Gasoline could drop 50 cents/gallon by spring

Good observation. Run-away CEO pay is just one of the symptoms, not the root problem needing to be addressed.

Not in agreement here. What has come from GM? What has come from the startup Tesla? We sure have a lot of cell phones from companies that did not exist in the Ma Bell era. IBM is not the dominant player in the computer business. Look at all the solar panel companies eclipsing the original makers. I could go on, but the key characteristic of really large corporations is their inertia, not innovation.

Yes and no. The root problem with corporate structure needs some action. Waiting for CEOs that are not 100% financially obsessed is not going to happen with the present SEC rules. These "regulate" public corporations by ensuring that ONLY the most major stockholders are served. Everyone else (all employees, vendors, customers, neighbors, and the environment) is of no concern in these rules. Let me list a few of the present perversities of the SEC rules:
1) No alternative board of director candidates is needed for stockholders to vote on. All candidates are selected by the existing folks in control and that's it.
2) Every stockholder is given a vote, but some stockholders are given multiple votes for "special shares". I have some stock that gives me 10 votes per share and some that gives me one vote. Pretty neat how a small group (11%) of shareholders can totally control a company with this allowed arrangement.
3) If you do not use your shareholder vote, your vote is then given to the board of directors to cast. (Read the fine print on a shareholder ballot!)

I could go on, but hopefully I got the point across. Please do not tell me this is the American Way.

 

This in fact is not correct. I own some shares in a mutual fund that wanted to sell the operation of the fund to another fund management company. I got a ballot to vote my shares. A couple of months later I got a letter and another ballot: So few shareholders had voted that there was not enough for a quorum, and they were calling for another vote.

The first time I had neglected to vote because I could not decide if I had an opinion. The second time around I decided I didn't like the idea and I voted against. Of course I owned too few shares for my votes to make a difference.

 

It is for the companies I have stock in and is allowed by the SEC regulations. Mutual Funds operate a little differently since they are collections of other companies stock and the Mutual Fund manager must vote with the stock they control.

 

You make some very good points and the idea of inertia being the key characteristic has a ring of truth. I may have overstated my point but it still remains that some innovation requires an enormous capital investment, which could not be raised by any individual no matter how wealthy. And if there were such an individual there would be calls to strip their wealth with the argument that such wealth is unfair.

My main point is that some people have a visceral reaction (which you clearly don’t) rather than a reasoned response to the problems we face today. And, and emotional response can often create more problems than they will solve.

Thanks,
G

 

I'm now worried about Malorn.

He is in the 50+ club. . .


More than 50 days since he visited PC.

I checked his PC Profile page, and it also appears he has no friends. I think one of you who chased him away by ridiculing his prediction of a 50 cent drop in gas prices by spring should befriend him.

 

Perhaps you should befriend Malorn? An attempt by those who have called into question the original prediction could be viewed with suspicion. A neutral outreach would seem to be more likely to succeed.

 

I agree with this part 100%. Part of the problem is this type of "culture" has spread around the world and many other nations want to adopt this kind of thinking and it is already causing huge problems. It is unlikely that we we will see a global paradigm shift quickly enough to reduce the likelyhood of a total collapse. In the end we only have each other and that is something everone needs to remember.

 

The culture is changing. When I went to school, environmental studies did not even exist, Fisheries were unregulated, CO2 pollution was unheard of.

Within a decade we (the entire world) became aware of CFC damage to the Ozone Layer, Implemented the Montreal Protocol, and we are now on the way to recovery. That is no small feat!

The green revolution (little known in the US) sidestepped a real food shortage. Not a permanent answer, but evidence that things can be done before disaster strikes.

Right now there is a very big "education" phase taking place. This is happening on many fronts. Gas prices shooting up is just one lession of many. Once educated, most of the bad answers (H2 cars, ethanol for everything, etc) are discarded.

On a global scale, the speed is actually quite fast (but way too slow when you know the right answer). There is definitely pain ahead, but collapse is not inevitable.

 

If I have led you to think I am advocating elimination of corporations then I have mis led you. Restructure not eliminate is my message. Elimination of corporate abuse of the legal system, elimination of corporate entities as individuals with all the rights of individuals is what I mean but not elimination of the total corporate structure,. Naturally, if you are gonna cap CEO pay you also trickle down caps to all levels of workers, then to raise one level (CEO) you raise ALL Levels. As you can see in the OP chart this is possible and done internationally and has not totally stifled invention. REMEMBER, one of the tenets of our democracy is that 'all men are created equal' and my point is that if you are born with a massive bank account you are born above, net equal to the masses, and this is contrary to our stated way of life.

 

The media, as usual it seems, isn't doing a very good job of getting at the source of the gas price problem. They didn't do a good job with the ARM ("subprime") mess, either. The result is the issue gets politicized, and people believe what they want to believe. Kind of like Global Warming. Same problem.

There is no doubt that supply-demand is tight--our transportation fleet is oil-intensive--not just gas guzzling SUVs and trucks in every driveway, but a commercial transportation net that is largely trucks. Plus the oil demands of the Asian countries (though their oil sources are not the same as ours). Also, you read that our refinery capacity has not been increased in a long time. All these are factors.

But the issue right now looks like it's beyond supply-demand. The weak dollar and big investors gambling on the future oil price being higher are what is really driving the price up--inspite of a reduction in demand. We'll see if the Congress can do something about it. Don't hold your breath.

 

I am sorry to say that most of the countries on your list have a much lower standard of living than the US and many have very few
true innovations. In the extreme would it be be better to have everyone equally poor or to have disparate income levels but have everyone share in the wealth at some level?

I think the founding fathers saw this as being equal in the eyes of God . Please indulge me here and let me quote the whole statement " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Nowhere does it say that being equal is tied in with how much money we make or have. So I disagree that our country is founded on everyone having the same amount of money.

I will go back to my original statement. Too many people (rich, middleclass and poor) see their worth as being tied to their bank account. Since both government and corporations are a reflection of our collective soul only a culture change will bring solutions to the problems that we both agree exist. The real argument is about how to do that and I think that it requires grassroots personal responsibility instead of government mandated pay scales.

Respectfully,
G

 

Greylar has it right as far as I'm concerned. We focus too much on what we have and not enough on what we do, so our concept of self-worth has been skewed. Part of it is anthropology (the ancient game of survival, impressing a mate, and reproducing in our society), and part of it is marketing (this is how you impress a mate and become dominant amongst your peers, all we need is your credit card number). Getting away from it is bound to be extremely difficult for boomers and those (like myself) born to boomers. But we have to want to change in order for anything to happen.

 

That's because at dinner parties, when someone asks "What do you do?" they don't want to know about your volunteering at the local food kitchen, they want to know your profession, and when they ask "What do you make?" they don't want to know about your quilts or the garden arbor you just made, they want to know how much money you make a year.

Neither of my responses gain much prestige. Teacher Librarian, $68,000 a year.

I'm going to build my own lattice for my garden fence now, then I'm going to finish knitting some bedroom slippers.

 

You are correct in that the speed at which environmental knowledge is gaining rapidly. I had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that so much of what I now study is new and was not taught 30yrs ago. Hell even plate tectonics was only solidified as a theory in the 1970s! That means many of our current politicians and law makers were in school well before much of the new information was taught and, unless they continued their studies throughout their lives, they are likely to be VERY misinformed or resistant to new information.

Yes, the environmental and social justice (includes environmental justice) movements are gaining momentum rapidly but so also is the anti-environmental movement and unfortunately those guys are the ones often in power. No bones about it, it is a brewing storm. Who can say what the outcome will be but I choose to remain optimistic.

 

I agree. As the saying goes "The most important thing we need to change is our minds". Everything else will follow.

 

The problem is not really that some people "earn" more than others, through their own initiative, perseverance, hard work, and self-deprivation. The problem is that some people inherit vast fortunes that they never earned, while others are born into a social strata where, due to the machinations of the former, they are denied real opportunities for self-betterment. True, there are occasional instances of a person slipping upward through the cracks, but those are the exception.

The founding fathers (who excluded their wives, mothers, and daughters from the debate) did not even believe their own words, because having said that all men have a right to the pursuit of happiness, etc., they enshrined slavery in the Constitution. However, nowadays their words hold more force than their actions, and we generally believe that all people ought to have equal opportunity. But this cannot happen while some inherit vast wealth while others inherit vast poverty. Although I personally am a beneficiary of this system, I still recognize that it is unjust, and I advocate that every person be provided with a quality education and free health care, and that it be illegal to pay less than a living wage for a person's labor.

 

I only read the first page here. Looks like it got OT, so back to the OP:

"Speculators are largely responsible for driving crude prices to their peaks in recent weeks and the record oil price now looks like a bubble, George Soros has warned."

George Soros: rocketing oil price is a bubble - Telegraph

 

I guess just about everyone has an opinion about future gas prices. I think if anyone could see the future, they'd use it to hit it big on the lottery. Here's another bit of bad news, hope it doesn't come true...

Neatorama Blog Archive Gas Price Prediction: $6 to $7 per Gallon in 6 to 24 Months

 

Did anyone notice? Malorn has slinked back.

 

Did he change his avatar to a Toyota yet?