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Gas Prices
Have people lost their minds? I mean it. The US Dollar took a major dive and the cost of gold was over one thousand dollars. I looked at the commoditites the other day and it dropped down to $800.
Bush is announcing a new plan to deal with the crisis. Only a few weeks ago Congress was proposing another gas tax to deal with the higher prices of gas. That doesn't make sense at all. You know what might help, lowering the tariff on oil from the Middle East. Yah, it is all out of control. Everyone all over the news is reporting the dollar is weak. (A nations monetary value compared is based on the gold standard. The US tries to maintain a gold standard between $200 to $400.) So now our dollar is worth less in the Middle East so gas is more. Yep, reguardless of the falling stock market, recessions caused by Y2K, the Twin Towers and Katrina, people are sitting around with their thumbs up their explitive acting like nothing is wrong. So awhile ago, they said we need to cut taxes. Then someone said doesn't that cause inflation. Well inflation also provides more jobs and any idiot knows that when in a recession yo counter it with inflation. So right now Inflation is great! Our country is going down the tubes every single day and the idiotic, uneducated masses and media are going to keep it that way, because you're all stupid. |
Maybe people need it to be hard. :-/
My head's been muddled with all the bad shit lately, that it's hard to focus or make sense of any of it. The big picture is indeed confusing. |
not all of us are dumb. I am depressed as hell at the idea of what's going on. But we are fucked!
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No comments on the economy or Bush or whatever for now, but as for gas prices, the solution is very simple: Americans grow a spine and stop whining. $4/gallon is still on the low end from a global perspective. Go to your nearest freeway and look around. See all those SUVs? Apparently gas isn't all that expensive.
I'll put up with griping about gas prices from anybody who owns a car which is at least, say, 70% as fuel efficient as the ones people drive here in Japan. Everybody else can shut the fuck up. |
Heh I ride the bus, the only reason the gas prices are pissing me off is it makes my groceries more expensive. Of course this is what you get when you elect an incompetent fuck-up to lead a country and then vote for the rest of the incompetent fuck-ups from his party. You get incompetent fuck-ups.
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What did we expect by voting two oil men into power?
Sheesh. Obama for yo mama in '08! I wish I lived with bicycling distance of work. At least I get to work from home one day out of five. |
I can't drive yet, so the only reason it bothers me is the prices of everything and the fact that I have to walk home almost everyday because my parents say it's too expensive for them to pick me up after clubs. (I live a pretty good distance from my school and my shoes aren't exactly the best to walk in... -looks at her boots with a sigh-)
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I used to need twenty bucks per week; now I need 30. |
The interest rate was lowered to 2%. I believe it was a good move.
I think the Middle-East, USA and US Automobile companies formed a plot to make oil continually valuable in the USA in order to defeat the Axis Alliance in WWII. Yep, German plans still needed gas, but they are godless people, so we got cheap gas and won. (It is very scary thinking about how the Middle East is starting to threaten the USA. None of our stuff works without gas. We'd be totally screwed.) |
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::grabs popcorn:: |
Dude, the gov just needs to deal with the fucking tariffs
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Petrol prices in America are still alot cheaper then the prices we have to pay.
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good link, thanks.
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If anything, gas in America should cost MORE. Then maybe people will pull there heads out of their asses and start looking at/pushing for alternative transport solutions more.
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Exactly. I mean, gas in Ireland is like 1.10 Euro a litre. Three and 3/8ths litres is a gallon. That means we pay about 4.15 euro a gallon here, which converted to dollars is about $6.70 a gallon.
We have been paying this for quite sometime, and we don't bitch. Same goes for the rest of Europe. |
And you guys have better mass transportation. In Europe, people have many alternatives to driving alone. Over here, best thing we can do is carpool if we have to commute.
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not only do you guys have better public transportation, you have MUCH smaller distances to cross. In order to ship goods from one side of the country to the other takes a great deal more fuel.
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Gas prices do suck but it's not all the current administrations fault. If you really did your homework you,ld realize the problem started in the 70s when they capped our oilfields and the tree huggers yell if anyone mentions drilling anywhere in our country.Did you know there is enough oil under North Dakota to keep us in oil for over a 100 years and that it would drive the price of oil down to about half or three fourths of what it cost now , or that earlier this year your democratic led congress refused to pass a coal to gas bill that would have had a plant open in less than a year, provided a couple thousand jobs and the product would be less than a dollar a gallon, and that the biggest issue that was discussed in the congress and senate this week was what to do about explosive sugar dust?You can also thank our government for ever increasing grocery prices because of this stupid ethanol corn is for eating not to go in gas tanks .
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Fact Sheet: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3021/pdf/FS08-3021_508.pdf Press Release: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 Slide Show: http://energy.usgs.gov/flash/Bakken_slideshow.swf Assessment Data: http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov/noga/b...1&thePage=play The state of North Dakota estimates 2.1 billion barrels recoverable using current technology in only its own portion of the formation - very close to the 2.6 number the feds gave, considering the difficulty of making these estimates. News Articles: http://bismarcktribune.com/articles/...ate/154403.txt http://www.kxmc.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=232977 http://paguntaka.org/2008/04/29/nort...ken-formation/ I couldn't find the actual report they are referring to online, but N.D.'s online resources are here: https://www.dmr.nd.gov The U.S. was using over 7 billion barrels a year as of 2006. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922041.html So if the U.S. could keep itself "in oil" using the Bakken oil for less than six months. The 100 year figure, which presumably came from Rush Limbaugh or some similar reactionary windbag, is off by two orders of magnitude. That's like claiming that your car's fuel efficiency is 1000 MPG when it's actually 10 MPG. Of course there is a lot more potential oil in the shale and what not, but that's hardly a situation unique to N.D. It's the case everywhere else, too. How much of that can be used will depend on how technology advances and what happens in the economy. But tell you what. Presumably the 100 year figure was based upon the work of Leigh Price. In an unpublished, unreviewed paper, he claimed that there were 217 - 503 billion barrels total, including the shale. http://www.undeerc.org/Price/ Just for shits and giggles, let's take the high estimate of 503 billion - way higher than any estimate ever given by anybody else. And let's make believe that it can all just be scooped up in buckets by underpaid illegal immigrants. And while we're testing the limits of our ability to suspend disbelief, let's say that U.S. oil consumption goes down to 7 billion per year, and stays there, instead of going up the way it usually does in the real world when the resource in question is plentifully available as in this fantasy scenario. 503 / 7 = 71.86 72 is not the same thing as "over 100". I don't care enough to check up on your other assorted rants. Your credibility problem is too big. Don't tell us to do our homework. We might actually listen, and then look what happens. |
I don't even wanna drive anymore, prices are supposed to go up 4 dolla dolla bills ya'll a gallon.
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I don't drive as much anymore and found a way to work from home. Driving isn't even really a necessity anymore. Maybe I'll sell my car, though I bought less than a year ago, becaue it is still very convinient.
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GSJillian & EWolf -
You are correct. Thats one of the things I love about Europe. Our communites are built around shopping areas. We still have corner shops that sell what we need, at normal prices. You can't walk more than 5-10 minutes without being at a shop where you can buy stuff you would buy to feed your family, the butcher, the baker, etc. America is laid out in such a way the average American has to drive to get things like milk, bread, etc. They can't just walk to the local shop and buy something. Don't get me wrong, we have places out in the country that are way far away from anything, but as a rule, most places are very close to a shop. And yes, public transportation is very big here. I use it all the time. The government subsidises it so its very inexpensive as well. I mean, we can fly to anywhere in Europe for under 30 quid. How much does it cost to fly from one state to the neighboring state in America? You can travel across the whole Ireland via train, return (round-trip) for 50 quid. They have buses which go anywhere that trains don't, they too run about 14-35 quid. You can get a rail pass that lets you travel all of Europe for a month for like 200. America has nothing like that. You would think if the government was really trying to reduce gas prices they would work on putting better, affordable, public transport systems in the cities. |
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We really do need a rail system, and more forms of public transportation, I pointed this out in science today and my teacher gave me a dirty look, as she always does when I make more sense than her. I pointed out, why don't they put half as much effort into getting better public transportation as they, supposedly, do for finding alternative fuel sources. It's all about demand, even if we don't have the biggest supply ever, if we have a lower demand the prices will drop drastically. |
See all that time we spent on economics when you were being home schooled is paying off. I wondered if anything was getting through your thick skull YEA.
I guess I'll be getting a call from the science department again. They still have my name on my seat? |
Nah, I scratched that out and put my name there.
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YAY IM STOOPID
Anyway, I unfortunately end-up using my car (which gets great gas mileage) a lot for various things. So, I admit that needing to plunk $20 a week into the tank isn't really solving the global problem. |
$20 a week?
Try the Uk - our car gets £50 a week Methinks thats somewhere around $100... |
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My car get's 10 miles to the gallon and has a 22 gallon gas tank, guess that's the disadvantage of driving a muscle car.
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yeah. that's why the muscle car doesn't stay your daily driver. dude, get a motorcycle for daily transportation, you could totally rock some old foreign military issue rat rodded out bike.
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In Ireland they passed a great new law this year. All SVU's have a new 2,000 euro tax slapped on them. If you want to drive an SVU you can, but your tax on the car just went up by 2,000 a year.
Same goes for other gas guzzlers. They base the car tax not just on the value of the car but the gas usage. In fact, you could buy a new Toyota Yaris or other '08 car and pay less tax than you would on a 1970's gas guzzler. Good luck selling that idea in America though. ;) |
America is simply too big for there to be practical systems of mass transit. Aside from cities like NY, our mass transportation is piss-poor. Hell Kontan lived in the center of Downtown Louisville for a while and he still had to ride a bus for literally HOURS just to get to a job that was a thirty minute car-ride away.
I was lucky enough that my job refunded most of the gas I spent driving to and from Columbus for musicals, and thus I was able to keep my gas bill down to $10 a week. Seven years ago it cost a little over $15 for a full tank of gas; Yesterday I had to pay $58.44 to fill it up. I need to move to NY city and FAST. The cost of living will be much higher but I think everything will at least even out if I don't have to drive. |
Most Americans really don't realise yet how fully screwed they really are.
Gas prices will never drop. Since bush took office, gas went from $30 a barrel to $130 a barrel. So far, the market has really not reflected this reality because corporate profits have been so high thanks to bush letting companies cut so many corners and skirt the law that they haven't had to pass on fuel price hikes to consumers. America was built with the idea of 'space' in mind. New neighborhoods are built in large sprawling areas with large, ample streets. The shopping areas are miles away, also large and sprawled out across large chunks of land. When people don't worry about gas they don't care about driving 10 minutes to buy bread or milk. When it costs them $20 to get to the market, then you have a problem. When they get to the market and the prices are double their normal price due to added fuel surcharges, thats an even bigger problem. I'm wondering if there is anyone thinking of building neighborhoods in a European style with markets located among the actual homes in walking distance to allow families the luxury of walking to everywhere they need to go without having to hop into some type of automobile? If city planners and developers would build with this idea in mind, they could eliminate much of the problem right there. |
Sternn, a rare occasion is now and I fully agree with you. Everything in America is spread too fucking far apart. I am lucky to have a bus line that travels between my work and my school, a lovely fourteen miles covered in one trip. As a college student I get to buy a monthly bus pass that lets me travel anywhere in Los Angeles county for $36. That being said, only five bus lines are of any use here. They come between every 20 minutes to every 5 minutes depending on how heavy traffic is. Rush hour is every 5 minutes, the slower times are 10 or 20 minutes. The rest of the buses are every hour. They're not always on time, and almost always packed. Some run some directions some days, and some the others. The nearest grocery store to my house is about half a mile away, and that one is a rather expensive one for my liking. The only stores I ever shop in are either five to ten miles from me in Sherman Oaks or twenty odd miles to Melrose. Public transportation here is a shambles.
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I have a question. I mean seriously, this isn't some political tirade, but a real question. ;)
On NBC news last night they said jey fuel has risen alongside of gas. They said jet fuel is now like gas double what it was last year. They also said for every $10 increase in oil means $800 MILLION more in fuel costs PER YEAR. Because of this they had some specialists saying that air travel in America could become a thing of the past. That a majority of airlines could close in the next five (5) years and that traveling by plane would be like traveling by Concorde used to be - very expensive and a service only affordable to the mega-rich. On top of this they say it will make taxis and buses also unprofitable at their current rates and make auto travel by the average American a luxury. The price of oil never drops. With China and India both having BILLIONS in population and both populations now moving into an age where everyone there is getting cars just like America, the price of oil will only continue to rise as these new players will be demanding more oil every month. So what is going to happen to infrastructure in America if people no longer can travel around? How can a man who has to drive 20 miles to work every day afford to do so if he makes just a bit over minimum wage and the travel costs for a week are more than what he makes in a month? Thats the serious issue I think politicians have yet to address and are keeping out of the media. I'm glad NBC mentioned it, but it really seems to be a doomsday scenario out there in the making. |
Thankfully the U.S. has started to embrace the idea of "planned communities" and "city centers" which place housing, office space, retail, dinging, and recreation all in same concentrated area but at this point the continuing spread of sprawl may simply be too much for the country to handle, sprawl is evil, toxic filth that is spreading like wildfire and so many people just can't see past their three acre lot to see the damage that is being done.
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I thought about getting a grant, finding a big suburb, and planting a grocery store... RIGHT NEXT TO or inside it.
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Here in Texas its a riot to see the TV goons interview someone about the woes of how much the interviewee is shelling out for gas, yet when they pan back the interviewee is in the process of refueling a freakin' monster diesel truck or SUV.
To these fuel martyrs I say: "Shut the Fuck Up! You wanted to drive that monstrosity, now yer paying for it ON TOP of whatever the monthly car bill is!" Yeah its painful for me, too, to fuel my little 4-cylinder car but when I got the thing 3 years ago I pushed for getting one that was fuel efficient b/c I figured we'd be at the current price range sooner than later. These days I'm trying to get into taking the bus to work. I had to for a few days when my car's alternator blew & it sat in the garage. Wasn't as painful as I figured it could be. I'm in good company, though. The local paper did a story on how the affluent on the far north side of town are taking mass transit into town in record numbers b/c a) they own gas guzzling SUVs & monster trucks, and b) even THEY can't afford to keep shelling out what it costs to keep one of these things going! Interesting thing about our town: about a year or so ago we celebrated to MUCH fanfare the opening of a brand new Toyota monster-truck factory, with the local politicos touting the factory would bring much jobs, etc. to our local economy. With fuel costing what it is now, and bound to get worse, WHO is going to want to keep buying these monster trucks after a time??? I can already see the signs when Toyota is running ads where they're drastically slashing prices.... Yep, that factory's days are numbered...unless they can convert to making the much more highly desired hybrids or vastly more gas efficient small cars like mine. |
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I've even noticed a strange "clarity" in the atmosphere that I've not seen since i was a child...i.e., the sky being blue from zenith to horizon.... |
On a good note - the US government just passed legislation to give Amtrak 16 billion to upgrade and extend the national rail system.
Thats a step in the right direction. But as a correspondent on CNN said, the US government really didn't have a choice. Right now, the people are getting to the point where they have to make a choice on going to work and staying home because the cost of getting to work in some cases surpasses the money they make (i.e. people making at or around minimum wage and having to travel 40+ miles to work). As the price of gas rises, so will the number of people who find they can't actually make money by going to work. This is a first in America and something no one there is dealing with, or is prepared to deal with. With people living outside large cities and having to drive 30-45 minutes in to their jobs, you can bet all the maintenance people, janitors, clerks, cinema employees, fast food employees, bar staff, etc. will find themselves in the very near future at a point where it costs more for them to get to work than they make during their shift. That means companies will have to readjust their whole design because they no longer can hire people for low wages to do entry level work. It will be interesting to see what happens here in regards to that. |
Please don't mistake me for a nationalist, (I'm not even American, I just live here at the moment, I'm a Canadian citizen) but have you even been to the States Sterrnn? I'm really not sure where you got the idea that they could build the extensive rail system they have in Europe. The geography and size are just not even comparable, I doubt it's possible without a ridiculous price tag. Don't forget you have twenty something countries contributing to Europe's rail line, whereas we have one.
While I agree that Americans are extremely wasteful when it comes to gas, I think things are improving a lot. They actually have a fairly decent elevated train here in Chicago, I can get anywhere in the city in about 30 minutes and despite what most Europeans think, people do use it, I only know three people who live in the city who actually own a car. It's the same in most of the major cities from what I hear, the two cities I travel to regularly, New York and Boston, also have acceptable bus and rail-lines. My one complaint in Chicago is while there are about 6 railroads that come into Chicago from the suburbs and one from Milwaukee Wisconsin, the suburbs are so immense, they need about double that to give everyone a decent way to get to work without a car. It's almost impossible to live in the suburbs and not own a car, which is a shame. They do have plans for a monorail system that would snake through the suburbs and then feed into Chicago, which looks very promising. |
In order for the government to see any benefit in creating a massive public transportation network, people have to be begging for it; they could supply all the transport in the world and it wouldn't do any good unless they can get large numbers of people to use it so it remains profitable. This could indeed occur in the future, however, as gas prices continue to increase.
In fact, as other people's methods of travel dry up, a few different things could happen: either very efficient public transport will reconnect the country (people would take high-speed interstate rails instead of planes, for example), or there could be a sort of balkanization to the US as regions become more isolated from each other, or people would begin to congregate within cities at an even higher rate than currently as suburbs and neighborhoods far from jobs become too expensive, leading to a boom in the pricing of housing within developed urban areas and the continued development of urban areas to meet demand, in effect creating megacities. There would probably be an increased recession in the economy as well, as transport prices for consumer goods continued to rise, as well as the inability of business-types to get around leading to decreased productivity. Those are some of the things I would be looking for in the future. This whole subject is actually very interesting, and it would be fun to do an intensive study analyzing the trends and how to counteract them with good policy. If I thought it could be profitable as well as do some good, I might try it myself. |
Here's an interesting article I found:
h t t p://www.gluckman.com/Maglev.html These trains go 500 kph; an average commercial aircraft goes between 480 and 960 kph. So while not as fast as a plane, this is nonetheless a possible substitute as means of traveling between major cities. If this did happen though, only one city in the state would get the line, and that city being the hub of interstate travel, would attract more commerce. So "hub" cities would play a larger role in a state's framework. Is something like this train at all economically feasible? A train from Shanghai to Beijing, a 600 mile jaunt, would cost 22-30 billion. For comparison, that's about as far as it is from Portland to San Francisco. Since I don't have any info on air travel development or investment and return profits over the course of that technology's lifetime, though, I can't really make any comparisons on whether that would be cost-effective. |
CptSternn - that is a good question. The thing that scares me is, even though my husband and I are no longer commuting out-of-town (we used to drive 70 miles per day round-trip, seperately b/c we had dif. schedules), the town we live in is does NOT have an efficient Mass Transit system, nor is it walk or bike-friendly (hardly any sidewalks).
I am worried it will get to the point where we need to ride bicycles a lot, which wouldn't be a problem if there were SIDEWALKS, but if we even left out neighborhood we'd be on a major road & run the risk of being hit by a car. Everything is so sprawled out in this town, and b/c it's home to a major University, the roads are always busy. They recently implemented a bus system, but the buses don't go all the way to where we work ( & cost about the same as filling up our own tanks if you add it up), so we'd still have to walk or ride a bike across three major intersections that also meet up with interstate ramps. Yeah, *bad* idea. |
The big funny this week was a news blurb about the trade in values of the SUV/Gas guzzlers- most people are fucked here also and end up upside down on their car payments.
I do have a question as SA has agreed to increase productions- teh PM says it's mroe the speculators and taxes that increases the price, not the lack of SA production... are there any indicators that the US consumption has decreased at all? The information I found varies because most studies show automotive gas only, per individual. I wonder if there is any study tracking automobile and extraneous (food supplies, shipping and manufactues) per house hold? I couldn't fing anything tha twould be a more proper gauge |
CaptSternn is right about the minimum wage thing. So far as I know, my town has an understanding that minimum wage is 5. whatever, but even summer job part time teen kids get paid at least 7 dollars an hour. It's like some weird unspoken code of fair pay. 7 dollars an hour is the most minimum pay I've heard about in my town. I've yet to get a job that pays lower than 9 dollars an hour. I'm interviewing for one that's a day job, within short walking distance of my residence, and is part/full time. Wish me luck.
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