by momzcrazy 143 Replies latest social current
Just out of curiousity we called someone to give us an estimate of what they would charge to install it and we were quoted $30,000.
Yep, that's the problem over here: you try doing something right and you still get screwed over..........I think I'm gonna get one of these to get around. It'll take me 3 hours to get to work and I'm sure the frigging trucks'll probably smash into me, but at least I won't be spending alot on gas:
I've seen an increase in scooters, especially in the center part of the city I live (I won't call it downtown...it probably doens't qualify for that name). I've also seen some SMART cars.
The problem with scooters is that outside the "downtown" area, they can't keep up with traffic and end up causing more congestion, which is kind of amazing because when you visit European cities, hundreds of scooters are zipping around all over and the cars are in the way.
American towns and cities were built to accomodate big American cars. While that was great for the last 50 years, now that people are looking to finally become more discerning in their travel fuel costs, there aren't that many options available.
I could ride a bike to work...if I didn't get killed first in rush hour, it would take me over an hour, where as now I can drive it 15 minutes or less. So to and from work would be over 2 hours instead of 30 minutes. The cost in gas is worth having that extra time to do other things.
I do ride a motorcycle, but it's more for fun than economy. It gets about 45 mpg, but it's no good on rainy days or in the winter, so the savings is minimal.
I don't pretend to have the slightest idea on how to solve the fuel cost issue...all I know is that sooner or later us Amercians are going to have to get over our love of the automobile and get used to public transportation, fuel effiecient small cars and walking/biking.
Yep. My father started on the railroad in 1950 and there were plenty of trains around then, both freight and passenger. Most stuff was hauled by rail simply because it was common sense. Over the years, the government cut back cut back cut back on rail service and let the trucking industry take over. Of course, now the highways are filled to overflowing with these gigantic trucks, the roads are a mess and fuel is through the roof. Makes perfect sense eh?
I grew up alongside the tracks. We lived in a small town and people didn't have to, nor could they all afford to drive to Toronto or any other town or city to visit - instead, they rode the train. My mother used to talk about walking to the station and taking it to visit her family. Every morning growing up I set my schedule by the whistle of the train as it went past the house..and in fact, I took the train across the country to visit my own family. The last time I checked out the same trip, the cost was so far out of reach for me, that I flew instead. sammieswife.
Wow, most of you still don't get it...
by Peter Schiff
It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court, in its ruling this week that U.S. currency is unfair to the blind, did not make the next logical step and declare it unfair to everyone who buys gasoline.
In their search for explanations as to why oil has surged past $130 per barrel, Washington, Wall Street, and the financial media are as clueless as cavemen after a freak summer snow storm. Despite the head scratching, the blame game is nevertheless in full force. Speculators and big oil companies are being trotted out as scapegoats, and increased margin requirements and taxes on windfall profits and futures trading have been mentioned as appropriate sanctions. It should be clear that this is pure farce, and that no one understands what is actually happening.
The reality is that after years of reckless consumption and dollar debasement, Americans are now being priced out of markets over which they formerly held unchallenged title. As more affluent foreigners consume more of the resources and products they previously supplied to us, Americans are being forced to cut back. The rising dollar-based price of gasoline is simply an illustration of this global trend.
Poorly concealed behind contrived government statistics, the signs of America's falling standard of living are everywhere; all one has to do is look. We are unloading SUVs for less desirable compacts, and are paying more to fly on crowded planes (where we pay to check luggage and dine only on what we bring onboard). We drink our lattes at McDonalds or not at all, and we increasingly forego dining out, trips to the mall, and vacations, just so we can scrape together enough to fill our gas tanks and kitchen pantries, pay taxes and insurance, or make credit card, mortgage or car payments.
The collective belt tightening is simply the down payment on the Government's massive bailout of Wall Street investment banks and mortgage lenders. As the Fed creates money to buy bad mortgages and other shaky securities held by banks and brokerage firms, the value of the savings and wages of everyone on Main Street will continue to fall. As a result, the costs of products previously taken for granted have begun to bite.
The various housing bills and stimulus packages now passing through Congress will add significantly to the staggering final price tag. In the end, the "free lunch" currently being dished out by Washington will be the most expensive meal ever served. The cost will be borne by ordinary Americans citizens every time they open their wallets. Four dollar gasoline is just the beginning.
For all the talk of increased global demand, few seem to understand from where it actually comes. The surge in global demand is both a function of the increased purchasing power of foreign currencies and the fact that foreigners are choosing to spend more of their incomes themselves. In other words Greenspan's famous "global savings glut" is turning into a global consumption binge, with Americans unable to crash the party. This trend will only get worse as the dollar-denominated price of just about everything that is either imported, or capable of being exported, goes through the roof.
We can look for scapegoats all we want but the simply fact is Americans are going to have to get used to a much lower standard of living. Those who have been putting all the food on our tables are finally pulling up chairs themselves. http://www.safehaven.com/article-10328.htm
I kinda think that the majority get the usage issue and all agree that it requires work but I kinda think that many of us get smacked on the nose by the reality of how much speculation, politics and corruption really have to do with it. I believe it was the Exxon CEO that once said if you take the speculation out of it all, that $70 per barrel oil was really only worth $20...He's one of many. sammieswife.
2006 was the year that oil prices came close to breaching $80 per barrel. This was despite the fact that there were no significant supply interruptions and oil demand actually fell in industrialized countries. That raises the question of what caused the spike.
It turns out there is good reason to believe that record oil prices may be due to our own strategic oil reserve, which the Bush administration may have been manipulating to drive up prices for the benefit of its clients. This is something Congress must investigate, and here is some preliminary evidence.
Any finding of manipulation would go far beyond corruption and be close to economic treason, because when oil prices increase America must pay more for its imported oil. That, in turn, increases the trade deficit and our foreign debt. Alternatively, one can think of price manipulation as the equivalent of a tax increase on American families that is paid to foreign governments, including Iran. While some small energy scandals are under investigation by Congress, the big enchilada is the strategic oil reserve, which may have been “strategically” manipulated to drive up oil prices. The key to understanding this manipulation is demand and supply and oil storage capacity.
The last three years have seen rapidly rising oil prices, and a tight oil market has meant that even small increases in demand have had large price impacts. During this period the Bush administration purposely expanded inventories of the strategic oil reserve, which rose from 600 million barrels in May 2003 to 700 million barrels in August 2005. The administration therefore increased demand by 125,000 barrels per day, and oil prices rose from 30 dollars per barrel to 70 dollars.
As oil prices rose, Wall Street became increasingly engaged in commodity speculation (the destructive effects of which is a story for another day), and this is where storage matters. As speculators entered the market the spot price of crude oil rose above the futures price. However, buying spot oil means taking delivery, which requires storage capacity. By adding to the strategic reserve, the administration not only increased oil demand but also increased storage capacity because the oil it bought was stored in the strategic reserve’s caverns. That helped speculators by adding storage capacity vital for cornering the market.
That brings us to today. Over the last month spot oil prices have been tumbling. The reason is that the market has finally run out of storage capacity, which means that all oil produced must now be immediately sold—and that has driven oil prices down. This suggests there has never been a supply shortage warranting seventy-five dollar oil, and absent the administration’s dealings, oil prices might not have risen as they did.
The story does not end here. With private sector oil storage capacity exhausted, the administration has now announced its intention to double the size of the strategic oil reserve from 700 million barrels to 1.5 billion barrels, and it plans to start purchasing 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
The result has been predictable, with the price of oil jumping from $50 to $55 per barrel over the last week (01/19- 01/24). Not only will these purchases increase oil demand, they will also provide new storage capacity needed to re-corner the market.
One last piece of evidence concerns Hurricane Katrina and the oil loan program. Following Katrina, gulf oil production was interrupted causing shortages of crude for refineries. The administration’s response was to loan crude to refiners who were to pay it back in kind. That was a huge gift to refiners who got the oil they wanted and then made a killing on the processed gasoline that was in short supply after Katrina. The proper way to handle the situation would have been to auction the oil, in which case taxpayers would have got the windfall disaster rent (excess profit) resulting from Katrina. This is because refiners would have been willing to pay a high price knowing that gas prices were high.
But there’s yet more damage. If government had auctioned the oil, it could have chosen when to buy it back. Instead, companies paid it back in kind in late 2005 and early 2006, and these payments tightened the market demand and also freed up private storage capacity facilitating further market cornering.
The oil market is full of smoke that provides perfect cover for corruption. Every price blip calls forth explanations in terms of Chinese demand, more violence in Nigeria’s delta region, cold weather, threats from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. The strategic reserve is the perfect vehicle for corruption since transactions can be cloaked in the veil of national defense. But the situation is clear. A motive exists, the bad character of the administration is known and the circumstantial evidence is strong.
Congress must investigate the strategic oil reserve, how it has been managed and what its purpose is. The recently announced expansion serves no real national security function (though that will be the justification) and will only drive up oil prices and add to the budget deficit and national debt.
One last factoid. A recent IMF study documented that oil prices in the U.S. appear to be politically manipulated, falling prior to elections—as they did in 2002, 2004 and 2006. If you are an economist you ask how that is done. The answer is the strategic oil reserve.
As long as we have protectionalist policies keeping out competition, the big oil, food, and drug companies are going to make unfair profits by putting out crap and charging top dollar while shutting out companies that will make better products. And the people are going to keep getting sicker and poorer.
I WISH there was decent public transportation in Jacksonville it's more corrupt and useless than the oil companies! It's 34 miles one way for me to get to work I take a motorcycle every single day, rain or shine. Thats just so I can afford to GO to work. The bus would be cheaper and would take me almost three HOURS one way... I can't spend six hours a day on the bus...
The real solution is Armageddon. Slashing the world's population by roughly 6 billion will ease demand, and prices will naturally fall.
I know people hate hearing this, but the oil companies are not to blame. It is the countries who produce the oil that are. The oil companies are just making more money, because demand for their product has gone up. If OPEC actually produced more oil, we would still be using a lot and making the oil companies rich off of our demand. It is simple, supply demand, if the supply is low and it is right now, the price is high. It will keep going up until demand drops, and then the price will level out. My sister runs a large RV PARK, with a store and gas station. Even with price for regular being $5.02 where she is, she is still selling as much and in some cases more, the amount of fuel as last year. To fix the high price of oil, we need to ...
1. Drill more oil in the USA, so that we can control supply better.
2. Develop more public transit.
3. Raise mileage standards.
4. Build more refineries!!!!!
If we sit back and complain and blame the oil companies for making to much money, we are doing NOTHING. Which is what we have basically done for thirty years and why things are getting worse and not better. DRILL ...
... off the coast of California
... in ALASKA!
STOP DEPENDING ON FORIEGN OIL!!!!
BS wrote:The other irony is that the only ones that can actually help lower the price (by increasing supply and reducing demand) is the goobermint. The cos want to pump more, but they can't go to a lot of areas to do that.
Huh? Sorry but the 'only' ones that can reduce demand are individuals and businesses. The 'only' ones that can increase supply are oil companies. If you don't like the price of something, and don't feel it is worth it, don't buy it. I would love to see gasoline in the US hit $5 a gallon. Even $6 a gallon would be fine with me. If you don't like it, take the bus, train, subway, or carpool.
