patrick.net

CaptainShuddup says

According to this chart the country is in deep cheap gas doo doo

There I am in that red area--it's because of my '77 Mercury that gets 12 MPG on the highway and 7 in town!

CaptainShuddup says

Even in 2008 it was apparent that Gas was a government created bubble,

Brain just can't learn anymore eh ?

marcus says

What you have been observing isn't a scam, but rather a chain of cause and effect.

Markets are forward looking. So prices went up in fear that demand would exceed supply in the not too distant future, based on rapidly growing worldwide demand and the best projections of how well supply will keep up. Don't forget the global economy was booming back then (compared to now).

In response to prices going up, two things occur. More people buy smaller and or more efficient cars, including a lot of hybrid cars. Also they possibly drive less.

The other effect of higher prices is that it becomes more profitable to get harder to get oil out of the ground. Many of the costs associated with this are up front costs of new wells etc.

So now, several years later, the 2 big effects of higher prices are lower demand and higher supply.

I honestly see no conspiracy here, but rather textbook examples of incredibly obvious market forces at work.

CaptainShuddup says

Marcus, because he seems genuinely duped by you bastards.

No, I'm just not an idiot.

I think that you can probably understand that gas being so expensive for the past 7 years had a big impact on both supply and demand. Worldwide car manufacturing and buying were deeply affected, for all of those years. AS was opening of new wells etc. and the bringing oil to market to cash in on those high prices.

If this was all simply the result of manipulators, it doesn't change the impact that these prices had on both supply and demand. If you are right that it's all manipulation, shoulsn't a ridiculous excess of supply relative to demand have kicked in several years sooner ?

Do you understand my question ? THere must be what 5 years of excess supply out there ? Where do they store it ?

PErhaps we did it to supply aliens with some kind of oil derivative ?

marcus says

hit that and you'll find this grapgh and table.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mgfupus1&f=a

Incomplete in accruate data that does not line up with the misinformation you and bubbleman is trying to put forth.

Why do you people hate the truth.

You keep going back to that erroneous assumption based on incomplete data, that represents somethign totally different than what you guys even claim.

Also let's not forget, it's NOT in the EIA's best interest to help me make my argument for me. They are simply industry cheerleaders playing Swami with the data to support $5.00 gas.

Let's not forget they are blaming OPEC for natural market forces.

2010 was 5 years ago assholes!

CaptainShuddup says

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/01/31/why-is-us-oil-consumption-lower-better-gasoline-mileage/

That article refers to fewer miles traveled, but that's per person not total. Dan posted a graph above that shows the population adjusted miles traveld, and then I posted the one that shows total miles traveled.

It is intersting that that your article seems to show more of a drop in other uses of oil than gasoline. This is from your linked article.

Spint it baby! SPIN IT!

You could be wrong way more gracefully.

marcus says

It is intersting that that your article seems to show more of a drop in other uses of oil than gasoline. This is from your linked article.

That's the US OIL products consumption chart you fucking IDIOT. Well no you're not actually an Idiot, you're just being intentionally misleading. Which is far more sinister.

That US OIL Products consumption chart is why we can't stop producing unwanted and uneeded gasoline.

How does this graphic from your linked article line up with your thesis ?

None of your charts even show the slightest dip for any recession activity or spikes for the housing bubble. It's pure unadulterated Liberal Filth and nothing more.

You're scaring me man.

I would respect you more if you could find a way to own up to being wrong here. It's been an interesting thread. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

CaptainShuddup says

None of your charts even show the slightest dip for any recession

ACtually that last chart (YOUR CHART) does show changes due to recession but it's because of the scale that they don't seem significant.

THe line at the top of the green part is the same as the graph at the top of your article.

Because the other distillate and the all other in that chart, are in demand. And as I've been saying you guys are trying to sell the EIA Gasoline produced as gasoline consumed, while calling gasoline retail sales misinformation.

You guys have a serious comprehension of the supply chain deficit.

The refineries are making gasoline up the wazoo with no where to put it. What is actually being delivered to gas stations is way down for the first time in History, and you guys are trying to spin that with your typical Liberal filth.
"Oh you're just too stupid to understand."

You guys are Idiots not even worth the time it takes to argue with, as you're not the least bit interested in facts or the truth. You're just protecting the Liberal agenda at all cost.

marcus says

THe line at the top of the green part is the same as the graph at the top of your article.

I posted a lot of pages with a lot of facts. You cherry picked one insignifigant chart and posted it out of context.

Why don't you address this... http://patrick.net/?p=1274960&c=1164861#comment-1164861

CaptainShuddup says

None of your charts even show the slightest dip for any recession activity or spikes for the housing bubble. It's pure unadulterated Liberal Filth and nothing more.

Quite the contrary. The decrease in consumption (versus projected) was very much about the recession and also higher priced oil.

THis graph and the top of the green band are one and the same. Different scale. Again, from your linked page.

CaptainShuddup says

Why don't you address this...

IT's been addressed. THat's obviouly a strange metric.

Look, I'm not an expert on this, but I know how to make inferences. Apparently refining oil and selling oil at the retail level used to be more connected than they are now.

I'm guessing that one of the reasons that metric was tracked is simply that the data was not too difficult to obtain. But things changed a lot around 2011 - 2014.

Here I've got a suggestion for you. Why don't you admit that that retail refined gas number is completely and totally not representing the the amount of gasoline that the US consumes.

BUT - change your argument to the fact that this extreme drop in retail refinery oil is indicative of the way that the global liberal manipulation of oil came to an end.

In other words perhaps you can build a whole conspiracy thoery about how tha supply chain suddenly changed in 2012 - 2014 which is what allowed oil to finally come down to the real price that it should have been the whole time.

OF course this is really stupid, but it would make more sense than holding on to the idea that the metirc represents gas consumed.

marcus says

Look, I'm not an expert on this, but I know how to make inferences. Apparently refining oil and selling oil at the retail level used to be more connected than they are now.

Yeah it's called manipulation. Thickly obtuse much?

So, was it aliens ?

marcus says

I think that you can probably understand that gas being so expensive for the past 7 years had a big impact on both supply and demand. Worldwide car manufacturing and buying were deeply affected, for all of those years. AS was opening of new wells etc. and the bringing oil to market to cash in on those high prices.

If this was all simply the result of manipulators, it doesn't change the impact that these prices had on both supply and demand. If you are right that it's all manipulation, shouldn't a ridiculous excess of supply relative to demand have kicked in several years sooner ?

Do you understand my question ? THere must be what 5 years of excess supply out there ? Where do they store it ?

PErhaps we did it to supply aliens with some kind of oil derivative ?

marcus says

Here I've got a suggestion for you. Why don't you admit that that retail refinery oil number is completely and totally not representing the the amount of gasoline that the US consumes.

We're not importing refined Gasoline, and we're not selling it from the refinery, but you claim Gas sales remain constant.

What you think Hodgi is out back at the stop-n-go refining crude oil in a piss bucket?

Again you guys are infering what the charts represent with out actual proof of how the EIA is defining those metrics.

That's called spining the fats yer dishoner.

I too give up. I hope things get better for you.

Question: Are you in Fort Lauderdale ? I'll tell you why I ask when you answer.

Ah instead of waiting for your answer ( I have to go do some other stuff), Ill just tell you.

You might want to put this on your radar.
http://www.thefabfaux.com/

I've heard they are great live. I'm not into fake beatles bands, but these guys are different. Studio musicians that do this for fun. Late Beatles covers done really well. In recent concerts they do the entire white album flawlessly.

If they were coming to LA, I would definitely see their show. Supposed to be amazing live.

CaptainShuddup says

What you think Hodgi is out back at the stop-n-go refining crude oil in a piss bucket?

Okay, I'll try to play teacher a little more. With the disclosure that I'm making educated inferences here.

This article talks about why refineries have been closing.

http://abarrelfull.wikidot.com/blog:why-are-refineries-closing-down

THey say that these days a refinery has to do all of these things well (or have all of these in their favor) to be profitable:

**The ability to add value, something that depends in large part on Nelson
Complexity

**The cost of operations, including energy efficiency

**Access to and ability to process low cost raw materials, like extra heavy
crudes

**The market conditions in the local or regional area

I notice that profiting from retail margins is not on the list. MY inference is that before recently there were some refineries that did not have all of these factors in their favor, but who managed to barely barely stay profitble by marking up what gasoline they could produce and selling at retail.

Presumably, many of the refineries that can refine oil profitably have no interest in trying to also be in the retail business. They simply sell their product wholesale. Many of the ones that weren't that great at refining, but stayed in business by selling retail, have been closing.

Most educated people when confronted with something they don't understand or something that contradicts their previous view will either look for information that helps to explain it, or they might even assume in situations such as this that there are complexities to the supply chain and that it's a complex and changing industry because of a myriad of factors.

That is, I'm more likely to assume that there are things that I don't understand going on, than I am to instantly try to assign blame to some boogie man ("teh libruls"). That's just stupid. It's hard to even believe you're serious.

Education is mostly about learning how to learn.

My opinion, and I don't mean to offend, but your bias, and the biases that you love to run to, prevent you from implementing good learning practices.

marcus says

**The market conditions in the local or regional area

Yup! What's you're point?

Oh I see what's going on you Idiots are thinking Wholesale/Retail terms.

OK Sunshine listen up Puddin Pops! See if you can wrap your thick little Liberal minds around this truth.

NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, is driving up to the refineries and telling the man in front of a Billion Gallon Tank of Oil, "Hey Fellah fill'er up will Ya!?"

OF COURSE! The refineries are selling Gas at wholesale prices to the Gas Stations, and bigger Gas companies like Exxon and the like are refining their own Oil and producing Gas.

Retail in the report I've provided is the Gas that Joe and Billy Numbnutz buy at the pump. There is not Retail/Wholesale large scale Gas sales. Retail means "YOU" driving to a pump and buying Gas. ALL GAS STATIONS ARE PAYING WHOLESALE.

You're paying Retail. Which as Iv'e stated, is down 2/3rds from the historical norm.

Which is it, would you guys have us believe according to the charts you keep producing, that spite all of the Liberal meddling and draconian laws that have been passed, and spite all of the market volatility from the great bubble to the great recession, your needle on the Gas consumption gauge hasn't budged one smidgeon, not the least bit.

Do you really want to stick with that? That makes your whole life a wasted and thankless cause, and all of the bullshit you bastards put through all for fucking naught!

Be magnanimous and step up and take my stats and at least spin it to fit your Liberal utopian cause to say how your Liberal causes are working. Which I would bet anything, you will in the not too distance future. You just don't want to admit that I've been right about every fucking thing I've ever said on this board, and you guys are a bunch of gullible Idiots.

CaptainShuddup says

You guys have a serious comprehension of the supply chain deficit.

The refineries are making gasoline up the wazoo with no where to put it.

And yet the price is dropping!

Hmm. You may be on [to] something.

Hmmm. So it seems believable to you that gas consumption is down 65%. in just 7 years.

And it also makes perfect sense to you that the same company that provides all kinds of different stats on gasoline says in some of their stats that total retail sales by refiners are down by 65%, but the same company posts a lot of stats showing consumption of gasoline down less than 10% during the same period.

I don't know. I guess you're even worse at listening to others than you are at learning.
marcus says

your bias, and the biases that you love to run to, prevent you from implementing good learning practices

marcus says

Most educated people when confronted with something they don't understand or something that contradicts their previous view will either look for information that helps to explain it

You can't be this naive - Cap'n Shtupp is a conservative. Strong 'n' Wrong, baby!

The conservative ground rules:

- You are never wrong
- You never have to change your position in light of new information
- Liberals did everything that is bad
- Only liberal policies have bad/unintended consequences
- If a conservative policy has bad/uninteded consequences, change the subject to how bad Hillary will fuck everything up once she's in
- If you're losing an argument, or something doesn't work right - never admit this - it is because you weren't conservative enough
- All facts from the past should be altered to prove conservatives were right: i.e., JFK had a good presidency, therefore he was conservative
- All liberals are racist; calling someone racist means you're a race-baiting racist; analyzing the contradiction in this is forbidden double swears no erasies

If my conjecture above is not the explanation then the only other possible explanation is that the gap between your sales number (if you're right) and consumption is explained by storage tanks of major distributors being full, and a lag between gas being sold at the pump and then being replaced by purchases from the refiners.

Possibly they knew supply was high, and that price had to go down, so they waited them out. Still it's hard to see how that occurs over such a long time.

So, I'll admit I don't have a definitive understanding. But I certainly don't believe that consumption is down 65% from 7 years earlier, even if sales are, at the level of the refineries (again - if you're interpretation of retail refiner sales is correct).

It (gas consumption) may be down something like 9.5% though, which is impressive, although not really since total miles driven are close to flat or only down slightly (~2%).

marcus says

meaningful

Taking population increase and number of drivers into account, people are driving less.

Dan8267 says

how much driving is being done...

Marcus gave links to finished petroleum products supplied in the US. This peaked at 20 million barrels per day and dropped a bit lately.

Here is the link for finished gasoline.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MGFUPUS2&f=M

This peaked at around 9700 barrels per day, and is also down about 10% since the peak. The difference (between the 9700 barrels gasoline /day used and 17200 barrels total petroleum product / day) is the fuel used in aviation, industrial and residential heating, petro-chemical feedstocks, etc.

If the our blind captain took the time to click on the definitions page: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/TblDefs/pet_cons_refmg_tbldef2.asp,
he would find out that Marcus is right. Many retail gas stations are not defined as refiners by the EIA.

There is no deception by the EIA. You can find the statistics on consumption by going to the aptly named page: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/data.cfm#consumption,
and clicking the topic of interest.

One reason for the decrease in gasoline consumption is the higher prices. Another reason is conservation. This is something that the dems have been pushing for over the last 20 years. Consumers are taking to it partly due to their pocketbooks, and partly due to the rising ecological conscience in our society. This increased awareness of ecological issues is another liberal accomplishment. One that Teddy Roosevelt would have liked.

http://www.nacsonline.com/YourBusiness/FuelsReports/GasPrices_2008/Pages/HowToGetGas.aspx

Perhaps this or the way this is counted in that metric changed in the past few years.

Branded independent retailer - Approximately 52 percent of retail gasoline facilities are operated by independent business owners who sign a supply contract and sell gasoline under a brand owned or controlled by a refining company.

There's a good question here, that is about the retail refiner number drop, but it isn't implying that the number of cars on the road is down by more than 50%.

Sure Marcus is right, my ass he's right, he's as full of crap as you are. I'm not denying that there's not a shit load of gas moving around the country with no where for it to go. just because you're cornering the market by shorting on Oil you never see, and that same barrel of Oil is wholesaled 5 times before it then gets sold at the pump. I don't know about you, but dring used to be a motherfucker. ANd getting gas was the worst part. Why cars used to line up around the block to get gas. I can't think of the last time I've had to wait for a gas pump.

from Marcus link

When market conditions become more volatile because of weather or crude oil events, Nymex -based prices may rise somewhat, while spot market prices may soar. A gasoline market in which spot market prices are higher than NYMEX prices for future deliveries is termed a "backwardated market" and generally indicates that the markets believe that current upward pressures on prices will ease in the future.

Many gasoline wholesalers and retailers use the Nymex to hedge their gasoline supply needs, thereby reducing their exposure to future gasoline price movements. However, many trades of Nymex futures contracts are undertaken by "paper traders" - brokers and speculators that never expect to take physical delivery of a gallon of gasoline from a Nymex futures contract. These paper traders tend to lead Nymex contract prices up or down based on market conditions and breaking news events.

CaptainShuddup says

Show me ASSHOLES where on the EIA site does it define US Product supplied Gasoline as "Gasoline Consumed"?

Here's the Gas consumed that's IF you're interested in facts.

And I gotta tell ya, I've known

Wow, a whopping 7% drop from the peak of the boom. Gee we are right back where we started pre boom. Returning to the norm after a bubble. what a concept. Who'd of thunk it. WTF happened to 50%? Where's my proof there are less than half the cars on the road than 1983? Where is my US ebola epidemic? Can't you come through on anything?

BTW who do you think that gasoline was supplied to?

Curiosity overwhelms me. Exactly how much money did you make investing based on your sure knowledge?

This would make an excellent first topic for your youtube channel. Make us proud.

Here are some vehicle crash statistics:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

There is a column with vehicle miles travelled in the US (in billions).
1973: 1313 billion miles traveled in the US
2006: 3014 billion miles traveled in the US
2012: 2969 billion miles traveled in the US

So, from 2006 to 2012, we have had about a 10% decrease in gasoline consumption (see my earlier post) with a 1.5% decrease in miles travelled. This is consistent with my earlier statement that much of the decrease in fuel consumption is due to efficiency improvements (Thank you Obama). It has nothing to do with your imaginary plummeting number of vehicles on the road.

How do you even begin to approach the topic of traffic in your imaginary world where 2/3 of the traffic disappeared since 2006?

CaptainShuddup says

Sure Marcus is right, my ass he's right, he's as full of crap as you are. I'm not denying that there's not a shit load of gas moving around the country with no where for it to go. just because you're cornering the market by shorting on Oil you never see, and that same barrel of Oil is wholesaled 5 times before it then gets sold at the pump. I don't know about you, but dring used to be a motherfucker. ANd getting gas was the worst part. Why cars used to line up around the block to get gas. I can't think of the last time I've had to wait for a gas pump.

Geggudu bub-bub-bub b-Buh doink AAAH-buhh-buhh-buhh-buhh.

Flegth wihdma blah blah blphhhhhb! Aw prak!

Dubiduh-bduh-bduh-bduh. Har-RUMMPH! Duh-duh-duh badu snarl snarl spit gabuduh bluh!

HE knows he's an idiot and feels inferior. But lying like a world class asshole to make us jump through a bunch of hoops to repeat the obvious over and over makes him feel special.

What kind of asshole is amused by acting even more stupid than he really is (no small trick) just to get a bunch of honest people reacting to his bullshit ?

An interesting side fact. He's the conservative (maybe even calls himself a "free market conservative") who thinks the global commodities market are totally fraudulent.

I'm the "liberal" who believes that the commodities markets actually work, even if they might be manipulated slightly at times (at great risk to those manipulating them).

Strange isn't it ?

Gasoline is obsolete.

Hydrogen took over.

Sell now or lose it all.

sbh says

Even a birdbrain recognizes an idiot and the muse.

I'm not denying it. But this thread is more frustrating than the usual. But you're right. I get bored and let him troll me. But it's not always THAT passive agressive or THAT dishonest.

I've put him on ignore before (from time to time) with the other assholes. And tell myself I should again.