Clerk, 5 Others Arrested in Cheap Gas Scheme

[Ace Purple]

South Charleston Police say a gas station clerk was giving her friends gas at a tenth of a cent per gallon, adding up to tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/13932377.html

[Big Media]

[Hoosier Daddy]

Why couldn't I have a friend like that ...

[AARON SCOTT]

It is about time someone gets screwed other than the customer

[AmpedNow]

Why couldn't I have a friend like that ...

My thoughts exactly.

[Bar Rat]

Why couldn't I have a friend like that ...

No shit!

[cgarison]

Why couldn't I have a friend like that ...

Because you would be jail with your friend.

[Bar Rat]

There was a gas pump at SuperAmerica (now Speedway) on 28th and 5th that you could put two bucks in your car, turn off the pump, and the only thing that would stop running was the meter. I used that trick for a month until they figured out where their gas was going. And that was back in the days of *gagpukechoke* cheap gas at like $1.30 or so. Of course, I was driving a Ford Torino with like a 30 gallon tank.

[Arp2]

It is about time someone gets screwed other than the customer

Absurd. No customer is getting screwed....this is simply the natural and automatic result of a bunch of Enviro-Nazis and the politicians who love them or they hold hostage stopping every attempt to increase supply.

A modern-day oil primer:

Over the past few years, while America's economy has been booming, the economies of places like China, India, Russia, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates have been utterly exploding. With all that growth and the money that comes with it, more and more people in those places (and others) are wanting and needing to move about (you know...work, go places, do things), and more and more people are driving and flying. China, all by itself, puts 14,000 additional cars on the road every single day! That's almost impossible to imagine, but it's the case....and it's just what China is adding. And, of course, all of those cars need gas to go...and, of course, the planes, too.

In addition, as these places are ramping businesses and infrastructure and building homes, plants, mines, and office space so strongly, all the heavy machinery that's doing the work is demanding more fuel, too.

Sooooo.....demand for oil is growing. A lot. Every day. And oil is still out there, but it's getting a bit harder to find and to get to.....it's still plenty easily doable, though.

Until those who want to and can go get it get to the politicians' "whoa!" line, that is. There, they get stopped by leftists and/or wimps being held hostage by Enviro-Nazis who are lying about the effects and risks (non-risks, really) associated with oil exploration and capture.

For example, the truth about getting oil out of ANWR -- go to your favorite map website and center over South Carolina; that's ANWR (roughly the same size). Then, zoom and zoom and zoom and zoom and zoom toward the northwest part of the state and find the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and the BMW plant next to it. That -- maybe even less -- would be the "giant, despoiling oil field." Then, zoom back out and get the perspective (tiny, close to the edge, etc). Oh....and realize that the "pristine beauty" is snow-covered and pitch dark the vast majority of the year and sees very, very few visitors ever.

Or oil exploration right out in the Gulf of Mexico....it's said to be "too risky" to the Gulf Coast. The truth, though, is that even Hurricane Katrina couldn't cause a drop of oil to leak from the platforms that are already out there! And, while our politicians have been holding us all hostage, Cuba has plopped a facility out in the area where some of our companies were going to go! Wonderful, huh?

Where we have and can get oil and put this additional supply onto the market, politicos are blocking bringing it up.

Now, why all this concentration on supply? Why is supply so critical? It's because of how oil gets priced. All of oil gets priced at the amount the market is willing to pay for the final barrel that's available on the open market, and "supply and demand" determine what that price will be.

What's going on now is that OPEC, Venezuela, Russia, and so forth (the countries and places that produce the largest amounts of oil) are putting on the market an amount that just ever so barely meets the growing-by-the-day demand. On top of that goes a "risk premium" that traders are willing to pay (in the form of a bidded-up price, not a stated fee or anything). Think of paying a "risk premium" like going to the grocery store a few days before a snowstorm....you're not 100% sure it's going to snow or how much it might, and the prices on bread and toilet paper and stuff aren't what you'd normally like to pay, but, just in case, you pay what you "have to" "just in case." The "risk premium" on oil, at this point, is there because there is no excess supply at this point and because of things like Iran possibly pulling some crap in the Strait of Hormuz, Hugo Chavez pulling some stunt, and so on.

So, again, why the focus on supply? Easy -- it's the only answer.

For one thing, adding supply to the market -- especially from us or some very close friends -- instantly removes almost all of the risk premium. Think about it -- if supply exceeds demand, then some part of the supply could be attacked in some way or removed from the market with little effect.

Once risk premium is out and supply still exceeds demand, then price really starts to tumble! The easy comparison is condos in Miami -- now that so many condos have been built and speculators are getting rid of their second or fifth or tenth, supply is exceeding demand, and sellers are now saying, "I'll take less! I'll take less!" whenever there's a buyer in the vicinity. $90 oil would be $72 overnight and be heading for $50 in a matter of a couple of months (the cost of claiming oil from tar sands might be the determining factor, though).

An interesting note: merely the credible threat of putting more supply on the market lowers the price! When faced by the threat of additional competition, oil producers lower their prices dramatically to try to take away the incentive potential additional producers have for getting into the business!

What about alternative fuels or conservation? Easy -- today, it is / they are all bullcrap. 14 gallons of ethanol need to be made for every 10 gallons of gas that would be replaced, and the energy needed to make and transport those 14 gallons approaches or exceeds the energy in the 10 gallons of gas. What could be more stupid??? And what does a tiny amount of conservation in the US mean when China, by itself, is putting 14,000 new cars on the road every single day?!? How does going-out-of-the-way carpooling or combining a trip to the grocery with a trip to the mall account for 5.11 million (and accelerating) additional cars driving all over the giant country of China every year??

Answers: nothing, nothing, and it doesn't and never will.

If you want to develop some other fuel for the long run, excellent! It's a great idea, and the marketplace will love and reward you for it. Today, though, we simply need to have more oil, and it would be best that it be our oil.

So are we "getting screwed?" Absolutely -- by politicians and Enviro-Nazis! Get their hands and lawyers out of the process, and the price drops by a third overnight (taxes go away), maybe half within six months (threat/promise of additional supply affects the marketplace), and by more than that within a couple of years (additional supply hits market and exceeds demand).

Piece of cake, really.....

[AmpedNow]

The problem is, some of these environmentalists actually want the fuel prices to go to $6-$7 per gallon so people will stop driving and polluting so much.

I'm an environmentalist within reason, such as turning off lights and recycling, I'm all for alternative energy solutions as well, but I'm also a realist. Prices that high would wreck our economy, esp if it happened quickly.

Actually, it's amazing that the economy able to absorb the price of fuel almost tripling in the last 5 years. In 2003, oil was trading around $35, which seemed really high at the time. Now it's near $100, and the economy is tanking. Where will the price be in another 5 years if nothing is done?

We need to drill. We need nuclear energy. And we need to develop viable alternate energy. All of this can be done without significantly disturbing the environment, if the idiots and lawyers would just get out of the way.

It will take at least another generation until another viable alternate energy source is developed, to help wean us off of petro. But until then, there is no reason why everyone's living standards should suffer.

[Bob Campbell]

While Arp drinks the right wing Kool Aid, let me toss in this nugget. The problem with gas prices in America, while partly supply, is also the lack of refining capacity. Now, before you goose steppers start screaming, "That's because you enviro-whackos make it so hard to build one", know that that is not really the reason. With profit levels where they are right now, building a refinery is a drop in the bucket (ow) from a cost perspective. If it costs a billion, that's a week's net revenue. No refineries are being built in order to strangle the supply of gasoline. Lack of capacity increases the net for refiners and suppliers.

[fearpeddler]

While Arp drinks the right wing Kool Aid, let me toss in this nugget. The problem with gas prices in America, while partly supply, is also the lack of refining capacity. Now, before you goose steppers start screaming, "That's because you enviro-whackos make it so hard to build one", know that that is not really the reason. With profit levels where they are right now, building a refinery is a drop in the bucket (ow) from a cost perspective. If it costs a billion, that's a week's net revenue. No refineries are being built in order to strangle the supply of gasoline. Lack of capacity increases the net for refiners and suppliers.

watch out bout goin against arp and his right wing lovin conspiracies, you might end up getting assigned to a republican re-education camp

[Arp2]

While Arp drinks the right wing Kool Aid, let me toss in this nugget. The problem with gas prices in America, while partly supply, is also the lack of refining capacity. Now, before you goose steppers start screaming, "That's because you enviro-whackos make it so hard to build one", know that that is not really the reason. With profit levels where they are right now, building a refinery is a drop in the bucket (ow) from a cost perspective. If it costs a billion, that's a week's net revenue. No refineries are being built in order to strangle the supply of gasoline. Lack of capacity increases the net for refiners and suppliers.

That.....is Kool-Aid kook speak.

Before pointing out why, let me first praise you for recognizing the chokepoint that refining capacity is; almost all of you people deny its existence, instead repeating the assigned talking point that there are just "evil Big Oil executives" rubbing their hands together and chomping cigars while making lives miserable.

First, there is now a refinery being built. Just one, though.

Second, when the inevitable happens and a refinery goes down (maintenance or failure), you would, under your scenario, expect a company and the others doing the same thing to be "rewarded" with greater profit and/or a bid-up stock price. That's not what happens, though; rather than being "rewarded," they are "punished" when those things happen because the cost of dealing with those situations is almost always going to greatly exceed any possible short-term gain.

But, just for fun, let's consider your "No refineries are being built in order to strangle the supply of gasoline; lack of capacity increases the net for refiners and suppliers" claims.

1. If you really believe that, then you have every penny you have invested in oil companies with refineries, right? Why, you're taking out loans to have even more money to put into them 'cause the return is going to be just that massive, right?

2. If you really believe that, then wouldn't the best way to "screw" the oil companies (that you falsely believe to be "evil" or whatever) be to completely back away from objecting to the siting of, say, another dozen refineries? With that much additional capacity, you'd be able to "get back" at the oil companies and their fat margins, right?

(On the subject of margins, I'll once again point out that radio has a gross profit margin of 40-60% on sales of ad time while oil companies have profit margins of only about 9%....and, of course, gubmints profit from the sale of fuel in a range of 25-35% without doing any of the work.

Radio...up to 60%. Gubmints....up to 35%. Oil companies....9%.

Who's really doing the "screwing?!" )

The left continuously complains about various things, but, if one looks just one level past the surface, all the complaints collapse from illogic.

[Arp2]

watch out bout goin against arp and his right wing lovin conspiracies, you might end up getting assigned to a republican re-education camp

Arp’s Second Law – Liberals have a flaw in their brains that causes them to incessantly project.

The Corollary to Arp's Second Law – Liberals will always reveal to you what they're actually doing by accusing you of that which would otherwise never even occur to you.


Historically, such camps are the exclusive property of the left.

[fearpeddler]

luckily i'm not a liberalist either

[Hoosier Daddy]

Historically, such camps are the exclusive property of the left.

Not so. Not at all.

You're doing it right now.

[Bob Campbell]

Refining and oil both had record profits in 2006, even when refineries went down for maintenance, repair, and hurricanes.
Remove all limits to building refineries, and the companies still won't build any. Choking the supply at the refinery is too profitable.

Arp, please tell the 6 million dead Jews from WWII how all the camps are operated by the left. You may receive a slight disagreement.

[The People's DJ]

You know. I have a real easy solution for all of you who are bitching about gas prices. Its real easy.

GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND WALK!

Wait. You might not be able to see that. Here, let me zoom in for you.

GET OFF YOUR FAT ASS AND WALK!

Don't like the price. Don't pay. Walk. There again, some of you are probably so out of shape just walking to get the mail causes you to be out of breath.

[genlock]

Enviro-wackos are doing this to us.
And the oil companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
I would not be surprised if the oil companies are funding these communists.

The way to defeat them both is to drill everywhere and build more refineries.

[Arp2]

Arp, please tell the 6 million dead Jews from WWII how all the camps are operated by the left. You may receive a slight disagreement.

No, I wouldn't.

Are you somehow unaware that the term "Nazi" came from a shortening of "National Socialist German Workers' Party?" Hitler was your brother, comrade!

"Nazism" started with socialism after suckering people into it under the original name "The German Workers' Party" and the rhetoric that goes along with such. Hitler's appeal was based on "they're holding you people, the workers, down!"

Fascism, too, starts with socialism. You can't have Nazism or Fascism without first having socialism....which, of course, the American left is trying so hard to drag us to. "They ('the rich,' 'Big ___,' 'corporations,' etc) are holding you people, the workers, down!"

It's literally word-for-word, and people aren't seeing it?? Mind-blowing!

(Actually, I think they do...and they dig it....)


Just a word to the (un)wise.......