Question about gas prices
- Thread starter Sasha Queen
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I heard that gas prices are usually good around Hwy1 and 200th in Langley. I got gas there for $1.40 last week.. before this most recent increase. Drop by if you are in the area...
Transit tax on gas, where does that go... some politician's friends pocket?
Have you been in the lower mainland when its muggy, the air hangs around, so does the car exhaust- it's really disgusting.
Transit should be building more skytrain lines to replace the polluting car...
As for real estate prices being high, we only have ourselves to blame, letting realtors dictating prices for houses in an large market. If the house price is listed at 100,000.00 and the bid is for 100,000.00 then the house should sell for that; on a first come first serve basis. Biding wars ensure the higher prices and the increase in market value. It also increases the commission of the realtor. When there is not much for houses in a market, and 5 times the number of house of realtors out there, wonder what is gonna happen...
When commissions are 5-7% or more, where does the owners money go..... On a million dollar house that is 50-70 thousand dollars.....
Its all a scam..... its not oh. that is how business is done...
Break the monopoly on the franchises that are one of the underlying problems with this sale system. Across this country you can go to any town and find that there is monopoly on real estate in certain towns and cities. Look at the real estate paper by MLS, which companies are the more prominent in that paper.... You see very few independants....
Have you ever heard the term company town. School systems were based on what the company needed for workers.
To get rich you need an monopoly, and scare away the competition..... charge higher prices when the competition is gone....
Or dump raw waste into rivers etc, anything to increase the profits....
There is a Eagle's song with the lyric "rape the land" on their Hell Freezes Over album... its so true...
Have you been in the lower mainland when its muggy, the air hangs around, so does the car exhaust- it's really disgusting.
Transit should be building more skytrain lines to replace the polluting car...
As for real estate prices being high, we only have ourselves to blame, letting realtors dictating prices for houses in an large market. If the house price is listed at 100,000.00 and the bid is for 100,000.00 then the house should sell for that; on a first come first serve basis. Biding wars ensure the higher prices and the increase in market value. It also increases the commission of the realtor. When there is not much for houses in a market, and 5 times the number of house of realtors out there, wonder what is gonna happen...
When commissions are 5-7% or more, where does the owners money go..... On a million dollar house that is 50-70 thousand dollars.....
Its all a scam..... its not oh. that is how business is done...
Break the monopoly on the franchises that are one of the underlying problems with this sale system. Across this country you can go to any town and find that there is monopoly on real estate in certain towns and cities. Look at the real estate paper by MLS, which companies are the more prominent in that paper.... You see very few independants....
Have you ever heard the term company town. School systems were based on what the company needed for workers.
To get rich you need an monopoly, and scare away the competition..... charge higher prices when the competition is gone....
Or dump raw waste into rivers etc, anything to increase the profits....
There is a Eagle's song with the lyric "rape the land" on their Hell Freezes Over album... its so true...
Realtors don't dictate prices, buyers and sellers dictate prices. If I list my house for $1.5 million and a buyer offers me $1.7 million, should I counter a higher offer at my lower listing price? That would be utterly asinine! Sellers list their property, based on the state of the market offers may be lower, at or higher than list: the seller can accept whatever offer the seller wants to accept. Forcing sellers to never accept anything over their list price would simply create a situation where sellers purposely list at well above market value: this situation would potentially great significant market distortion and may even raise property values further.
No effect for me as a lot of people in the trades we go where the work takes us . I for one do not have the choice to go where my clients have work for me which amounts to an average a 100 to 120 k a year.
Having 4 of the biggest refineries under shut down for maintenance on the west coast is certainly not a coincidence as they are gauging us big time these days .
I sure miss when Olco from California came up to BC and the price for a liter was under 50¢ for a good part of 1998 ...even 30¢ in walnut Grove at times ....oh well
Having 4 of the biggest refineries under shut down for maintenance on the west coast is certainly not a coincidence as they are gauging us big time these days .
I sure miss when Olco from California came up to BC and the price for a liter was under 50¢ for a good part of 1998 ...even 30¢ in walnut Grove at times ....oh well
Well, I used to like to just go on long drives, often by myself, for no particular reason. Forget about doing that now.
I walk around my neighbourhood if I have short errands to do, rather than be a vehicular lazy-ass. (Though I'll admit, this decision has more to do with the weather and how much I have to carry.)
The taxes go up, but they are clear and predictable. The public has the right to know, and they do. In Metro Vancouver, that's 54 cents per liter, less so in the Fraser Valley or the interior. So what about the other portion, the oil companies' own? If you watch the retail price, it had varied more than that amount over the last few years, but even when the global oil prices crashed (and Alberta was suddenly oversupplied and under paid), did our retail fuel prices go down as fast as they went up, or in proportion to the actual price of oil? Nope. Over time, the price (even minus all taxes) ratchets up more often than down, and everyone knows it. That is gouging.
Every year, the people get pissed off by the fuel prices here, and every year the "taxpayers federation" (and other ) quickly try to deflect blame from the oil companies and their lack of local refining, and put it onto taxes / government (an easy choice of villain, but the wrong one). Every year the oil companies pull this "refineries down for maintenance" / "fuel blend switching" excuse, and spike the prices upwards. Of course, even if you believe that is really the case, they could stagger their maintenance so that the refineries go down at different times instead of all at once; they could build up fuel reserves prior to the shutdowns, then draw those reserves down to smooth out the price bumps. But it would seem that they don't. Is that bad management? Or just bad faith? I'm betting on the latter, since this semi-annual switch never used to cause the kind of price spikes that they claim is necessary today. And the weak government regulators only ever investigate price collusion (always there but impossible to prove), when they should be investigating their industrial management practices.
People pull the Alberta-comparison card too, but remember Alberta's an anomaly, where the not only is supply abundant, but the oil industry dominates all political decision-making. In other words, on top of abundant supply, they're using oil revenues to avoid fuel & corporate & sales taxes that a normal part of the country would pay. Is that a bonus to having oil resources and refining right in your backyard? Yes, but as jurisdictions go, Alberta's the exception not the norm. The real comparison would be BC to somewhere like Ontario, to really see if we're being gouged. Or if you want to see what we have plenty of and the Albertans don't, look into the electricity supply here with all our hydroelectric, versus Alberta where they burn coal and gas for almost all of it. Sure, their fuel bills are smaller, but how much do they pay just to keep the lights on?
Plus, how does Alberta - Edmonton & Calgary at least - compare when it comes to public transit? Calgary and Edmonton's systems are not nearly the equal of Metro Vancouver. We have higher transportation taxes, but also higher land values to deal with, major bodies of water to get around with bigger / more bridges to build and maintain, and then add that to the cost of our much bigger & advanced public transit system too. They have lower fuel costs, but fewer land expenses & terrain challenges, and rely on cars much more in general.
BC's other problem is having only one refinery here, the Parkland one, in Burnaby, which is both old and small. The rest of the retail fuel we get here, most of it really, comes from Washington State refineries like Cherry Point, and even those are old and stretched to the max. Refineries are very expensive to build (or rebuild) and the last time one was built in Canada was ... the 1970's? I've heard talk that Alberta's building a new one, but that may have fallen through.
We are competing with the rest of Cascadia for the same fuel (ironically, much of which they are getting from the Trans Mountain pipeline also). When it comes to that TMX pipeline bitumen that supposed to come to BC (if Jason Kenney gets his way), none of that is for BC to refine and use here - it's all for export, to fulfill China and California's for their domestic fuel needs. You could go ask Notley, Kenney, Scheer, Trudeau, or fucking Santa Claus, but their precious pipeline projects include ZERO plans to increase BC refining capacity for BC domestic use. Billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent and billions in tax breaks given away, but it will not lower Metro Vancouver's fuel prices one cent.
BC would, in my opinion benefit from more refining capacity. But you seem to think that somehow the pipeline companies need to provide that refining capacity? If BC wants a refinery it's incumbent on BC to approve or deny additional refineries. Yes, refineries cost billions to approve, and there are companies that would spend billions to build a refinery, assuming the companies believed BC would be open to it - but they are not convinced. I'm not convinced BC residents or the BC government want that. There is also the fact that BC doesn't want more pipeline capacity; therefore you're in a chicken or the egg scenario. Why would a company commit to building a new refinery or why would Parkland commit to expanding the existing Burnaby refinery without some certainty with respect to having access to more crude to refine? That Burnaby refinery is making record profits from my understanding; I'm pretty sure they would want to make more profit, but without access to more crude, they can't even start to plan for an expansion.
And no; the oil producers have no preference whether they sell their crude to China or India or the US or BC. They get the same price for their crude regardless of who buys it. Do you think Pepsi cares whether it is Costco or Walmart or Loblaws who purchase it's sugar water? Oil producers want additional pipeline capacity to try and sell more of its product to whoever wants it. If expanded capacity means refineries expand and want to purchase more, they are more than happy to sell them more. Yes, they want to sell more to China, but that's because almost all Canadian crude production goes to the US - any business with only one very large customer is an undesirable situation - too much customer concentration risk.
BC residents want lower fuel prices, but they don't want more of the crude that's used to make the fuel nor do they seem to want the refineries to turn the crude into fuel. That doesn't seem to me anyways, as the fault of the oil producers or the pipeline companies.
Well, considering the feds are buying the TMX pipeline, throwing billions of dollars at it, you'd think some of those billions could be applied to improving the refining / domestic supply situation first, and worrying about exporting the surplus after that. The TMX, if it goes according to their current plans, will be shipping dilbit, not plain old crude. Are we even able to refine it here in BC? Or would that require more upgrading / refining work in Alberta in order to be "refinery-ready" ? (Again, I recall hearing something about Alberta, at least under Notley, planning to build that very kind of facility.)
But this is not part of their plan, not at all. The TMX pipeline is for exports, period. We have the most expensive retail fuel prices in North America, and yet they a) do not think that local supply scarcity is a problem, and b) cannot make a business case for it being more economically efficient overall for their much-talked-about "national interest" to refine it here ?
Yes, I understand why a pipeline company, by itself, is only interested in shipping out the maximum volume as fast and cheap as possible, and never mind any "value added" aspects of the issue. I understand that the Albertan producers don't give two shits about BC's fuel needs when they can make a quick buck sending everything ASAP to a hungry Chinese or US market. But this is the government's project now, and if they refuse to look at the long term, the bigger picture, and Canada's real national interests, then they're just not doing their job properly.
There's a lot more to consider economically than just the "get bitumen to tidewater to ship out" plan, which frankly was a failure under Harper and could not be successfully whitewashed by Trudeau. It's a get-rich-quick scheme to benefit a few suits in Calgary, and not a convincing long term energy supply plan for the nation's future. Kind of like a city choosing to build shake'n'bake condo projects for foreign speculators and the real estate industry to launder money with, instead of rental housing for their own citizens to actually live in. In both of these cases, we're told it's all for our benefit, but is it really going to make our life easier or future better? No.
But this is not part of their plan, not at all. The TMX pipeline is for exports, period. We have the most expensive retail fuel prices in North America, and yet they a) do not think that local supply scarcity is a problem, and b) cannot make a business case for it being more economically efficient overall for their much-talked-about "national interest" to refine it here ?
Yes, I understand why a pipeline company, by itself, is only interested in shipping out the maximum volume as fast and cheap as possible, and never mind any "value added" aspects of the issue. I understand that the Albertan producers don't give two shits about BC's fuel needs when they can make a quick buck sending everything ASAP to a hungry Chinese or US market. But this is the government's project now, and if they refuse to look at the long term, the bigger picture, and Canada's real national interests, then they're just not doing their job properly.
There's a lot more to consider economically than just the "get bitumen to tidewater to ship out" plan, which frankly was a failure under Harper and could not be successfully whitewashed by Trudeau. It's a get-rich-quick scheme to benefit a few suits in Calgary, and not a convincing long term energy supply plan for the nation's future. Kind of like a city choosing to build shake'n'bake condo projects for foreign speculators and the real estate industry to launder money with, instead of rental housing for their own citizens to actually live in. In both of these cases, we're told it's all for our benefit, but is it really going to make our life easier or future better? No.
Dilbit is diluted bitumen. Bitumen is not very liquid, for lack of a better term; which is why it needs to be diluted so that it can flow through a pipeline. And yes, bitumen is a crude oil product in that it can be refined into fuel such as gasoline.
Stop blaming TMX, Alberta, the Federal Government, Oil producers, etc. No one is obligated to sell you gasoline at your preferred price. And not to get wildly off course; but the Federal Government buying TMX was the worst possible move: it transferred the risk of a commercial venture to all of us. And now you want more tax dollars for refining capacity? Even if the Feds spent billions to build a new refinery in BC; that doesn't solve the issue of getting more crude into BC, which means all taxpayers lose out. At least if private enterprise spends billions to build a refinery and no new pipeline capacity happens, that just mean that one privately owned refinery is screwed, not all taxpayers. Government ownership of a pipeline or a refinery does not solve the problem of not being able to expand pipeline capacity.
And exactly how and/or why do you know for a fact that all new pipeline capacity will be exported? And yes, BC refineries can refine bitumen: they do it now.
Trudeau was likely forced to buy TMX by provisions of modern trade treaties that secretly require that Canadian government compensate corporations for loss of revenue resulting from actions of environmental protest. (i.e.) the cost of compensation was getting so close the sale value of the pipeline that Trudeau decided that he might as well buy the pipe and be done with it. As I read a few years ago, the dilutant in dilbit has to be removed and sent back as a vapor in the reverse direction in the upper half of the same pipe to be reused for subsequent streams of dilbit.
he was forced to buy it due to his own moronic policies
Kinder Morgan would have just walked away, just like Trans Mountain did with Energy East, and like Enbridge as well with Northern Gateway, after Trudeau's actions/lack of action, led to it becoming impossible to proceed
I'm just a plebeian reading the newspapers. The old issues go into recycling and I don't see them again. Haven't made a point of trying to memorize anything, just read and understand what the writer is trying to say and leave it at that and see how well anything comes along and jogs my mind. The discussion that I read I think was about Nafta that applied to cross border business that eventually got into dispute resolution. That a corporation did not have to be seen receiving compensation as a result of environmental protest or even new environmental legislation. The way that the article was written, the public wasn't even allowed to know that a dispute resolution was either happening or had taken place between a government and a corporation. The monetary sum involved couldn't even be allowed to show up on the books of the government and had to be rolled into something else. Nafta started in 1994. Doesn't seem that long since I read that article when consideration of such might be more public and has since been kept out of public sight. I think that I read that during the financial crisis of 2008 when maybe somebody might find such information more interesting. Consistent today with a socialist government in Victoria leading the pipeline protest that has brought a means of production under a more local purview.
NAFTA dispute resolution provision relates to disputes between the parties to NAFTA (i.e. Canada, US and Mexico). Kinder Morgan (previous owner of TMX) is not a party to NAFTA). For example, when the US slapped duties on Canadian softwood lumber, Canada could use the dispute resolution provision to challenge those duties - has nothing to do with companies challenging a country.
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