{"id":1094,"date":"2005-09-30T18:01:52","date_gmt":"2005-09-30T22:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2005-09-30T18:01:52","modified_gmt":"2005-09-30T22:01:52","slug":"american-consumers-taken-over-the-barrel-by-oil-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1094","title":{"rendered":"American consumers taken over the barrel by oil companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Energy suppliers across the country <a href=\"http:\/\/cbs5.com\/topstories\/local_story_273145002.html\">are preparing customers<\/a> for heating bill increases that beginning in October will be as much as 71% higher than costs this time last year.  Blame it on the hurricanes?<\/p>\n<p>Oil refineries that were hit by Katrina and Rita experienced only brief interruptions in service.  So it&#8217;s not surprising to read in <a href=\"http:\/\/newstandardnews.net\/\"><em>The New Standard<\/em><\/a> that &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/newstandardnews.net\/content\/index.cfm\/items\/2336\">The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR), a California-based consumer watchdog, published corporate memos<\/a>&#8221; proving &#8220;three major companies each discussed strategies for manipulating pump prices and profit margins long before the current ?crisis,? adding fuel to the fire raging over suspicion of present-day maneuvering and gouging.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Adding further fuel to the charge the American people are being taken over a barrel by these bandits is the information that oil companies have enjoyed record profitts in the last year and a half.  Have they used it to build new refineries?  No.  They&#8217;ve used these <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/news\/newsfinder\/pulseone.asp?siteid=mktw&#038;guid={68F4D63F-4450-41F9-A1B3-81BEE327444F}&#038;dist=bnb\">windfalls<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=4929660&#038;ft=1&#038;f=1006\">purchase their own stock<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Nieman Watchdog<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanwatchdog.org\/index.cfm?fuseaction=Ask_this.view&#038;askthisid=111\">says<\/a> journalists aren&#8217;t asking the right questions:<\/p>\n<p>Q. Are oil companies making part of their record profits off price gouging?<\/p>\n<p>Q. Who exactly determines oil prices?  And how can we make sure they&#8217;re not pulling an Enron?<\/p>\n<p>Q. Can anything be done to tamp down speculation in the short term?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Energy suppliers across the country are preparing customers for heating bill increases that beginning in October will be as much as 71% higher than costs this time last year. Blame it on the hurricanes? Oil refineries that were hit by &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1094\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-hE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}