Some folks here know that I retired after 30 years with a major in O&G and have always been on the lack of success of the sector here. When running properly a pile of jobs are offered that drive unemployment down ( a win?) I am really lost on the hate of the oil industry here.
Ed, of all the folks I have met on the campfire here over the last 16 plus years on it, you are the guy I first think of when I think of someone who has run his life well planned out and has managed his successes.. I've been super impressed with how you've done that.... definitely a life well lived...
that said, I have to admit... I do have problems with how more money out of my pocket, to benefit others, ends up benefitting me in the end...
if that benefits me, then why don't we make fuel $6.00 a gallon or even $10 a gallon.... but then I look at my bank account, and see a lot less money in it,
and I'm still having trouble seeing how that benefits me...
Under Trump, we had more fuel resources available, than ever before....yet I remember in my youth and when I started driving back in 1968, I had a lowly VW bug...
it ran on regular, and as memory recalls, up and down the entire east coast, you really had a hard time finding fuel for less than 29.9 cents a gallon, or OVER 29.9 cents a gallon.... the oil industry was clipping along just fine, and with plenty of stations of many different companies.... plenty of competition...
now with mergers after mergers.... prices not fluctuate all over the map.... states road tax fuel a lot more than they use to...
diesel use to be much cheaper than gas, since it was a by product of oil production... for the last 20 years it now costs much more than gas...
even my young memory of my folks buying gas in my youth, say 1958 on... they paid 29.9 for gas.... that price was stabile for 15 plus years...
and for myself, I can remember my hate for oil companies, goes back to the 1973-74 fuel embargo on the east coast.... where stations were open two hours a day only..
many states you bought fuel on even and odd days, according to your license number..... while oil tankers sat off the east coast at anchor for 4 to 6 months, as they had nowhere to drop the fuel, because local refineries were full.. but little gas was available to the public, as they pushed up prices...
it was all manipulated.. and was pretty evident... for me, 50 years later... that is why I don't trust oil companies one damn bit...
and when I say that, I'm not referring to local dealers like John on the campfire here down in Texas.... but I do know here in Southern Oregon, that two guys own most of the fuel stations in the local valley, and they keep prices wound up at high as they can get away with.... no competition...
fuel is a basic need of folks...price gouging pisses people off... the same as with this electric fiasco Texas is experiencing right now after this storm...
this is pretty much why I have no love for oil companies....
yet I am admitting to being a hypocrite, being in the medical support industry....
