MI5 Persecution: ?20,000 Reward (2910)

From : Annonymous

Q: because this is a rather lengthy response i have included my last paragraph at the beginning for those who dont like to read long posts like myself. i apologize before hand if i missed someones topic. repost it and i will do my best to either respond in support of my possition or change my mind its been know to happen. in conclusion as long as we live in a free market economy i dont think any president has much affect on the price of oil gas or other form of energy. i did find a good chart showing the price of oil as compared to various refined products at http//www.oilnergy.com/1combo.htm and it shows that since about jan 1 the price of crude has made a sudden drop in prices while the price of gasoline though its dropping is not as fast. it also shows that when the price of crude jumps dramatically the price of gasoline follows but again not as sharply. price controls are a very bad idea because they are a sure way to limit the supply. why would you sell your product here for an artificially low price when you could sell it there for a higher market price lol where else do you think that you are going to sell it you really need to cut back on the bogus fear tactics. if what you say were true all wallmarts would be out of business. wallmart lowered their costs and profit margins so they could lower their prices in the hopes that more people would shop there and they would make a profit. they are not subject to price controls. your logic doesnt hold. below is a chart i found of net profit margins for the some companies for the quarter ending dec. 2005 as reported by bloomberg the last quarter i could find information for. sorry if the columns dont line up. company net profit billion revenue billion profit margin citigroup banking $7.1 $21.5 33% microsoft $3.1 $9.7 32% coca-cola $1.3 $6.0 21% procter & gamble $2.0 $14.8 14% general electric $4.7 $41.6 11% exxonmobil $9.9 $92.6 11% conocophillips $3.8 $48.7 8% ibm $1.5 $21.5 7% chevron $3.6 $51.1 7% wal-mart $2.8 $76.8 4% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- just look at any communist country to see what price controls do to an economy. more lame fear tactics that has nothing to so with anything. if you think that price controls are the same thing as communism then you really are an idiot. communism is the control and distribution of wealth. if we use price controls we are controlling the distribution of wealth and taking a step toward communism. have you ever looked at the economy of a communist country price controls are often used and there are often shortages of the things the people want or need as a result. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ yawn. there should be limits on what can be charged for necessities if thos e selling them get greedy and that is exactly what is happening in many areas. at one time competition kept pricing under control but that is not the case here and by their design. yes standard oil had to be broken up because j.p. morgan ran a greedy monopoly. i dont know how many gas companies there are in the usa but i dont think a monopoly exists. furthermore the major oil companies have been investigated a few times for conspiracy to drive up the price of oil - once during clintons administration and once during bushs. no evidence was found at least none made public. who should set the limits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ some will say they have to pay the price at the pump and they are mostly correct. however when gas hit $2.50-3.00/gal consumption dropped and so did the price of gas. we showed how much we were willing to pay. more complete crap. it had nothing to do with what people were willing to pay and just about everything to do with what they could afford to pay. fuel is not a luxury item for most people and they have to pay it to get to work get food and basically to live. the price dropped because they could not justify keeping that high and for no other reason than that. when gasoline hit $3.00/gal. around here there were reports everyday that said people were either getting more fuel efficient vehicles or cutting out unnecessary driving. although that is anecdotal evidence and i have not seen a large survey