Same same still. Same same.
So do I.
How about you start a thread about the nuts&bolts transition from monopoly government to multiple private ones. It really is a different debate, oh wise one.
I am offering an analogy. Is this the first time you have seen one?
I can’t believe I’m getting drawn into this but: an analogy generally tries to use a simpler or readily recognized model to help illustrate a point. Your analogy uses an infinitely more complex and politically charged model. So it’s not what I would call a useful analogy.
Also, since the analogy is well known to be one of your pet topic, some could easily accuse you of a “drive-by witnessing”. If not for all this extensive follow up, of course. 
Politically charged? The first independent close in the first sentence of the first post says, “Suppose the US Congrees [sic] gets soft”.
So that’s what set you off?
I think you misspelled “me”.
Well I like the childish you better than the 5-page post ivory tower rant you, so maybe I best not disturb further.
“Let sleeping dog(ma)s lie.”
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A monopoly in the oil business would not need gas stations and refineries. One or the other would do.
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Whilst there are economies of scale in distribution and refining, they are not large enough to enable a monopoly to prosper - that is minimum efficient scale is small relative to the size of the market. In that case it would not pay to buy out new competitors, so as long as the technology were reasonably available, new firms would emergre in the highly unlikely event of monopoly formation.
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The real potential for monopoly power is in supply, since reserves are fixed over quite long time scale. The large market, numerous ports and low transport costs mean that the US market cannot effectively be isolated (without government connivance).
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OPEC’s power is limited. A monopoly probably couldn’t buy all the reserves (since it would require agreement on rent-sharing) and a cartel would be (and has been ) unwieldy and prone to internal sabotage and external competition.
So it is highly unlikely that a monopoly would emerge in the US petrol business, because the conditions required for monoply - high barriers to entry due to technology, natural resource constraints or large economies of scale - either don’t exist or could not be under the control of a US firm.
In the event of a real cartel in the oil business, you just have to look at the real one. OPEC is much less powerful than it was, but it was capable of doubling the oil price for a while and it took more than a decade for new competitors to undermine their power.
Incidentally, didja notice how Galt’s static-electricity machine makes Ellis Wyatt’s shale-oil business obsolete?
Classic example would be “natural monopolies” like the cable or utility companies where it is just not efficient to have dozens of companies with their own networks.
Really the biggest hinderence to creating a single “Monolith” oil monopoly is the product itself. Oil is a commodity. That is to say that the oil Shell sells is no different from the oil Texaco or Mobil sells. There are barriers to entry because excavating and processing oil requires a great deal of capital. That’s why you don’t have 500 oil companies.
Gas stations are also pretty much the same except with less start-up costs. It doesn’t take much for some guy to buy a couple of pumps and undercut Monoliths prices.
No, I would have to say that the current oligopoly is the most stable market for oil.
No wonder you guys like Kerry 
It’s also not efficient to have a monopoly restricting output. That’s the nasty thing about natural monopoly: you can’t have competition at efficent scale and you can’t have efficent scale with competition.
Related to John Mace’s point is that there may a monopoly without monopoly power (a contestible market) if, for example, barriers to entry are low. Just counting the number of firms in an industry doesn’t tell you much.
[QUOTE=Paladud]
You know, prices would indeed be about that high if the government didn’t subsidize oil in the first place. Aren’t they close to that in much of Europe, anyway?
QUOTE]
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Sorry for the brief hijack, but yes. At least in England.
We pay 79 pence per litre. At 2.6 litres per gallon, plus the current exchange rate of 1.78 dollars per pound (100 pence per pound, by the way), then it’s something like $3.65 per gallon for 87 octane. Diesel is slightly cheaper, Eurodiesel is a bit cheaper, but yeah. It costs me about $80 to fill my tank once a week, and I don’t drive an SUV…
Of course, most of that is taxes, but that is one tax I honestly don’t mind paying. At least I know where that tax goes - into roads and such. Can’t say that for the rest of the nearly 40% of my salary that goes into tax, nor of the many ‘stealth’ taxes on workers and motorists in this country…
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And note of course that we don’t have to postulate Liberal, or John Galt getting the idea to set up a competing oil company using the spare change they find under their cushions.
There are also other very large multinational corporations that like to make money. If Monolith Oil is incredibly profitable, why wouldn’t General Motors, or Archer Daniels Midland, or Microsoft, or Disney, or Sony, or any of the other megaconglomerates out there, decide that THEY want a piece of the action too?
As has been pointed out, gasoline and oil is a commodity, there is very little difference between one gallon of gasoline and another. If gasoline is selling at $7.00 per gallon, why can’t Archer Daniels Midland start selling ethanol, or biodiesel at a fraction of that price?
The reality is that an oil monopoly of that sort would require government connivance to maintain. The only way we could get Monolith Oil is if the US government decided that a monopoly was the best way to run things and enforced Monolith’s monopoly status, like Mexico used to do with Pemex. This wouldn’t exactly be the US government getting “soft”, it would be government officials deliberately screwing over the American people because they could get kickbacks, secret slush funds, favors, etc, from the owners of the monopoly, or perhaps the monopoly is outright government owned. This is also known as “Government and Business working together”. For the benefit of both. The monopoly business is generally happy with high levels of government regulation and price controls, since they don’t have to make a profit in the usual sense, and the regulations are what makes it impossible for other companies to compete.
Remember also that big business isn’t just about money. Or rather, money isn’t the end, it is the means. Money can’t buy happiness. Only power can do that.
But money can buy power! There are other ways to get power, but buying it is one of the easiest ways.
Wouldn’t the cheapest and easiest way get a piece of the action be to just buy Monolith stock and get yourself put on their board?
Yes, but that requires the Monolith pie to be divided up by more players. I mean, what if we issued every US citizen 100 shares of Monolith. If gas is $7.00 a gallon we’d all be rich!
The point is that there’s only so much that Monolith can squeeze out of the consumers, even if they have a government enforced monopoly. At some level of gasoline prices it is cheaper for car owners to buy truckloads of feed corn and distill their own moonshine whiskey to fill their tanks than it is to buy from Monolith (and if so it would be even cheaper to buy ethanol from ADM instead). Or it is cheaper to put up solar panels and make hydrogen. Or it is cheaper to plug your electric car into the electrical grid and recharge your batteries overnight. Or it is cheaper to use coal to power your steamcar. Or it is cheaper to sell your car and buy a bicycle.
Even government-enforced monopolies don’t have complete power over the marketplace, because no good is truly irreplaceable. Consumers always have the option of simply doing without. Ethanol and Hydrogen fuel-cell cars give a cap to Monolith Oil’s profits. And an end to American car culture means an end to Monolith Oil’s profits.
And the first truly democratic capitilistic system is born.
I pretty much agree with you. See my post regarding Monolith’s pricing- if the monopoly happened they would probably be smart enough not to rock the boat that bad.
(Though, as far as alternatives- a well run oil monopoly could buy an awful lot of patents.)
[QUOTE=GomiBoyWe pay 79 pence per litre. At 2.6 litres per gallon, plus the current exchange rate of 1.78 dollars per pound (100 pence per pound, by the way), then it’s something like $3.65 per gallon for 87 octane. Diesel is slightly cheaper, Eurodiesel is a bit cheaper, but yeah. It costs me about $80 to fill my tank once a week, and I don’t drive an SUV…
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Are your gallons different there? Our gallons here, which I assume are the same, are about 3.8 liters, not 2.6.
.79 * 3.8 is roughly 3 pounds…
times 1.78 to convert and you’re looking at $5.34 per gallon, compared to $1.80 or so here.