U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Michael Bennet
(D) Phil Weiser
60%↑
50%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) David Seligman
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) J. Danielson
(R) Sheri Davis
50%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(D) Jeff Bridges
(R) Kevin Grantham
40%
40%
30%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Trisha Calvarese
(D) Eileen Laubacher
90%
20%
20%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Shannon Bird
45%↓
40%
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
November 22, 2005 09:00 AM UTC
43 Comments
Far be it from me to agree with a Republican attorney general . . . but I do. “Gas prices are taking longer to go down in the mountains than they are in Denver” is not a sufficient basis to launch a criminal investigation into possible price-fixing. Lindstrom’s letter was obvious pandering, and Suther’s response neutralizes it. Unless, of course, it emerges between now and 11/06 that mountain gas stations engaged in price fixing.
Gas prices are consistently 15 to 25 cents higher in Lake County than they are in the metro area and Georgetown, which is just 45 minutes down the road. When you see on the the news that “gas prices” have gone down, the average price of gas in Leadville won’t go down until one of the stations realizes that it should change it, and the others follow suit. It may not be collusion in the strictest sense, but there’s no competition between the gas stations, which means that drivers in Leadville have to drive 30-40 minutes to another community to normal gas prices. I know that Leadville is a small town, and that many front range people won’t give a damn about what I’m saying, but the above-average gas prices in Leadville are wrong, and I for one am glad that Gary Lindstrom is sticking up for us.
Every time I have driven Independance Pass, I have passed a tanker truck carrying gas, either going up or going down. While the rest of us zip through the Eisenhower Tunnel in bad weather, those tanker drivers need to take the “high road”. I would think they need to be very skilled drivers or we would hear about a tanker turning over on the pass every other day instead of once a season.
Longer drive, skilled driver… I think that is where your extra cost at the pump comes from Leadville.
“Longer drive, skilled driver… I think that is where your extra cost at the pump comes from Leadville.”
Wrong. Gas is more expensive in the mountains because that’s what the market will bear–and the stations there know it. If you could choose between charging $2.60 per gallon and $2.20 per gallon, wouldn’t you charge the higher price. You wouldn’t be very smart if you didn’t. If people want to live in the mountains, they should be prepared to pay for it.
Right on, Iron Mike. If it was so easy to get cheap gas into leadville, surely somebody would do it, undercut the competition by a few cents, and get rich. There’s no point in trying to convince a socialist or a conspiracy theorist that the law of supply and demand works. But it does.
“There’s no point in trying to convince a socialist or a conspiracy theorist that the law of supply and demand works”
There’s no point in talking to an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Have you looked at oil company profits lately? If competition works so well, then why don’t they lower their prices and sell more oil? Because they don’t have to, that’s why. If they cooperate to keep prices high, they all make more money. It isn’t like we have a choice. Between poor suburban planning that forces everyone driving to their grocery stores, coffee shops and restaurants, and our infatuation with 12MPG ego-mobiles, we’re stuck paying whatever the market will bear.
You would think just one of them would lower prices and make more money by selling more product, but it never works that way. They act just like OPEC ? keep prices high by controlling supply.
If they aren’t going to compete with one another, then they need to be regulated, just like other energy-related utilities.
Mark,
I would strongly suggest you take a course on economics from an accredited college or university (moveon.org & michaelmoore.com don’t count).
I don’t mean this in a nasty sort of way, but I’ve noticed that many people, many of which are extremely opinionated, don’t even have a basic understanding of the the laws of supply and demand and the market economy.
It’s nice to debate with folks, but we need to be able to debate with more logic and less emotion if we are to find reasonable solutions to complex problems.
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone
Mark:
You would think lowering gas prices would increase sales significantly, but you’d be wrong. Demand for gas is inelastic, which means quantity demanded doesn’t change significantly when prices change. In other words, if gas prices go up or down, about the same quantity will be demanded. That’s why the stations charge whatever people are willing to pay–whatever the market will bear.
Vote for Quimby:
While Mark might not understand economics as well as some folks, he seems to understand more than Iron Mike or voyageur. They write about supply and demand as though they understand them, but they don’t even understand elasticity. I think they would benefit from the same classes you suggested Mark take.
You’re right that people should learn more about economics. They should consider attending next month’s Foundation for Economic Education event. It’s all day December 3. Go to http://www.fee.org for more information.
With all due disrespect, Lebowski, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s true that the short-term elasticity of demand for gasoline is low, but long-term is something else. Gas is $5 to $8 a gallon in Europe, because of high taxes deliberately intended to encourage conservation. And, golly, european cars get much better mileage than American ones. Supply and demand, what a concept. You know just enough about the concept to expose the shallowness of your logic. As to mark, as I said, there is no point in arguing with a left-wing ideologue or a conspiracy theorist. Business is evil, profit is Satan’s work, and there is no convincing them otherwise.
“It isn’t like we have a choice. Between poor suburban planning that forces everyone driving to their grocery stores, coffee shops and restaurants, and our infatuation with 12MPG ego-mobiles, we’re stuck paying whatever the market will bear.”
I disagree. If you’re able, you could walk or bicycle, ride a horse, skateboard, take RTD. If you’re disabled you get even more transportation options.
I’m in a unplanned older neighborhood. The grocery store is 1 mile away. The library is 3, post office is 5, thrift store is 1, work is 8. I can get to all of them a lot quicker on a bike than RTD, and not as quickly as a car. I choose to drive mostly because of wanting to save time. The lazy, comfort creature side of me chooses to drive because it’s a lot more comfortable.
I understand there’s areas where bicycling is not as ideal like Parker or the mountains. A lot of these people moved there to get into more open land with less commercial industry, so they have only themselves to blame if the grocery store is far away.
Just pointing out I don’t feel a car is a necessity, only a luxury.
How can we ever learn whether there was a conspiracy to drive up gasoline prices when the AG refuses to investigate?
Are we simply supposed to have blind faith in the market, as the Republicans claim?
You can speculate to your heart’s content on why gas prices spiked immediately after the hurricane, but only an investigation will get to the truth.
Maybe we should have an investigation as to why there is no investigation……….
On average, oil companies profit approximately .10 cents per gallon of fuel sold in the U.S.
On average, state and federal governments charge approximately .43 cents per gallon of fuel sold in the U.S.
So who is really gouging the consumer here?
Glock, you should be ashamed of yourself! You’re introducing facts and logic into a discussion about oil companies! You some kind of commie or something? Here we were, having a nice hatefest, demanding investigations, stickin it to the man, and you ruin everything! By the way, I have a Glock 17. How’d you get two more glocks than I have? Maybe the government will pay to upgrade mine.
We operate in a market economy. Unless there’s systematic and coordinated price-fixing, I don’t give a crap how much gas is or how much oil companies and gas stations make. You friggin communists want to get paid as much as you can for what YOU do, but want to see oil companies suffer?
Why don’t we hear anyone complain about how much software guys like Butt Bridges make, nor do we hear any complaints about obscene markups in patchoulio oil or hemp clothes. You anti-American, anti-capitalists make me sick.
Stop hiding behind diplomatic language and tell us how you really feel, SillyCommies.
voyageur:
Now, you’re really wrong. Read up on things before taking a position and making comments. (A Google search is insufficient.)
If you had taken the time to learn about the elasticity of gas prices, you’d know it’s inelastic in the short term and long term, although more elastic in the long term than the short term. You’d know income, not gas prices, has the larger effect on elasticity. You’d know gas prices in Europe are largely governed by gas taxes (about 70 percent of the price per gallon in Europe consists of taxes, compared to about 25 percent in the United States), and those gas taxes have nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with generating government revenue.
You like to think of yourself as a friend of free markets, but you’re really not. To be a friend of free markets, you have to understand how they operate so you can make use of them and advocate them. Please do yourself a favor and go to the FEE forum.
Voyageur, I can only shake my head when ostrich headed, “college-trained” pseudo-economists pontificate about the wonders of the free market while ignoring history. As if the abuses of big business in the twentieth century never happened. As if Enron never manipulated natural gas prices. As if Microsoft never attempted to squash their competitors (or buy them). The list of “free-market” abuses over the past hundred years goes on and on, yet you hang on to the naive notion that all businessmen are honest, and want nothing more than to compete in a free market.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Business has only one goal: To make as much money as possible for their shareholders. The less competition there is, the more money they make. They have every incentive to minimize competition, and in the absence of regulation, that?s exactly what they do. Hence the endless list of abuses. The only thing preventing rampant abuse that hurts all of us is a strong government prepared to protect its citizens ? something we haven?t seen in quite some time. It?s human nature, voyageur. You really out to read up on it some time.
I say again, there should be an investigation as to why there hasn’t been an investigation into the reasoning behind the lack of investigations.
Where is our government when we need them? They should be investigating things…………..What are they thinking?
Gotta hand it to Mark and Lebowski…facts won’t confuse them. I actually have two college degrees in economics, which is probably two more than you have, Lebowski, so I’ll pass on your offer for a propaganda session explaining why only Marx’s Labor Theory of Value can rescue the capitalist system, or whatever your left-wing idiots have dreamed up now. In the unlikely event that you actually do try to learn the rudiments of the economic system, Lebowski, start with von Thunen and the theory of marginal utility. It may open your eyes, if openable they are. Your ideas are frankly too primitive to discuss at any level, so stop trying to pretend to an expertise you don’t begin to have. I can only conclude that you read your Marx in the Classics Illustrated edition. As to mark, well, as I said, no point discussing anything with a left-wing ideologue. If only we’d shoot those greedy businessmen, then surely the Toyota fairy would just put all those goods and services under our pillow. PRoduction for use, not for profit!
Four legs good, two legs better!
What is the matter with a business making money Mark? What do you do for a living? I would venture to guess that people like you that bitch about companies making money also work for companies that, heaven forbid, are in business to make money.
You sound like a pompus ass saying crap to Voyaguer like that. Unless you live off the land in a hut in the forest, YOU are reaping the benefits of a free market society too. Look in the mirror before you say stupid shit.
Oh, I love it. If the historical facts don’t fit your “economic” theology, then ignore them. Gives me a taste of what Galileo was up against.
You sit in you ivory tower preaching the “Guiding Hand” like it’s a magic wand that will solve all the world’s ills. Meanwhile real people find it harder and harder to make ends meet. I’ll wager they’re not going to put up with it much longer.
Let me make one thing clear: I understand that competition and the marketplace are the best agents for increasing efficiency, keeping prices down, and raising wages. I also understand that human nature will tempt many into manipulating the marketplace if they can do so without suffering any consequences. You have a grasp of the former, but clearly do not grasp the latter. To assume the marketplace will operate perfectly without oversight really is naive. Open a history book.
Mark, so what would you suggest to make this the perfect world?
You are right when you say human nature will tempt many into manipulating the market place. But the way I see it, what is wrong with that? What is so terribly wrong with someone or some company trying to better themselves? As long as it is legal, there should be nobody judging them. And if they push the envelope and cross into the illegal, then the government should step in and hold them accountable. Otherwise the government should be small and silent.
I still don’t see where Yoyaguer said anything anti American or anti Democratic.
Gecko, There’s no such thing as a perfect world. You can?t fill a world with imperfect people and expect it to become perfect. So we muddle along as best we can and make many, many compromises along the way. With any luck we?ll continue to move in the right direction with fits and starts, and avoid another Dark Age. Frankly, I think that?s the best we can hope for.
Despite what the denizens of the Ivory Tower would have you believe, pure Laissez-faire markets work no better that centrally controlled economies. The former becomes rampant with abuse, and the latter is woefully inefficient. The best we can do is compromise. Free markets with a lot of oversight. That?s my answer.
Gecko: ?what is wrong with that? What is so terribly wrong with someone or some company trying to better themselves.?
I?ll tell you what?s wrong with it. Businesses that manipulate markets to make money don?t better themselves in terms of efficiency, and certainly don?t improve society as a whole. They are like leaches feeding of the people who do real work. I rather admire companies that make money by being more innovative, or more efficient. That?s where the market does its magic. I despise companies that make money by manipulating markets. In my view, those companies are little more than pickpockets.
voyageur:
I know you think you know all there is to know about economics, but you don’t.
You started this thread by trying to encourage people to base their views on facts, not emotion, but you’ve become increasingly emotional as the thread has progressed and failed to offer any facts to persuade anyone of the validity of your position. If you hadn’t let your emotions get the better of you, you’d know I support free markets. If you knew as much about economics as you claim to, you’d know FEE is a free-market organization.
You don’t understand Marx’s theories or aims. He wasn’t concerned with doing anything other than discrediting capitalism. That’s why he never came up with an alternative system, and why he has been largely discredited.
You really don’t know who von Thunen is or anything about any of his theories. His main contribution to marginal analysis was his theory of location. If you knew anything about marginal analysis, you’d have cited someone whose contributions in the field were much more substantial.
I’ve studied economics. I’ve written and edited articles published in scholarly journals. I know what I’m writing about. Sadly, you don’t, which is why I’m guessing you don’t even have degrees in economics. If you do, they’re not doing you much good, and you and the insititutions that granted those degrees should be embarassed. I’m embarassed for you.
Wrong again, Lebowski. Von Thunen was the father of utility theory, which you doubtless learned from your google search. You apparently don’t know that is what underlies the law of supply and demand. “Why do we pay more for diamonds, which are less useful than water…”
And, yes, he also pioneered land use theory…imagine a featureless plain, blah blah, high value activies cluster toward the center, more land intensive one such as farming at the periphery. I bet Google didn’t tell you what’s on his tombstone. (Hint, that’s why he is cited in labor economics, though the theory is discregarded.” As far as you “writing and editing for scholarly journals” tee, hee, again, I have to tell you, Classics Illustrated doesn’t count. You’re way over your head, and you’ll never impress anyone with your bloviations, but have a nice holiday anyway.
voyageur:
With every post, you show how little you know about economics. Jevons was the father of utility theory, not von Thunen. Although Dupuit discovered utility theory and talked about it empirically, Jevons formalized it and talked about it theoretically. You’re not even close to being right (about half a century off the mark).
Have fun trying to enjoy your vegetarian Thanksgiving. Like your version of economics, it’s a watered-down version of the tradition.
You are dumb as a stump, Lebowski.
I suspect you think Nassau Senior is a resort community for older residents. Have a great day anyway, eating yourself into a heart attack.
voyageur:
You love digging yourself a hole, don’t you. If you were a student of Senior, you would have opposed Referendum C based on his interest-group theory of economics.
Speaking of Referendum C, anyone who supported it cannot claim to support free markets. In fact, one of the greatest modern free-market economists, Milton Friedman, strongly opposed Referendum C.
Don’t forget your B-12 and iron. We wouldn’t want you developing cardiovascular disease or anemia. Wild Oats would miss you.
The Nassau Senior line was simply to underscore your general stupidity, LowBlowSki. You, predictably, took the bait!
Ain’t it great that the people of Colorado told you right-wing cuckoo-clocks to take a hike and passed Ref C? Now, we can hear you whine, and sob, and moan and groan while the world laughs at you!
Oh, and don’t forget to smoke lots of those cigarettes. Otherwise, you’d be giving in to the health nazis!
voyageur:
You really are a nutcase. Let me guess: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. Hell, probably both since neither your moods nor your politics are ever in sync. However, you’re in luck. With all the money from Referendum C, there’ll be plenty of mental-health clinics willing and able to help you. Look at it this way: It’ll be easy to add Depakote, Lithium, and Clozaril to your daily regimen of multivitamins and herbal treatments, and unlike the multivitamins and herbs, the drugs will be free. Maybe next year you can put an initiative on the ballot to make naturopathic treatments free, too.
Aha, you ARE a smoker! Good for you, remember to inhale deeply! And don’t forget to get back to claiming that you like free markets even though you maintain that even LONG-TERM demand for gasoline is inelastic. That was the original stupidity that you’ve been trying to cover with your personal insults, so, smoke ’em if you got em, boy, and let real people get on with educating left-wing conspiracy theorists about how the world really works. You have to be one of the flakes with II, who else would let a fool like you “write and edit” anything about economics, unless you snuck a few grafs into the equally dingy Freeman. Good night and Bad Luck, cuckoo clock, I’ve had all the fun with you I need today. Boy, are you dumb!
voyageur:
Damn, you’re determined to dig that hole as deep as you can. Unfortunately, you’ve let yourself think you’re smarter than you really are, and the hole is caving in on you.
First, I don’t smoke. Second, as I said before, gasoline is price inelastic in the short term and the long term, although more elastic in the long term than the short term. Go to your local library and pull up the articles and statistics if you won’t let yourself believe it. Third, I’m not at all affiliated with the Independence Institute. Unlike some of their work, mine is accurate and respected.
Don’t forget your meds, Murrow. Or your smokes.
Your work is respected? On what planet? I see you’re backing down from your claim that gasoline is price inelastic in the long run, something so stupid that even you realize now you’ll have to beat a retreat. Maybe you don’t smoke, but you sure seem to know exactly what drugs to take for certain mental disorders. I’ve never heard of them, but it sounds like one of us has them in his medicine cabinet. You probably skipped them when you went into this rant.
Good night and bad luck, manic/depressive boy. Don’t forget your “Depakote, Lithium, and Clozaril.” Tee hee hee.
voyageur:
“If you had taken the time to learn about the elasticity of gas prices, you’d know it’s inelastic in the short term and long term, although more elastic in the long term than the short term. You’d know income, not gas prices, has the larger effect on elasticity. You’d know gas prices in Europe are largely governed by gas taxes (about 70 percent of the price per gallon in Europe consists of taxes, compared to about 25 percent in the United States), and those gas taxes have nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with generating government revenue.”
Posted by: Lebowski993 at November 23, 2005 08:14 PM
Hmm, looks like I’ve been telling you the same thing about the elasticity of gas prices all along. Maybe I should have mentioned dementia and dyslexia as some of the other disorders you probably suffer from; you seem to have problems remembering and reading.
Get back to your tofu and tee-hee-heeing with your fairy friends, silly boy.
Take your drugs and admit you were wrong. Only you would be dumb enough to look at the fuel efficiency in europe vs. America and refuse to understand that pricing policy played a role. Dummy, it doesn’t matter whether the price comes from a tax or some other factor, the market processes it. I guess your paresis has been acting up. Too bad there’s no cure, you’ve already tried “Depakote, Lithium, and Clozaril.”
Boys and girls!
What you are all missing is that Oil Companies are publicly owned companies. If you want them to lower prices, you need to get the stockholders to force them to do it! That would probably be large pension plans and large mutual funds. Good Luck!
voyageur:
You just keep proving how little you know–about everything.
Paresis is slight paralysis. If you’re trying to insult someone, you’d say they have general paresis, which is insanity and paralysis resulting from syphillis, a disease you and your ankle-grabbing buddies in Cheesman Park are probably familiar with. Ironically, it might be what’s causing your dementia, so you should think about getting checked out.
Keep trying to be clever. It’s always good for a laugh.
You’re VERY insecure about your manhood, aren’t you, paresis boy. That accounts for the homophobia.
Can you spell P R O J E C T I O N? You name the specific drugs that you or someone in your family obviously uses for bipolar disorder. And you break out in cold sweats at pictures of altar boys… Hmm, sees like everybody in the world is a prevert cept you. tee hee. Boy are you dumb. Now, back to google to go on digging your grave. I love this!
IXguy, your theory is wrong on every level. Assume you could get enough capital to buy the oil companies, it wouldn’t necessarily make them lower prices. They are only middlemen. Most retailers are independent and as even Lebowski knows, will post what the market will bear. If there are local conditions that allow them to post higher than average markups, as in most tourist towns, those would continue even if the wholesale price dropped a bit. It wouldn’t drop much, though, since the oil companies only make about a dime a gallon. Go nonprofit and you’d lower that, but you’d also retard the shift to more fuel-efficient cars as well as discouraging more supply. Price is a signal and higher prices signal two things; conservation to lower demand and new production to stimulate supply. Left to their own devices, markets always come up with a market clearing price. If you want a real crisis, impose wage and price controls like Nixon did.
Wow, must be a lot of dimes rolling in to the Big Five’s coffers. Indeed, dimes are rolling in like they never have before.
A more reasonable explanation might be hurricane-related profiteering.
From Big oil’s really big profits
Did the oil companies become more efficient or innovative? Did they have to pay their employees more? No. Here we were thinking there was no “bright side” to Katrina, but we were wrong. Thanks to Katrina, oil company executives and shareholders will have a very merry Christmas — albeit, at our expense.
You speak as if we can all go to the Toyota dealer tomorrow and pick up a Prius. Go back to your ivory tower, and come up with plan B.
Oh, plan B is obvious, Mark. Seize all private property, let the state own everything, and plan production for use, not for profit, with GOSPLAN. How’d that work out in the Soviet Union, anyway?
A) As usual, you didn?t answer the question.
B) The world is always black and white to you Ivory Tower folks.
There’s room for a middle ground, but you’ll never find it. You have too much in common with philosophers and theologians, V. ? loads of theory going every which way, and no proof. When economists can come up with some provable theorems, maybe then we’ll call you scientists.