posted
Pfft. You won't have TIME to have a mechanic do anything. And I'd like to know where you plan to stow the kids -- in their car seats, natch.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
We're all gonna be wishing we lived closer to school and to work. Forget driving the kids to soccer practice.
Some of the choices we made back when gas was cheap can be reversed, but some we're going to have to live with. How about that ninth kid that jumped the neighbors from a minivan to a gas-guzzling Suburban?
At $4.00 a gallon it will be cheaper to burn human fat than to fire up the WHAM-MOBILE.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
A couple of weeks ago here in Salt Lake a lady dropped off her niece at school and drove off, not knowing that the little girl's coat was caught in the door.
Not funny, but another problem solved by scooters.
Oh, and most people can't shave, pick their noses, and talk on the phone at the same time while scootering.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Pay your car payment.! Pay your insurance ( car) ) Pay your insurance ( health ) Pay your rent Pay your gas Pay Your Water Pay Your phone Pay your cable Pay your triple A Pay your 3 credit cars Pay it all away!
posted
When I was at the Saudi Embassy a month or two ago, their mantra was "We want to keep the price of oil reasonable because this benefits both producers and consumers."
quote: Maybe people will start buying more efficient cars and driving less.
I've tried Sun, but I have to drive sometimes 130 miles to work. I can't ride my bike that far. I never drive for coffee and such though. Unless it's with a girl, that's different. Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Thor, maybe that's because, whatever their ethical problems, Enron knows what they're doing. They are, after all, a business, and they have to stay in business. Government, by contrast, has no competition except in highly unstable countries.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Enron intentionally caused the rolling blackouts in California just so they could increase their own profits.
You want them dictating the country's energy policy?
Ayn Rand's utopian dreams of an objectove economy don't work. Companies today are so large (as are governments) that they respond too slowly to social pressures for there to be any sort of homeostatic (societally-regulated) control of their actions.
Think of trying to servo-control the position of an army tank turret with a motor designed to spin up a computer hard-disk.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I was responding to Thor's (probably addled)complaint that after Enron stopped advising Bush his energy plan got worse instead of better. Enron's board may be despicable, but they are competent businessmen.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Competent? Maybe. But they were extremely unethical. I didn't like having to sit at home with no power for hours at a time, knowing that it was all a ploy to increase the thickness of some prick executives wallet.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
See, here in Toronto some motorists are just refusing to pay the full price for oil. They'll pay what they think it's worth and take off. I guess it's annoying people that there's >$0.10 difference per Litre depending on where you are in the city (almost 4 Litres to an american gallon).
In Nova Scotia they passed a resolution requiring gas companies to give 2 days notice before hiking oil prices.
I just keep walking the 3.5 miles too and from work. The cost of pasta hasn't gone up at all.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Correction: Oil is not at an all time high. Gas is.
If you note, Diesel is at about the same price it was 6 months ago, while gas has gone up about 20-25%.
Why?
If you raise the price of diesel, all things become more expensive to ship. The result is rampant inflation.
That would create a very small net gain for the big bosses.
If you raise just the price of gasoline, people have a harder time surviving, and demands for higher wages increase, but the over all effect is increased profits.
Add to that the ability to blame environmentalist (We wouldn't be this high, they say, if we didn't have to reformulate the gasoline to get rid of the supposedly poisonous by-products), and the oil companies have a win/win situation.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think shipping has definitely been affected. The last gallon of milk I bought cost almost $3, which seems really high to me. Unless there's a cow shortage or something.
Posts: 377 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This is the only way we will evolve to other forms of energy. We will never stop using oil until it runs out or it becomes too costly to use.
Just imagin an entire layer of the crust turned into gas... Mmmmm... *breathes deeply* Who needs a ciggy when you've got pollution! Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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*keeps paying $20 a tank and too much for shipped goods* *still locked into car loan* *doesn't know anything about alternate forms of energy* *waits for day when smarter people solve these problems*
Posts: 377 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This would be a good time for an alternate-energy Manhatten Project. Bring the best minds you can get, throw 'em in a room and heap money on them.
Can't hurt, and it might work.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Well...for someone to actually have the faintest glimmer of an idea for an energy source that might really substitute for oil.
It's not going to happen. When the oil goes, civilization will go with it. If I had any money at all, I'd be stockpiling food.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
That's the thing, it's really weird to realize most people are in a position where survival is dependent on factors we have absolutely no control over. I hate that! And I don't think being a skilled survivalist would be good enough. I think somehow, the bulk of society has to come to a solution because every man for himself can't work for the long run.
Posts: 377 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Milk price increases are not related to the gas increase.
It seems there was a glut of milk on the market a year ago.
Of course, this didn't lower the milk price we consumers pay, but the milk prices fell on the wholesale level to the point that it didn't pay to milk the cow.
As a result many dairy farmers sold off their cows (or made 1/4 pounders out of them.)
Now, with many fewer cows, there is a shortage of milk, so the price has gone up.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Got another problem. The amount of diesel being used/purchased is comparatively flat. So the same production facilities/capacity delivers an amount of fuel close to users' need. If the refineries keep those same facilities running the same way as they were in the past, the price run-up more closely tracks just the rise in crude oil prices.
However, SUVs et al are guzzling MUCH more gasoline than the cars they replaced. Since they were the fastest growing segment of new car purchases, the demand for gasoline is increasing sharply. Because US refineries run at near full production capacity, there are only two ways to increase the gasoline supply: Import gasoline from nonUS refineries; which boosts world gasoline prices. Plus gasoline is more expensive to transport for importation than crude oil, so that transportation cost must be also be passed on to the consumer price. And/or convert USfacilities which currently produce diesel over to gasoline production. Which means that those facilities would have to be shut down during the during the conversion process, again adding to cost that must be passed onto the consumer. Such a conversion would also decrease diesel supplies, leading to increased demand pressure which would cause a price rise in diesel.
An increase in diesel prices would also lead to increased transportation cost, which in turn leads to increased cost of delivery of consumer goods to stores (and gas stations). For many products, especially items found in supermarkets et al, the transportation cost already exceeds the manufacturers's cost to actually make the product. Again leading to a cost passed onto the consumer. Such additional costs would also disproportionately hit the poorer segment of society since food and other necessities make up a larger portion of their budget. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Speaking of which, it is somewhat misleading to compare gas prices based solely on inflation-adjusted dollars. The average household income for the lower three quintiles (60%) of wage earners has decreased in inflation-adjusted dollars. And the lower on the economic scale one looks, the greater the decrease. For minimum-wage workers in terms of hours-worked per gallon of gasoline, the true inflation-adjusted cost (ie the decrease in pay compared to the increase in the cost of goods in inflation-adjusted dollars) is currently equivalent to more than $4.25 per gallon. MUCH more if one is talking in terms of discretionary income, since they pay a higher percentage of their total income for necessities.
In terms of discretionary income -- ie money left over after paying for food, rent/mortgage, utilities, medical/dental care, childcare (for single-working-parent and dual-worker households), car insurance (which is mandatory for drivers), and taxes -- everyone in the lower 60% pays a higher price in terms of hours-worked per gallon of gasoline than that reflected by comparing the current cost to the highest cost in inflation-adjusted dollars.
posted
I heart that yesterday President Bush declined to use our strategic reserves to fight the increased cost of oil, blaming the entire problem on Democrats for, "Not passing my energy plan three years ago."
That Energy plan, which was probably put together by the oil companies including Ken Lay of Enron (but we don't know because VP Cheney refuses to allow anyone to see his guest list to the meeting where it was ironed out), and mostly included drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, which wouldn't have begun producing its limited amount of oil, for several more years.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote: Does anyone remember the SUV provision Bush put into his tax cuts where the largest SUV's could be WRITTEN OFF ?????
I don't know if this is related to your statement above... but..
a co-worker of mine (rich kid) has a huge SUV that was manufactured to be compatible with running on 85% Ethanol fuel (if desired -- it can also burn regular unleaded.)
There are two fuel stations locally that offered the 85% Ethanol fuel (because we have an Ethanol plant nearby). The thinking, of course, is that Ethanol is better for the environment and local agrarian economy.
This co-worker was once bragging to me about his SUV, and I mentioned the station that I always fill up offers 85% ethanol for vehicles like his, and I asked if he burned it.
He said, "Hell no! I'm not going to drive out of the way to get fuel. I only got it equipped for Ethanol in order to get the tax break on it!" (or tax write-off, I don't remember which phrase he said).
I was disgusted by that attitude. He brought a gas-guzzling SUV with this enhancement just for the tax break, not because he really cares at all that Ethanol might be a better choice...
posted
The feature article in this month's National Geographic is called "The End of Cheap Oil," it's very comprehensive. There's also an article about the Shiites in Iraq, together they're a good perspective on timely issues.
Posts: 377 | Registered: May 1999
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Color of what?
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Unless it's with a girl, that's different. 
