In article ,
 Rob Perkins  wrote:


> Oh, my friend said that held true for most of the years that he was working
> for Shell. In the later years, that is, most recent couple of decades, it
> didn't. People just paid up and kept on driving.
    I would argue that the last couple of decades really don't tell us 
that much. Gas increases weren't when you factor in inflation. I guess 
the tie breaker will be this year's results. 


> 
> >      Their figures might be different. As I said, I use million miles
> > driven in a year as my yardstick. largely because I ran across it when
> > arguing something else.
> 
> Sure. I'm not talking here about consumer driving, though, except for the
> component of consumers who must commute in cars, either because their
> employers won't adapt to a bus schedule or because there isn't a bus
> schedule to begin with. (We cut out a 2000 mile round trip vacation
> ourselves this year because of higher gas prices, opting instead for a 200
> mile trip.)

       Business driving would obviously have a different elasticity than 
consumer (although the million miles driven is more of an aggregate 
figure of the entire market), because there are other factors than just 
cost. Seldom that the price of gas goes up enough to offset an entire 
wage. Although it would be interesting to see if anyone has any figures 
on people changing jobs to be nearer the house, etc. Doubt that anyone 
gathers them, but it would be neat. 


> 
> The other equally as large component is freight shipping. Mack trucks and
> such. Demand for that fuel is solidly inelastic, largely because of the
> guarantees people make to one another about product delivery times.

    There are changes made. One of the big local trucking companies, for 
instance, bought a bunch of new trucks because they are more fuel 
efficient. They also put in restrictons about idling. There are new 
things at some truck stops that pump ac and heat into the cab and the 
company is paying for those because it is cheaper than idling. Fed Ex 
and most others have fuel cost surcharges. All of which (and other 
things) suggest that fuel costs are indeed elastic, because people start 
looking for offsets. 

.
> And "energy surcharge" lines began to appear on my water
delivery bill.

  From piplelines or by truck? That strikes me as being a nice scam 
someone thought up. Of course there have fuel surcharges on electric 
bills since the 70s. 

> >> But when things were tight, they leaned on the government for
exploration
> >> tax credits, and then because the law was written stupidly
they quietly 
> >> kept
> >> those credits after their margins were back in the
> >> well-and-truly-comfortable range. Thus, they didn't pay their
moral share 
> >> of
> >> taxes on the windfall that their profit structure benefitted them.
> >     Moral share. What is that and how is it measured.
> 
> I couldn't call it "legal share", since a stupid law was
written granting
> the (relatively justifiable) tax credits. (Though a very strong case could
> be made that they simply strong-armed Congress with some lobbyists by
> threatening even higher prices; it just depends on one's perspective...)
> 
     When a dog pees on a fire hydrant they aren't committing vandalism, 
they are just being a dog (g). I am at least as po'ed about most of this 
corp. welfare as other types. The best Congress money can buy. 

> The basis for those exploration tax credits were the low price of crude,
> which were allegedly hampering exploration efforts. But when the price of
> crude soared, they waited for Congress to notice that the law was bad, after
> they had plenty of money for nice dividend disbursements and plenty of
> exploration. 
     I can't remember for sure. Were those tax credits for US 
exploration or outside the US, too? Although I would argue that the cost 
of the oil (since it is related to supply issues) argues that the credit 
wasn't enough. Especially if only in the US, since usable reserves (ie 
those reserves that Congress or the FL Congress critters hasn't put off 
limits) hasn't changed much. 

> Although, considering the article I just finished reading from Rolling Stone
> about contract abuse surrounding the Coalition Provisional Authority, oil
> companies look as honest and open as a freshly audited lemonade stand.
> 
      Same with Oil for Food. That area has always been a target-rich 
environment for graft...
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32