Did the Gas Calculator give you a visual on how much profit is earned every second?

[Tom]

Gas companies’ hold a necessity to every family and worker all across the globe. Naturally, the increase and decrease in the cost of gas will have an effect on every family and worker. As a consumer I always wondered, what controls the gas company’s price and how much profit are they really making? It’s probably one of the fewest industries that we can get a definitive profit or loss. Do you think that the Gas calculator gave you a real good insight on how much profit gas companies make and how much they will continue to make? I would like to see what others feel about Gas prices and the Gas calculator which displays a constant running on how much gas companies profit every second of the day.

Also, here is the link to the Gas Counter http://www.laborlawtalk.com/gas/

[sebring]

[BigCraig]

We have been getting away with cheap gas for 40 something years, it is now catching up with its place in the market, like anything else you have a choice to buy it or not...

How about another $4.00 cup of Starbucks??

[Tom]

Total is the actual name of the multinational oil and gas company. The SA is not for Saudi Arabia, but was actually short for subsidiaries and affiliates.

[Sqbsnax]

Originally Posted by BigCraig

We have been getting away with cheap gas for 40 something years, it is now catching up with its place in the market, like anything else you have a choice to buy it or not...

How about another $4.00 cup of Starbucks??

What a smug, elitist comment. Comparing a gallon of gas to a cup of coffee. Apples and oranges. The ridiculous rise of crude affects American families not only at the pump but at home. No one ever froze to death in their home because they couldn't afford a cup of coffee. Without even the option of public transportation in my rural neighborhood, how do you suggest I get to work, get my preschooler to daycare, take my children to the doctor or get groceries, wiseguy? I and millions of Americans like me don't have a choice and thanks to our oil-driven government leaders, gas and other oil products have long-since evolved from being a luxury to a utility and it is about time our government takes aggressive steps to regulate it - or they finally get serious about the alternative fuels that have been available and hidden for decades. You want to talk about choices? Tell your little gas/coffee analogy to the 22.5 million households living at or below the poverty level and tell then they don't have a right to complain about rising fuel costs because they have a choice to not have a warm home or a hot shower or fuel to get to their jobs or to transport their children or to cook their food. Maybe you can entertain the thousands of families that lose loved ones to home-heating-related fire deaths (which have not seen such a rapid increase in incidents since the 70's) attributed to using space heaters, chimneys and fireplaces or died from hypothermia in their own beds with your cute little song and dance about how it's about time fuel prices went up. Tell the families living in the 28 states whose average households live below the national median income of level $44,684 to suck it up. See if they give you a pat on the back for your cute little quip. Cost of living keeps going up, fuel prices have skyrocketed but the American median income has stayed the same. Oil companies profit from human suffering. Americans are dying here at home and they are dying overseas while oil companies laugh all the way to the bank. Rationalize it any way you want but the bottom line doesn't lie. Natural disasters and wars - oil companies thrive on them. There is a word for that - it's called profiteering. In the words of Truman - these war millionaires would be guilty of treason. Here is an excerpt from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030512/editors :

"When he heard rumors of such profiteering, Truman got into his Dodge and, during a Congressional recess, drove 30,000 miles paying unannounced visits to corporate offices and worksites. The Senate committee he chaired launched aggressive investigations into shady wartime business practices and found "waste, inefficiency, mismanagement and profiteering," according to Truman, who argued that such behavior was unpatriotic. Urged on by Truman and others in Congress, President Roosevelt supported broad increases in the corporate income tax, raised the excess-profits tax to 90 percent and charged the Office of War Mobilization with the task of eliminating illegal profits. Truman, who became a national hero for his fight against the profiteers, was tapped to be FDR's running mate in 1944."

Too bad our leaders today have abandoned protecting their people for protecting their wallets. Things could be done to curb this unjustified raping of not only Americans but people around the world, but our governments are choosing not to. Maybe they are just too busy spending their time at Starbucks.