I don't know the details.
>
>The oil companies think we're all idiots. There is plenty fuel already made,
> enough for several days at a minimum, at the refineries. They should be
> able to weather through a storm. I can easily understand limiting supply
> (most stations here limited customers to $50, which at the old price was
> okay..., and they still ran out for 12-24 hours). Prices shouldn't go up
> much until/unless there's actual damage to something. They are quick to
> anticipate and raise prices, then very #$%^ slow to drop them back.
>
>How many of you remember the mid and late 70s oil crisis? Price didn't go up
> as much percentage wise that I can recall (I could be wrong, maybe need to
> research that...), though there was (understandably) limited supply. The
> reason is there was still gov't regulation of prices at the time. Reagan
> eliminated gov't regulation of a lot of things, and at first it was a good
> thing. Now it seems the bas#$%ds at the oil companies have learned to
> cooperate with each other. They all seem to go one after another -- if one
> raises prices, the others follow suit shortly.
>
>We pay premium prices for gas made with old oil for something that MIGHT
> happen, and now the price of oil is even down! If a refinery was definitely
> down a price increase might make sense, but not until. To top it off, it
> makes things like mandatory evacuations a big burden on people. So tax
> payers end up bailing more of them out. The total outrage is that in the
> wake of disasters like Katrina (and to some extent Ike) the oil companies
> report record profits! If the prices were raised to cover losses of
> refineries and such they wouldn't go up as much as they do (I think
> $0.20-0.50/gal would cover that -- think about the number of gallons
> sold!). They are raised due to supply/demand (supposedly), and we're all
> sc$%^wed.  The real reason is they see that they can make a lot of money
> off the misfortune of others (those in the wake of the storm). I can't see
> any other reason, it's not to cover loss of profits, which would be a
> justified reason for raising prices -- they are report ing even higher
> profits!

+2 Frank, they did a 50 cent raise here in WV.

>------------
>Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:40:46 -0500
>From: Roger Taylor <operator at coco3.com>
>
>My power just came back on about 2 hours ago, but hundreds of thousands
>aren't so lucky yet. The power loss occurred for my area right as the
>"eye" area of the storm hit, but even long before and after we were
>still getting terrible gusts of wind in all directions. In once instance
>a burst of wind so big came through that the trees which were full of
>water got hit from above I guess because they all kind blew apart and
>the air was filled with a huge cloud of water all the way down the
>road.. me and the son dove into the house in fear it was a tornado, then
>it just went away real quick to dead silence before coming back a minute
>later.
>
>Anyway, it's over and I have lots of tree debree everywhere but nothing
>else to complain about I guess. I'm grabbing the rakes right now.



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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