Smells like someone has gas.
I’m sorry. That was offensive to people who do not believe it smells like someone has gas. Flog me now sir!
In all honesty, there is no smell; I just wanted a stupid post title about gas prices. Because I realized that we’ve never talked about that here and I have a tiny hunch that it’s an important issue to a lot of people, more important than to me because you probably actually do crazy shit like “leave the house” or “drive to work.”
I’m lucky; I work at home and I’m antisocial. So most of my fuel expenditures come in the form of trips to Taco Bell (3.2 miles) and the dog park (1.1 miles). Whenever I am dragged out of the house against my will, as when happens whenever Rupert wants to have a social life with our friends or have a nice meal, he drives.
We’re not allowed to speak out loud about his fuel bills because it makes him cry. He has to commute to work 40 minutes each way so it ain’t pretty, I know that much.
Anyway. So I fill up my tank maybe, oh, once a month? Tops? The last several times, I didn’t pay attention to the total for some reason, just filled up, paid at the pump with debit card, and beat it. But on Saturday, on my way home from taking Rupert to the airport, I realized my low-fuel light was flashing and I was almost empty so I stopped and filled ‘er up. This time I watched the counter.
It was like a LIVING NIGHTMARE.
$20…$30…okay wow…$40…Jesus on an oil rig, make it stop!…$45…what the fuh-huh-HUCK?…$52.87.
People. I drive a smallish Honda that has a small tank and great gas mileage, and this nearly made me pass out. Almost $53 for a freakin’ tank of gas?!
So I’m dying to know: just how butt-hurtin’ has this been lately for you guys? Especially if you drive a bigger vehicle and have to commute and run your kids all over town. I’m guessing we’re talking DefCon-5 level butt-hurt.
I remember the good old days, back in 1988 when I got my driver’s license and drove a shit-brown ‘76 Dodge Duster. I had to pay for all my own gas, and I had a minimum-wage after-school job, and it was less painful to fill that bitch up than it is to fill up my Honda now even though I make at least 20 times as much money.
Remember that? Remember when you could watch the pump counter thingy going up and the gallon amount would be equal to or less than the dollar amount? You knew that if you had five bucks, you could get about five gallons. Bam. Now it’s more like, you have five bucks, you may as well NOT EVEN BOTHER, LOSER.
There’s stuff on Hot Air about it, including a link to a statement by the future president if we’re lucky some day, Sarah Palin:
“It is absurd that we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from one foreign country to buy oil from another. It is a threat to our national security and economic well-being. It is well past time for America to develop our own supplies.”
Yeah, a little bit.
“Butthurt” merely scrapes the surface of my pain. I fill up 3 times a week, drive 145 miles A DAY because Mrs. N. wanted to live in the country.
Yeah, my gas bill? Roughly $450 a month.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:51 pmESTThanks to the ESO’s car taking a nose dive, she’s now driving my truck, which means I’m on my backup ride…
A 1964 Chevy C-10 that gets eight miles to the gallon. That means that, for every mile I drive, I’m spending at least $0.50. To put that into perspective…
Drive to work (11 miles): $5.50
Drive home (11 miles): $5.50
Drive to a customer (4-15 miles, round trip, if they’re in town, usually happens at least once, maybe twice a day): $2-$7.50/customer
After a week, I’m spending a minimum of $55 in gas and that’s if I never have to actually go anywhere. If I do go somewhere, you can add an extra $10-$75 per week until her car gets fixed. So, we’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of $200+/month in gas just to get to work and back.
I’m not happy.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:54 pmESTI drive 45 minutes to and from work, and even though I drive a diesel Jetta and it’s great on fuel, our fuel budget went from $300/mo (including normal family driving) to $425/mo (just me getting to work and hubby driving his motorcycle), in a very short time span.
We’re seriously considering having me quit my job, because really, I’m basically working to pay for daycare, fuel and the car insurance.
addition - Also, I live in Canada, so right now I’m paying about $1.38/litre for diesel, which my husband worked out to over $5.40/gallon (he is the family calculator), most of which is taxes, some tax on tax.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:56 pmESTYep, it sucks. My Turbo Beetle requires Premium gas for my 50-mile each way commute. It gets good mileage (about 30 mpg), but at $50 a tank twice a week, I’m feeling some pain. I think we have some of the highest prices in the nation here in San Diego, which adds to the suck. I don’t go anywhere but work, if I can help it.
Just start drilling in Alaska and off the coasts already. Seriously.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:00 pmESTUck. It’s kicking my butt. I drive 1995 Saab 900 convertible and I don’t look at the ticker anymore, it hurts too much. Last time looked, I put $70.00 in the tank (we’re paying around $4.25 in Seattle).
However, it still costs me less to drive to work (15 miles round trip - $1.13 of gas) than to take the bus ($3.50).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:02 pmESTI feel your pain Rachel…or rather my girlfriend feels your pain as she pays about $60 to fill up.
I on the other hand pay $25 a week to fill up. I drive an ‘05 Kia Rio 12 gallon tank. I bought the car last July and I have always paid about $25 to fill it up. When I let my tank get really low (touching the empty line) I pay about $30, can anyone explain why this is the case? I just am not paying more for gas than I was a year ago even though the price goes up…?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pmESTOh, and yay! that things are back to normal at Rachel’s house, and the jackass atheists are gone. The nice atheists can stay and play. You have the best commenters ever! I’m not nearly so articulate, so I’m mostly just an observer, but I’ve been reading and laughing and crying and being outraged at the idiots that thought they could come poop in the sandbox.
I’m still praying for Joe and family. And you never cleared up that comment about future in-laws. I’m just saying.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pmESTYeah, I just spent the weekend taking the kids to fun stuff (a candy factory with the visiting cousins, and an aquarium) and I think each trip was $40 just for the gas. It’s nice that the factory tour was free, but OUCH. We can’t go anywhere that actually costs, you know, money. Because all the budget for “fun stuff” has to pay for the gas to get there.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:05 pmESTFar be it for me to contradict the Empress, but we have talked a bit about this recently, when Maxine Waters proposed nationalizing oil companies. Here is what I wrote then:
All you have to do is look at Venezuela’s recent nationalization of oil companies to realize what a profoundly stupid idea this is. The best way to address the energy crisis is:
1. Issue permits for new nuclear power plants and arrange tax incentives to have them built.
2. Issue permits for new oil refineries (the last major refinery built in this country was built in 1976).
3. Open the Eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico for oil exploration and production.
4. Open the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for oil exploration and production.
5. Don’t drill ANWR. Leave it as a strategic reserve.
6. Provide tax breaks to encourage technology development in solar and offshore wind power.
7. Don’t form any sort of government-funded initiative to develop any of these new technologies. Just let the capitalists work their magic.
8. Stop using corn to make ethanol, because it’s just stupid. If you can do it with some kind of weed like kudzu and still have a net energy gain, give that a shot.
9. Don’t assess windfall taxes on the oil companies. That will simply discourage investment to find new fields offshore, increasing reliance on imports.
10. Vote out of office any politician who is so deeply ignorant of economics as to suggest oil nationalization.
There. Simple.
If Congress passed legislation addressing only items 2 and 3, the price for oil would drop $10-15 a barrel the next day. To add to the items above, three more things would also cause the price of oil to drop.
1. Increase interest rates a full point (at least). This generally strengthens the dollar against foreign currency.
2. Lower the federal tax rates by 2-3 points in each tax bracket. This will stimulate the economy and counteract the slowing effect that an increase in interest rates usually has.
3. Submit and approve a balanced federal budget. Since this is an election year, don’t look for this to happen any time soon, if ever. The longer the Feds wait, the more painful it is going to be when they are forced to do something.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pmESTAbout three months ago, I was stuck in traffic in my Explorer, watching the car-poolers whiz by in the HOV lane. I said to myself, “Self, I wants me some o’ dat!” Here in Virginia, hybrids can drive in (most) HOV lanes with only the driver, so I up and bought me one o’ dem dere Toyota Priuses.
So I find myself whizzing past all those other poor dumb suckers that I used to be one of, and going from 12 mpg to 49 mpg is just…awesome-y goodness. I think I just felt a tingle going down my leg!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pmESTIt takes 50 bucks to fill the tank of my Hyundai, but thankfully only have to fill the tank every third week, thanks to a short commute, great gas mileage and riding my bike to work at least three times a week. My wife walks ten minutes to her office.
The funny thing is we’re planning a three thousand mile trip to the Left Coast this summer. I’m hoping we have the highways all to ourselves.
But I agree, drill ANWR like a cheap prom date. We’ve got shitloads of our own oil, not only in AK, but in Montana, Norht Dakota, Wyoming and off our coasts. Yes it would take several years to reap the benefits, but if it had been done a decade ago we already would be.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:15 pmESTYes. You’ve been lucky to avoid feeling the pain many of the rest of us feel daily. I have a 55 mile daily commute so the only way I can reduce the pain from high gasoline prices is to practice efficient driving. My regular commute car has a stick shift, so I coast downhill whenever possible, upshift early, etc. Still, I get about 35 mpg in my everyday commuter, so I only have to fill up weekly. The upside to high has prices is that a lot of folk who drove SUVs to work by choice are leaving the monster wagons at home.
While I would love to vote Ms. Palin into office this year, we seem to be stuck with two candidates who spout idiotic policy lines like suing OPEC and taxing “Big Oil” to pay for more alternative energy research. Some alternative energy research should be government-funded, but it seems like the biggest problem we have as a country is an unwillingness to tap the oil resources we already know of, including ANWAR, the continental shelves on both coasts and oil shale in Western states.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:15 pmESTDrill. Drill. Drill. Hell, drill in my backyard. I don’t give a crap. Just do it now and to any enviro-wenie that says not to can stop using any petro derived product right now.
This is a Congressional problem. Call your senator. Tell them to tell the enviro-weenies to flag off.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:17 pmESTwhere I am, and I apologise for not knowing how to convert to gallons, gasoline 95 costs $1.15 a liter.
That is very expensive, specially because our minimum wage (what most people earn, we’re the most unequal country in Europe) is…. 400 dollars.
You read correctly.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:17 pmESTCollege student, 45 minutes to an hour to get to school, same back, three times a week. It’s not quite reached the point of “it would be cheaper to move near campus” (no dorms; it’s an off-shoot from the main campus that’s basically only here for science related majors because there’s all sorts of Gulf Coast research crap) but it’s getting close. (Were it not for the fact Katrina ate so much housing…)
It costs me about $60 to fill up from the lowest I usually let my tank get, which is basically a week of school - almost $20 a trip. Which is part of why I’ve crammed this summer full to make fewer trips in the fall and spring (my last semesters).
I drive a crappy old truck but it gets decent mileage if I don’t fly. But I’m pretty sure the next car I get is going to be a Honda Civic. Maybe even a hybrid.
Screw the environment, I just want to save money.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:18 pmESTThe family of Iggy has a pair of gas guzzling SUVs. So yeah Iggy has been thinking about getting out ye olde moutain bike to ride his happy ass to work cuz he’s “Sick of this shit”
What really irks me isn’t the cost of fuel. Its the reason it costs so fucking much….
You can blame three sources for this situation….
1 Creditors and Lenders who think its just great to give people loans that are considered high risk to by houses and plasma TVs and gas guzzling SUVs.
2 Stupid fucking people who can’t live inside thier fucking means and who default on loans. I’m sorry but I have no sympathy for weasels who by 250,000 dollar houses that they can’t afford and then go crying about how they can’t afford it.
3 The money printers at the FED who felt it was necessary to devalue our currency by cutting interest rates and handing out loans to the point that nobody wants the US Dollar anymore all in a vain attempt to prop up stupid banks and mortgage companies esentially rewarding their stupid business activites.
Bottom line, in a capitalist society if you fuck up you fail, and if you kick ass you succeed. Its how it works, its cruel, its darwinian, and its how things should be! If those companies responsible for this mess would have been allowed to fail somebody smarter than they were would have come in and bought up all of the stupidty at a much lower value and made money off of it. Its what smart people do. Would it have sucked for some people? Yes, but I call it a learning expirience. Wisdom is almost always earned the hard way.
Instead we have 4 dollar a gallon gas, and runaway food prices, and a weak economy, and we’re being laughed at by pretty much everybody.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:18 pmESTWe should have reacted the first time a foreign country nationalized an American oil firm by treating it as a de facto declaration of war. Spank the first few, and the others will be good.
And building more refineries, as well as eliminating, for all time, “boutique” blends of gasoline (one blend for the entire country, IOW) would also help a lot.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:18 pmESTChevy Silverado 15 mpg
34 gallon tank at 4.249$=
144$ to fill up!!!!!
60 miles to and from work=
17$/day 85$/week
June 11th, 2008 at 2:19 pmESTJUST TO GO TO WORK!!!!!!!
Oh, and Mata Hari: A gallon is about 3.79 liters. So about $4.36 a gallon, which is more than I paid last time (3.95 I think). Do you know what percent of that is tax?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:20 pmESTHah! Which pretty well describes The Boss — now! For which we do thank Jesus on his exalted oil rig, because up until February of last year, T.B. was commuting 1 1/2 hours — yup, 56 miles each way — to his old jorb. Talk about dodging a bullet!
Homeschooling, on the other hand, is a misnomer. When we moved to the very middle of the middle of nowhere, 10 yrs. ago, gas was just barely $1/gal — lessons in town? No problem!
So now, we live an hour from the dance classes, 45 minutes from the harp teacher, and a 30 minute pull each way with the (BRAAAAAAAPPPPPPP!) F-250 Powersrtoke Deisel, to the riding barn.
Oh, and poor College Girl and her DSB (dear, sweet boy) live 1 1/2 hours apart — lots of telecourting, sigh!
Last time we filled the car, it was $46 and change — next time will be worse — it was up to $3.95 yesterday!
Truck? About $90 last time — I’m trying to learn to hyper-mile a manual pickup with a big, fat horse pulling behind it. ( She may get herself sold yet :(. )
Yes! Talk about a real woman — that’s one, right there!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:21 pmESTI bike everywhere! Mwahaha infinite MPG!
Where I am getting hurt is in the increased costs of, like, everything. What is milk up to now? $11 a gallon? That’s criminal.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:23 pmESTI keep two cars fueled on roughly $120 per month. My daily driver is a little Saturn–12 miles roundtrip to work translates to just over $30 every three weeks. The minivan (it hurts just to type that) eats the rest for family trips (parks, groceries, normal parent stuff). I count myself blessed.
Drill here, drill now. Build more refineries.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:23 pmESTI started to ride the bus back when gas got over $2 a gallon. I absolutely love it and wouldn’t go back to driving to work if it went back to $0.35 a gallon. It’s my morning nap all the way in while the driver deals with the nutcase Austin drivers.
We have a Coralla and a Dodge mini-van. We pretty much only drive the Corolla because it only has small tank and gets over 30 mpg. The van is just for special events and just sits in the drive way 99% of the time.
But I remember 1979 all too well. Hours spent in gas lines waiting to buy 8 gallons maximum once a week (if you were lucky).
I thank God every day that I can afford to buy gas and that it is readily available. I remember the alternative, and I can adjust my lifestyle.
Drill here. Drill now. Screw the Demon-rats!!!!!!!!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:26 pmESTTry buying formula for your spawn sometime
June 11th, 2008 at 2:26 pmESTOne quick plug — even though I’m sure not everyone here is a Newt fan — it can’t hurt to sign his
Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less
petition to Congress!
SnowDog,
June 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pmESTYes — go nukes!
I somehow missed your kudzu reference (8.5) the last time you posted your excellent plan. Kudzu Ethanol would be much better than just letting goats transform it into CO2 and methane!
There is a way around that, you know, for those who can manage it — just sayin’ ;).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:29 pmESTYes there is
and yes we do
but it still sucks ass to see it cost that much!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pmESTwhat snowdog said!
everyone needs to call their congressman today and every week until they fix this problem…tell them to drill fast and drill often…
I suspect if wachel said it should be so then I think it would be so….
June 11th, 2008 at 2:33 pmESTRachel,
I am fairly lucky in that I only live about five miles from the department and don’t burn a whole lot of gas on that, but I do an awful lot of driving on my days off for personal errands and errands for the girlfriend.
We made a trip to Oklahoma City for business,(for her)Sunday. Since I would be reimbursed by her employer for gasoline, I filled up my Explorer Sport Trac before leaving (a little over half a tank) for $64.00. When we got back I filled up agains so we could calculate fuel expense for the short trip…$68.00, with me averaging 16.43 mpg. That’s $134.00 in one day that I put into my tank, without ever going much below 1/2 tank!
At the department, we are being asked to restrict mileage while on patrol (think about that one). We are also asked to not idle the cars while running radar or doing something that requires a lot of time spent stationary. This has led to cars having to be jumpstarted while working accidents, etc. and having to run their emergency lights for a time (thus running down the battery with the engine off).
June 11th, 2008 at 2:35 pmESTHow about Sarah Palin for VP?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:36 pmESTWell, I don’t have to drive much, and I’m anti-social, so I only put about 11,000 miles a year on my Sentra. At 38 mpg. But now I’ll really piss everyone off.
I don’t have to pay for my gas. Mwaaahahaha.
No, I’m not stealing it from my neighbor. Not regularly, anyhow. About 3 1/2 years ago, my bosses offered me a comapany gas card in lieu of a full raise. Best. Career. Decision. Ever. Technically, every time the price of gas goes up, I get a raise. Heh.
I wonder just how much higher it has to get before we start stomping mudholes in some people’s asses? By God, if France can power their whole country with Nuke power without fucking it up, you know we can.
Build Nuke Plants. Drill EVERYWHERE. Build new refineries. Do you realize we import not just oil, but 30% of our gasoline? What do people expect when no one is allowed to build new refineries?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:38 pmESTI commute 100 miles round trip four or five days a week. I have to wear a diaper now because my sphincter is so shredded I’ve lost all bowel control.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pmESTHi Rachel.
oops double posted. sorry bout that y’all.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pmESTDon’t look at me! I can’t afford it.
I steal it from the pump on my in-laws farm when they’re at their vacation home.
Liar and a thief. Yeah, I own it — cuz’ really, have you seen the price of gas lately? If this keeps up, I will have violated all 10 commandments for a friggin’ gallon of go-juice.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pmESTKind of makes me wish I was an atheist, you know, that whole “thou shalt not” thing …
As the saying goes necessity is the mother of invention…
Also
Drastic times call for drastic measures…
Once things get bad enough, people will change, and policies will change with them.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pmESTBack in the very early 60’s - just before I went into the Army - I drove a 57 Chevy. I always shopped at the Sunoco station, and during the week I filled up with mid-level regular. On Friday night, though, I’d fill it up with their Super-Premium 260. At one point, a lot of us got really upset because they raised the price of the super-duper, top of the line, most expensive gas ———–all the way from .259 to .269 per gallon. How the hell, we wondered, could we have any fun if they were going to keep jacking up the price of gas that way?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:43 pmEST[I also remember a gas war when regular went down to nine (9) cents a gallon.
What I love are the Congress weenies saying (and I’m paraphrasing here) “drilling off shore or in the ANWR won’t do any good, it would take 7-10 years for the oil to come online.” I’d like to say no shit Sherlock but how much do you think oil will cost in those 7-10 years if we don’t start drilling now! Fuckin’ morons, that’s why we’re in this mess now because we havn’t been drilling much in North America for 25 years.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:49 pmESTI feel rather fortunate. About a year ago, I saw the writing on the wall, and transferred from the store I worked at (total commute: 30 miles) to one a mile away (total commute: 2 miles, 5 minutes).
It was a lateral move, I didn’t take a raise or even a promotion. But I figured at the time that I was saving $180 a month just in gas. That’s a hell of a lot more, now.
I drive an Escort that gets 30 mpg. I don’t fill up but every couple weeks or so. My tank is 10 gallons, and last time I filled up it took $38. Ouch. But I imagine had I not taken that transfer, I’d be in a real pickle now.
However, there is a small downside: Mom lives 40 miles away on 90 acres. Round trip to visit her, just to help her around the house each week: 80 miles. Total cost just to see my mom: damn near $8.
The other day I caught O’Reilly on the radio saying something to the effect that Congress needs to step in and impose price controls…WTF?
It’s official: O’Reilly is a complete moron. I could be excused for saying something like that, because I was like 6 at the time, but what’s his excuse for not remembering what happened the last time price controls were put on gas? Well, since I don’t personally recall it, I asked my mother. Yes, as you all probably guessed, it meant waiting for an hour just to fill up.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:51 pmESTMr. Adam Lawson, thank you for doing the math for me.
The Government eats up 63.9%… yes, Sir, it’s 3rd World in here.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:51 pmESTHi Rachel.
I wonder if anyone has contingency planned the requirements of having electric cars. Weren’t there multiple regional blackouts recently because too many people were watching tv with their air conditioners on, their fridges wide open and goatse anal routing tools plugged into 220? What is gonna happen when we’re all charging out begleymobiles? I am all for that stuff but let’s not rush in. I read that the mercury in CFLs is a bad bitch to be around if they break. And that we should put them in baggies and take them somewhere special when they burn out. Yeah, maybe I should change my name to Debbie Downer.
I agree with Chuck Norris .
Lets blow our oil wad now before oil is fuckin’ worthless. It is only a matter of time before physics geek develops a mass producable external combustion near perpetual motion engine that can run on methane. Instead of MPG it’ll be MPF, or better yet MPT. (Miles Per Fart or Miles Per Turd)
June 11th, 2008 at 2:51 pmESTgregg’s keyboard to God’s ear.
After the past couple of weeks I am totally in love with Rachel. Seriously, she should have been continued on the next girl. And then in swoops Sarah Palin like another Valkrie of Sanity, Reason And Hotness. What’s a poor lad to do? (Considering that Rupert could turn me into a pretzel, at least part of the question is obviously rhetorical.)
She’d make a freaking awesome veep.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pmESTI could win this particular victim competition hands down: 4 work vans, eight jobsites all 50-100 miles apart, way out west where you have to drive to have enough work; but I don’t want to play today because yesterday I paid the gas credit cards, and today I’m just trying to forget…
June 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pmESTWhew! Thank goodness we invaded another country to steal their oil.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pmESTRachel,
It costs me over 130 bucks to fill up and I get 12-14 mpg. If my truck wasnt paid for I would have to consider getting rid of it. If you want get really mad have a look at these gems:
1. China and India drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (not even 120 miles off the Coast of Florida). I democratic congress in all it’s wisdom will not allow us to drill there over environmental concerns. But uh, China and India are known for taking care of their waste especially in our coastal waters!
Link:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm
2. You can take 100,000 gallons of diesil fuel, add 100 gallons of soy-diesel, call the whole thing BioDiesel, and the US Government will give you $100,100 as a subsidy.
Now, I think this is bad enough. However, clever Europeans have figured out that if they ship 100,000 or more to the US, add some soy-diesel, get the subsidy, then return the fuel to Europe they can outprice the regular diesel and STILL make a hefty profit.
How about that? American taxpayers subsidising cheaper diesel in Europe. This is not made up, or paranoia, this is very real, and it is called a splash and dash, and it is a side-effect of what is known as the Blender’s Credit.
Links:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0608/p02s01-usec.html?page=1
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/21/splash_dash/
http://thehill.com/business–lobby/finance-panel-set-to-close-splash-and-dash-loophole-2007-06-19.html
This government (republican and democrat alike) is fucking us so hard and all we do is bend over and take it.
It is about damned time we get pissed off and do something about.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:57 pmESTWell, I drive the GF’s car to work, because the PA Turnpike is a parking lot for all practical purposes.
MY car is a Subaru WRX, which she uses to go to work…
Difference is, the WRX is a Manual Trans, and REQUIRES Super. Even in Jersey, that leaves a BIG dent in the wallet…
and the manual trans makes it impractical to use that for the PA Turnpike anyway.
Now if the NJ State workers would finish the work on US1 where it goes to PA, so I could run my bike in to work? At least it would offset the medical bills later… (Motorcycle riders = “Organ donors” in ER slang…)
June 11th, 2008 at 2:57 pmESTIt worked out fine if it wasn’t for all the damn Iraqis living there!
June 11th, 2008 at 2:57 pmESTI can haz ANWAR?
Your ANWAR - it has an oil flavur. Give me it.
I carpool, so that cuts my price per gallon from $4.50 to $2.25.
But for the weekends, we just now started walking to the store, two blocks from our house, rather than drive. And anything that isn’t absolutely essential that I feel like buying is soundly slapped down in my head with a stern ‘No, that’s gas tank money now.’
And our buying habits at the store have changed, since prices are gas-price driven. More house brands and generics. By the way, Ralph’s brand coffee is purely for caffiene purposes -there is not one pleasureable millisecond to be had from that can of scraped-off radiator shavings they call coffee.
How many miles per gallon does the short bus get, I wonder?
June 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pmESTWoodie!
Capatlism hard at work there….
Make a stupid policy and smart people will use it to fuck you over….
tee hee
June 11th, 2008 at 3:00 pmESTI am all about capitalism, dont get me wrong. what I am not all about is the government using my tax dollars to subsidize the rest of the world.
Every last one of us should be taken outside and kicked in the balls (or another tender area for the ladies) for electing these ass hats.. We have done this to ourselves.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pmEST32 mile round trip to work - mixed surface roads and freeway driving. My ‘94 Honda Accord 5 speed gets about 23 MPG, so that’s about a fill-up every 8 days or so counting weekends.
I started using some of the hyper-miling techniques (low RPMs and coast like a mofo whenever you can) about halfway through my last tank of gas and got 26 MPG on that fill-up. I’m hoping for 30 MPG on this tank. The plus is that if I can get 30 MPG that saves me buying about 10 gallons of gas a month. The minus (which, if you’re passive-aggressive like me, is really another plus) is that it takes TIME to drive slower and coast a lot and it really irritates the rest of the folks on the road (How DARE you drive the speed limit!!!). There are a couple of spots on my commute that I can coast for a mile or more.
I’ve started noticing how much gas other people are wasting by continuing to accelerate to the red lights and then braking. Who knew it took so little to feel so superior?
June 11th, 2008 at 3:03 pmESTI ride a motorcycle everyday and get about 45 mpg. I end up spending about $10-12 on gas a week.
Oh, yeah, here in Colorado motorcycles can also ride in the HOV lanes. So everyday I zoom past all the cagers, to work and home, getting my 45 mpg.
Now come winter I will be hurting, because my transportation on snowy days is a 15 year old pick-up that cost $65.00 dollars to fill the last time I filled it. About 4 months ago. You know, before the latest surges in gas prices.
Btw, this is one reason why I am looking at moving to California in the near future. The gas may cost more there but I will be able to ride the motorcycles year round. Yea!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:04 pmEST$4.75 a gallon here in my part of California. Maybe I can get some of that sweet mortgage bailout action from the feds by taking out a really stupid mortgage to pay for gasoline.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:05 pmESTOK, Here’s the fix. And, remember, my initials not only stand for “Robert Walker” but also for “Right Wing” . . .
Remember one of the important rules of capitalism is to punish a behavior you don’t want by taxing it. So, you don’t want people to smoke? Put ten bucks a pack in taxes on cigarettes. You WANT people to smoke? Remove the taxes on cigarettes!
Now, onto gasoline and what it’s derived from–light, sweet crude oil. We know from their own admission (watch CNBC’s weekday morning financial shows if you don’t believe me) that oil traders are speculating 50 to 60% of the price of oil. So, you want to stop this? Here it is:
Assign an IRS agent and an armed, badged federal marshall to each oil trader at the NYMEX (New York Mercantile Exchange). Every time they go over $100 a barrel, take 100% of the money above $100. If the price of oil goes over $100 a barrel for an hour or more (cumulative on a daily basis), there is a $25 a barrel penalty, thus rendering the cost of a barrel of oil at $75/bbl.
That will be the incentive to keep the price below $100/bbl. The other incentive? Well, if they think this is too extreme, then finding traders bodies floating in the East River is the other “alternative.”
The choice is simple. The oil speculators get to eff all of us, so we find a way eff all of them!
The money picked up by the IRS gets rebated to the taxpayers, after the IRS and federal agents pick up administrative costs to run the program. A bloodless revolution! No AK-47s! And, capitalist to the core!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pmESTRW Donn, no.
That’s fascism and it sucks.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pmESTWe also saw the writing on the wall last year. Had a 2002 Chevy Silverado 4×4. Beautiful, paid for truck. Traded it on a 2005 Sentra, even got money back from the dealer! Try that now! Not a chance in hell. Anyway, went from 15 mpg to 33 mpg. I drive 6 miles RT, my wife drives the same 6 mile RT. My company pays for my bus pass and I happen to live 3 miles from the park and ride. It’s a 20 mile trek to my job in downtown Phx. On the bus it takes 45 min in the carpool lane. Since it’s a commuter bus, no dregs of society to deal with, only professional working types of folk. (yes, I must be a bigot and a racist, whatever) I’ve noticed since gas topped 3.50/gal, ALL the busses going downtown and coming back are FULL. Standing room only full. Lately, I’ve dropped my wife halfway to work and she walks the rest of the way and I meet her at the drop point and drive her home after work. Our Caravan barely sees the light of day right now. I’m threatening to get the bike tires pumped up and find a route to the park and ride to quit driving all together. Laziness, I gots it.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:10 pmESTI live in the DPRC (Democratic Peoples Republic of California) in an isolated area. The Chevron station this morning was at $4.65 a gallon. I have about a 10-mile daily commute, so it is still not to bad, but it cost over $60.00 to fill up my tank (16-gallon) for the first time in my life recently. Diesel here is at about $5.20 per gallon. It doesn’t put me in the butt-hurt yet, but it did make me reevaluate my vacation plans. Normally I drive to Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Vegas on a loop over a 10-day period for my summer vacation, visiting family and friends. I don’t know if I’ll do that this year, with the cost of gas being what it is.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pmESTI’m a full-time grad student and mother of four. The closest school to provide my program is 30 miles, one-way. The semester let out just in time to ease our wallet, but I opted to forego a required internship this summer for one over the course of the fall and spring to avoid gas prices.
Even then, I chose an internship I didn’t want because it was closest to home and we can’t really downsize from a minivan. I’m filling up every other week right now and it’s costing around $72 to do so. Once school begins again, I’ll be back to probably two fillups a week and I have no idea where it will come from. Husband works about 17 miles away and drives a little car with good gas mileage but it’s still costing $50 to fill that, too.
I don’t give a frack what they do to fix the problem, but I wish they’d do it soon.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pmESTWoodie!
I agree with your assessment. Amazing the decisions people make when it isn’t their money they are spending huh?
This is a prime example why I think Government should only pave interstate highways and build main battle tanks. They have a tendency to fuck up everything else.
WEEZ GOT TENKS AN U DUZZINT!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:12 pmESTSO DER!
Oh dude. When I started to drive (1996 O_O) I don’t think gas was even 1 whole dollar a gallon. When it started with the over $3 thing, I was ok. I could make my tank last on one fill up every paycheck. (every 2 weeks) Now, though, NOW, I have to fill up like 3 times a week. Do I suddenly drive a ginormous tank? Nope, 99 Chevy Cavalier right here. What happened is that I am now working 7 days a week (75 hrs a week) and my son is out of school, so I have to drive him to and from his grandmother’s when I work 4 out of those 7 days. (she’s about 40 minutes each way -from work and home- in case you were wondering) I put roughly $55 into my tank every time I fill up. So that’s what… Roughly $165 A WEEK in gas. I’m an Emergency Medical Dispatcher in Michigan (the ghetto to be specific) so that right there should tell you I don’t make shit for money. These gas prices have me seriously wondering how much longer I can afford to work cuzz if they go up much more, I’m likely to put myself (even more) into debt.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:15 pmESTAs I stood filling up my tank this morning, I noticed the gas price was $4.20 per gallon and thought to myself, “Yeah, I must be high to drive a V8 sports car with fuel at these prices!” My story isn’t so sobby compared with the others, but I’ll weigh in anyway. 40 mile round-trip commute each day. Luckily I’m anti-social and don’t drive much on the weekends, but I’m still filling up once a week for about $70.
Gas prices are FTL.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:22 pmESTYeah, it didn’t used to cost so much, and a coke was a nickel.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:25 pmESTYeah, and $300.00/month was a damned good wage.
Europe has been paying $7 to $9 / gallon for years.
They deal with it
You deal with it.
Oh dear God in heaven above. It costs me more than $8 a day to drive to/from work.
I’ve started driving slower, coasting to a stop (when there’s no traffic behind me), and shifting to neutral…does that even help? I don’t know. I just HATE filling up…every single week. Sometimes twice. =(
Nice…I was dealing with it just fine but when it jumps up more than $1 in less than ONE friggin’ month it’s a little hard to deal with. It messes with budgets and it squeezes the checkbook more than expected. I don’t blame the president or the oil companies but I would like the issue to be resolved somehow. Like drilling HERE!!!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pmESTSo Woodie, whatcha got in mind? (The tea-in-the-harbor thing’s been done already.)
June 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pmESTDeveloping sources of Oil in America will not make the price go down unless we develop enough that we can swamp the market. And we will still pay the going world rate for oil regardless where it comes from.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:28 pmESTthis is the US of A, not Europe. If I were to enumerate the list of things done in Europe I’d not like to see done here then I’d wear my fingers down to nubs typing.
Not to mention anything of the facts the differ between us and Europe on gas prices: refining capacity, taxes, geography, but I digress.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:29 pmESTI can’t wait to get my Jeep back from the shop, at 16 mpg I’ll save a ton. Right now I’m driving my 91 pickup which only gets about 10-12 mpg. Luckily my commute is only 15 miles one way and 13 is freeway. Unluckily I put $80 in the gas tank last saturday.
The real fun will be taking the scouts to camp in July. I have to drive on the weekend of the Fourth. Pulling a trailer, up and down hills, which drops the milage on the Jeep to about 5 mpg. Camp is a ~180 mile drive one way, It’ll cost me almost $300 (@$4/gal).
June 11th, 2008 at 3:31 pmESTI work from home, and need a tank of gas every two months or so—and even then Husband does the chore for me, because I set the coffee every night and rub his feet without being asked. He fills up his car every other day, but his company pays 45c a mile. I know we are very blessed.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pmESTMy round trip commute is 166 miles. Even in my non-hybrid Toyota Echo getting 40 mpg, these gas prices are causing major butthurt. I telecommute 2 days a week, but may see about adding a 3rd day working from home.
I started driving in ‘75, when you could put a dollar’s worth of gas in the tank and actually see the needle move. Man, that ship has sailed.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:37 pmESTI gave my old clunker to charity some months ago. I live near a subway system and love to walk. At some point I will get another car, but it’s not a priority. I do enjoy having a much tinier “carbon footprint” than any enviroweenie global-warmongers I know. And why is “carbon” the culprit when 1) all life-forms known are carbon-based, and 2) It’s CO2 that’s the “culprit.” And why is CO2 bad if plants need it? Who started the French Revolution all over again with all these crazy dictates?
Also why won’t Henry Waxman (a.k.a. Nostril Boy) let us have Canadian oil? Are they building nuclear bombs against the dictates of the U.N.? Financing terrorists? Making fun of his Porky Pig countenance?
June 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pmESTcall me a pessimist but the fixes to out problems aren’t going to happen until we hit rock bottom as a nation.
As far as energy is concerned:
1. Start drilling. We have the ability to do it cleanly with negligible affect on the environment.
2. Create more refineries.
3. Create more nuclear power plants. Quit burning oil to light houses, it is better serves for gas and plastics.
4. Close the loopholes in the idiotic energy subsidies.
5. Build coal to oil refineries. We are the Saudi Arabia of Coal. In fact it is estimated that we have 3 times as much coal as Saudi has oil.
6. reduce the Sate and Federal Energy Taxes. we all like to point the finger at how much money “big oil” is making but in actuality Exxon Mobiles profit margin is far less than Google’s. he makes the most off of a gallon of gas? Hold on for a big surprise: Both the federal and state governments.
This isn’t all on the government though. We as consumers need to conserve and be smarter. Drive less. lean towards more efficient vehicles. Carpool. When demand lessens then price drops.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pmESTI don’t bother going for the full tank no more. too much moolah….
June 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pmESTGeorgeH: They pay more taxes on gas than we do. It isn’t that gas is more than it was when coke was a nickel. It’s that it’s significantly more than it was six months ago.
Doug: More supply, less demand. It wouldn’t have to be much to calm the market demand.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pmESTApparently, they haven’t gotten bad enough yet. Dems just blocked a move by Repubs to open drilling between 50 and 200 miles off the coast.
Here’s a money quote for idiot asshole of the day:
June 11th, 2008 at 3:49 pmESTHey George H., if I wanted to live in European conditions, I’d live in Europe. No thanks; 60 years of watching how the Europeans do things is enough to convince me it’s the wrong way for the most part.
Just because they’ve given up on their freedoms, doesn’t mean we have to. Just because they’ve become dependant on their government, doesn’t mean we need to. Just because they’re willing to bend over and take it up the ass from all directions doesn’t mean we need to. They are also slowly bending to the will of radical Islam. You wanna do that to? Those are all their idiotic burdens to bear, not ours.
One of the few things Europe does right? France and nuclear power. I assume you’re on board with that, right?
June 11th, 2008 at 3:54 pmESTDrill ’till the continents start sinking and the sea levels drop! I would love some ocean front property 300 miles inland.
Why do we keep going all Puss in Boots with the hat in hand — Can we haz more petrol, pleez?
This is still America, right? Drop the drillbit and get with it, and funnel some more money into higher education programs researching alternative sources. Just not in biofuels, for crying out loud. I’ve worked in this area, and I just simply don’t believe dumping any more cash will make this area sustainable.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:00 pmESTWe’ve had a moratorium on rice purchases recently, I really don’t think that kind of an escapade would fly if it had affected our cornflakes or Wheaties.
Just to throw a token bench into the fray… the whole real estate thing has played a part in this too. Cost of living is so high in some areas that the only way to make ends meet is to work “city” and live “county”– which means you DON’T get to live where you work, you have a bitch of a commute, and frequently, public transport doesn’t go there b/c it’s not cost-effective for them. Hence we all drive, solo, and get butthurt on gas.
Except me. I don’t drive, so I get butthurt on time instead of gasoline. Like, a 3-hour commute from work to school. Imagine finishing out one of those workdays that really makes you want to hate your fellow man, and realizing it’s going to be SEVEN MORE HOURS until you can go home and relax– and that FOUR AND A HALF of those hours are commute-related. Or that three of those hours occur between the end of your job, and the beginning of your exam. (All commute related).
All this eco-sacrifice, and not one offer from Al Gore to buy my carbon credits. Hey, if you’re serious about saving the environment how ’bout ponying up, pal– tuition ain’t free.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:04 pmESTRaving Lunatic,
Unfortunately I think bad will be.
Husband: “Honey we have a decision to make…”
Wife: “Whats that dear?”
Husband: “Do we heat our house for another month to make it through the winter without freezing to death -or- do we buy groceries so we don’t starve to death.”
Wife: “oh….”
It seems that as a society we seldom change our ways until we see the train coming. Unfortunately by the time we see it its usually too late to change without suffering at least some of the consequences of our inactivity. We are more apt to postpone mild pain now, even knowing that serious pain is inevitable much later. You only need to talk to a dentis for five minutes to understand that fact of life.
Case in point [Social Security] we’re running out of time to defuse that bomb…
Things are so fucked, I really wonder if people even realize its as bad as it is.
Heads in the sand and thumbs up thier asses…
*Sigh*
June 11th, 2008 at 4:07 pmESTI just broke virgin territory with my 2001 Camry, breaking the $60.00 threshold to fill the tank last Friday. My daily commute in Memphis is 34 miles.
I will still do my drive vacations to the Gulf coast and N.C. mountains. It helps to have a friend’s home to crash at at destination, though.
Congress has NO INTENTION of curing this dramatic increase. All 535 members COULD end it but why should they?
Next time you read about Big Oil raking in $13bb in profits next quarter keep in mind they also paid about DOUBLE that in various taxes to local, state, and federal governments.
The enviroterrorists don’t mention THAT too often.
As others have posted, the solution is:
- drill all in the USA, including ANWR and the oil shale reservoirs in the upper midwest.
- invest in 21st century refineries.
- invest in reliable mass transit systems for cities with > 100,000 people.
- seek mass production of alternative sources such as nuclear, solar, wind, and wave technologies.
- individuals need to conserve at a clip that fits their lifestyle (rideshare, slow down, combine trips, etc.).
I have suggested at work to allow staff personnel like myself to work from home 50% of the time. I spend most of the day on the phone or on line. I know management wants the security of having worker bees available for problem solving. No big deal - just rotate one week in office; one week at home.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pmESTDeveloping sources of Oil in America will not make the price go down unless we develop enough that we can swamp the market.
BS. Much of the current cost of oil is the political uncertainty involved, and oil is decidedly in the inelastic-demand pricing range. Even small increases in domestic production would have out-of-proportion effects on prices.
In addition, the ongoing development of new energy technology will also reduce demand for oil, which puts downward pressure on prices.
And to state the obvious, the Dems have been blocking new domestic production for three decades. We have over a trillion barrels and barrel-equivalents of known domestic reserves. If anyone should be getting rich off of oil production, it shold be us and not the Saudis and Russians and Venezeulans. Plus not exporting all those dollars for oil would strengthen the dollar.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:11 pmESTI heard Barack Obama say that last week and I don’t get it. I buy my gas from Exxon Mobile, or BP, ( not Chevron, ever). But those guys buy it from: ( in order of most barrels per day)
CANADA
SAUDI ARABIA
MEXICO
NIGERIA
VENEZUELA
IRAQ
ALGERIA
RUSSIA
ANGOLA
VIRGIN ISLANDS
ECUADOR
UNITED KINGDOM
KUWAIT
BRAZIL
COLOMBIA
The thing is, EXXON Mobile is not borrowing money from China to buy crude from Mexico, so where does this thinking come from. Who then is borrowing money from what foreign Govenment to buy crude from what other foreign government?
I get the bumper sticker appeal of Palin’s ( and Obama’s) sentiment, but where’s the reality behind it?
There is no reality behind it.
Adn let me stop you before you start, YES, I know that we are running a defecit in our budget now, and China is buying that debt, in order to get the interest payments as profit, AND we are ( the government we) buying Deisel for our tanks and Humvees, but America produces more than enough to fuel our military right here on our own soil ( not including the Virgin Islands , which are ours too) So that argument doesn’t fly.
Oh yeah, my household monthly fuel cost: *Drumroll* just under $1000.00 per month, at 5 bucks per gallon, closer to 1200 per month.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:14 pmESTHave fun with this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/NQgJl9d5KCQ
June 11th, 2008 at 4:15 pmESTAmanda,
He is a butthead, but a great actor.
I wish he’d stick to what he does best.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pmESTAmanda,
Ack! Fie on you! screwtube is banned I tellz you … BANNED!
However, that’s just funny right there.
[sorry Rachel ... it's pavlovian -- she rang my bell ... i hads to look there]
June 11th, 2008 at 4:36 pmESTOh yes, a thousand times yes, count me in for Palin. She’d provide a conservative on the Republican ticket and could aim for the top spot in 2012. And almost as great as that possibility is watching the elite Dems try to explain to their blue-collar charges that they really are for the little guy. Riiight. My own state is chock full o’ oil shale that needs to be extracted using cutting edge technology and my own two Senators voted for taxing the oil companies- evidently not making the connection between R&D and you, know, actual oil in the barrel.
BTW, Rachel, I know you haven’t had time to watch Stargate yet, but when you do, you’ll know that Defcon 5 is “normal operating procedure.” Defcon 1 is when everything goes to hell.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pmESTWe have a Jeep Cherokee (16 gal tank) and a year ago we bought a Toyota Matrix (11 gal tank). The Matrix is a great little car that gets 34 mpg on the highway - that’s honest mileage, I’ve gotten up to 35.6 but I think I must have screwed that up somehow.
So anyway we used to spend about $100-120 on gas monthly, 4 tanks for the Toyota and 2 in the Jeep. It now costs almost $40 to fill up the Toyota and over $60 to fill the Jeep.
Its just astonishing. Heck it costs almost $10 just to fill the gas can I use for my mower. Its…I’m really just…speechless.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pmESTHeather Says:
Made me look, too — d’oh!
But, Amanda,
June 11th, 2008 at 4:46 pmESTHe says all that as if those were bad things . . . ???
BAHAHAHAHAHHA!
Ok, gas is killin’ me right now. Over $80 to fill my little 20 gallon tank, and only one year ago (when it was new), I was spending about $42 to fill a tank. It’s not just gas either: whereas a one week grocery trip might have been $150, it’s now $230. (I HATE grocery shopping.) We eat out a lot, and our average family dinner (at a chain restaurant) was formerly about $36, it’s now $50+. My husband stopped commuting in his Ford Exporer into Houston every day, and now drives his motorcycle to conserve gas.
Hey, a little off-topic, but I heard that the old Geo Metros (out of production) are selling like hotcakes now because they get 50 miles to the gallon. Folks are picking them up for $1500 (they’re worth less than $1000).
June 11th, 2008 at 4:46 pmESTOkay. I’ll play.
I DON’T KNOW how much it takes to fill up my tank because I can’t. I cannot fill my tank because the pump automatically shuts off at $75. At $4.45/gallon on Monday here in the People’s Republic of California.
Oh, I suppose I could slide my card in again to finish the fill-up. But that would like be adding salt to the tabasco and battery acid I just poured in my eye.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pmESTLet’s see… I’m a stay-at-home mom whose kids no longer stay at home, which means I’m in the minivan a LOT. We have a Honda Odyssey which gets very good mileage for a minivan, but still, it makes me nervous every time I pull into Costco for gas. Oh, yeah. Costco’s running about 10 cents cheaper in the Seattle area than any other place. Plus, with the AMEX Costco card, I get 3% back on all gas purchases.
I paid $4.11 on Saturday at Costco.
Luckily, school is now out for my older child (preschool, so no bus) so I’m not wasting time in traffic to get her to school. I dread next fall, though, when I will have both kids attending TWO different schools!! And no, neither can attend the other one’s school. Daughter goes to a private Christian preschool, Son is going to start special-ed preschool through the local school district. So, lots of gas there.
Fortunately, Jamfish works for a company who pays for his bus pass. So he takes the very fuel-efficient Ford Contour (which we fill up maybe once a month) to the park-and-ride every day and buses to work. If he drove to work, he’d also have to pay to park, so this is the most logical approach for us. I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but I’m glad that it works out for us.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:52 pmESTOn the other hand, I can’t wait for $7.00 per gallon. That’s the magical price that will give us the electric car, and hopefully it will probably be the flying car they promised us 30 years ago. And I think we all know that they promised us robot hookers at the same time, so, they can’t be too far in the future either.
YAY!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pmESTMade me think of the magical amount commercial:
Insert fossil fuel products, stress levels and sphincter-savagery in the appropriate areas, and you have a winner!
[You may all line up to noogie me for putting that ditty in your head]
June 11th, 2008 at 5:04 pmESTUgh!!
2004 Dodge Diesel PU
$4.79 gal
21 MPG
33 gal tank
$160. (+-) to fill up
600 - 700 miles a week
All adds up to one big freakin painful fuel bill. I have to fill up at least once a week. ouch. Oh yeah, and diesel is a waste by product; that is it is left over from other refining processes… Hmmmmm
If I could do my job with a little fuel efficient car Lord knows I would get rid of that big ole Dodge…
June 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pmESTHeather,
Consider yourself noogied! I’d never heard of it — no telly in the wasteland — so I looked it up . . .
pffffft!
Edit: But now I have to thank you, ’cause there was something about that song that reminded me of this one, and now I have a new mental soundtrack running:
mmmmmm . . . gristle . . .which reminds me! Time to go cook that mutton!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pmESTYou know it’s hit a tipping point when you have to turn down a booty call, because it’s just too damned expensive to drive an hour for some lovin’. Seriously, I saw diesel in Bridgeport, CA today for $5.80! I have to leave the diesel truck hooked to the horse trailer, and don’t use it outside of pulling.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pmESTThe other side if this gas crap. Am self employed. Until this shit I had a growing, viable 6 year old biz. Now nobody has any money to spend on the “extras”. I am slowly dying on the vine. Kind of depressed right now but I know I am not the only one losing while Exon Mobile makes record profits.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:18 pmESTLet me try to make everyone feel better.
I live in Japan where gas is almost the equivalent of two bucks per liter (roughly $8 per gallon).
It costs me between $85-95 to fill up every week.
That ain’t the half of it, it also costs around 30 bucks a day to get in and out of Tokyo using the toll roads.
Fortunately my parking is free otherwise tack on another $30 per day.
Perhaps its time for companies to start looking at allowing more of their employees to work at home.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pmESTWell, maybe in dollars , but the profit margin in the oil business is very small, smaller than all other secotrs of business.
IT is our fault about the profits, it is and always has been our fault becuae of our voracious appetite for fuel, and that volume drives big dollar profits, even though the margin is very tiny.
The extra money coming from our pockets right now is not going to the oil companies as you might think, it’s going to wall street speculators. They are the ones driving the prices by betting on oil futures, and manipulating the price so THEY make big profits.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pmESTWhen gas prices get discussed, I always haul out this URL: http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
Y’all may find it interesting.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:39 pmESTRachel, I drive a diesel, so my butt-hurt requires an epidural.
Fortunately, I get about 40mpg. Otherwise, I’d be hosed.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:42 pmESTThank-you for pointing that out Para. Many people still do not recognize that fact. My small business would have trouble running on the profits the oil companies make. Percentage wise I should say.
June 11th, 2008 at 5:47 pmESTOnce again, I haven’t yet read the comments, but it costs me about $65 to fill up. I drive an ‘05 Cadillac, and fortunately I only drive about 18 miles round trip to work. Hubbie, on the other hand, drives an ‘02 Cadillac (yes, he LOVES Cadillacs) drives 90 miles round trip. I try to ignore how much we pay per month.
I will say, however, that this is the first time we’ve started thinking about gas prices. If it’s going to be a nice day, he drives his Harley. We are thinking about getting an inexpensive used car with better gas mileage just for his commute. Here is Wisconsin it’s just not feasible to drive the bike year ’round!
June 11th, 2008 at 5:48 pmEST$3.86 a gallon yesterday at Sam’s Club in Concord, NH. I have a 130 mile round-trip commute, but about a month ago my company let me start working from home 3 days a week- it was like getting a raise…
June 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pmESTObama goes without saying, but visit “Republican” John McCain’s site.
Ooo! Wook at the pwetty gween twee!
It makes no difference to Senator Beermoney’s lifestyle whether gas costs twenty cents a gallon or twenty dollars.
How much butt-hurt am I feeling?
I-want-a-new-political-party butt-hurt.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:04 pmESTI bought Ninja 500R motorcycle last year. I threw on some Nelson Rigg saddlebags, and use the bike for grocery runs, trips to the hardware store, etc… I only use my truck to haul things and run the kiddo to/from school. My gas bills are cut in half.
I recall Christmas shopping in Dallas in the mid-90s. My wife and I were in our oh-too-fun Acura GSR outside the Neiman’s Northpark Mall entrance when we commented on all the single-occupancy SUVs that surrounded us. Now all those soccer moms are blaming someone else for their profligate and selfish ways. Sorry if I’m not sympathetic…
June 11th, 2008 at 6:14 pmESTI drive a super-efficient tiny tiny car that gets around 45mpg in town. I spent roughly $50 a week on gas.
If I put 9 gallons in my tank that means the light is on and it’s chugging and huffing… and the day I spent more than $40 to do so I gagged a little.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:21 pmESTI’m like Rachel. I don’t drive much just about 5 miles a day from home to work.
BUT>>> my husband has a plumbing/electric business and has 3 trucks (v8 engines) a backhoe and several other pieces of equipment. He NEEDS the big trucks to be able to haul the backhoe and all the equipment he needs for his jobs. A hybrid will not do it. All the tax incentives and green nagging in the world isn’t going to get a Prius able to haul a tractor up a 6% grade.
Gasoline was 4.73 a gallon today and diesel is 5.23. We get to fill the trucks up at least 2 to 3 times a week each!!. He is spending close to $500 a WEEK on gasoline. Can we pass this cost on to his customers? Well, maybe for a while but even this has its limits. At some point he will either quit working for people who live too far away or find something else to do.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:36 pmESTI’ve said this once and I’ll say it again, why don’t we jam the brainiest people in a room and tell them they’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with a new fuel? If it worked on Apollo 13, surely it can work here.
My car used to cost $50 to fill up (this is NZ$), it now costs $90, makes me want to go into the foetal position and rock every time I have to go to the servo.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:37 pmESTFrom The Corner:
Sigh!
June 11th, 2008 at 6:41 pmESTWell, we do actually use our SUV. To death. We downsized our 11-year-old Ford Expedition to a compact Explorer. Actually, there was no other way to get rid of the Expedition except to trade it it in.
But I don’t look down my nose at any SUV owners, even single-occupant SUVs (of course, if they’re soccer moms, by definition they aren’t single-occupant most of the time AND they try desperately to do their mall shopping when the kids are home with Dad or in school.). I, for one, have no idea how far these folks drive to work. In my part of the world, no one commutes. Rush hour is really one hour- maybe less. People use their SUVs and rigs for work and play. Okay, we do laugh at the Escalades and Hummers but there aren’t a lot of those around.
I’m sure our gas use is less than average despite our ownership of SUVs and AWD cars. The last thing I need to hear is some Prius owner’s snobby remark (not necessarily you, wondertrev) while they’re making 60 minute commutes each way every day. Mine clocked in at 8, now it’s 10 since I became a soccer mom. (If the public school down the street was any good, I’d have no commute at all).
June 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pmESTThe ridiculous thing is that this recent spike is just as artificial as the last spike three years ago. Remember when gas went to 4 bucks a gallon for a week and then back to 2.25? It was an artificial “crisis” back then, but luckily, a few wall street insiders were able to reap HUGE profits off that week so at least SOMEBODY benefitted.
This whole mess has been created so someone can make a few bucks. Petroleum isn’t even rare. Refineries are, but not crude, it’s literally everywhere. The mainpulators paly the “risk” game based on shipping crude during times of terrorism and global strife. The terrorist shavene’t ever attacked a tanker.
This is all made up. We don’t NEED to drill in ANWR. BTW, ANWR is pretty nice, and the one resource we are runnign out of is un-fucked-up places, like the pristine environment of Alaska.They just found a HUGE reserve in Brazil, bigger than Saudi Arabia. We’ll have oil for a long time.
I’m keeping my Army Jeep. When everyone switches to electric ( including me) I’ll have a cool antique that runs on 25 cent per gallon fuel. Plus, it’ll look cool when I ride around with my robot hooker in the passenger seat.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:49 pmESTI also work from home, but I’ve lived in Europe–and have an idea what REAL gas prices are. We’ve lived in this phony cheaper-than-milk gas world for too many years. Back in the mid-90s, gas in Valladolid, Spain (and everywhere else on the Iberian peninsula) was about 150 pesetas per LITER. (At the time, the exchange was about 110 pesetas:$1 USD) That makes for about $6/gallon of gas. I think I could fill my car here for less than $20 back then.
Of course, we can all change our habits–the Euros have better mass transit, live closer to their work, aren’t nearly as infatuated with their autos as we are–but all this is to me is a paradigm shift. We used to make eight trips a week to the grocery store. Now we make two–sometimes one if we’re exceptionally conscious and plan ahead. We moved our son to a preschool closer to home–and he’ll walk to school next year with big sis.
At any rate, until we get a president/Congress that realize that we ought to drill for what we can on our own soil, and build the refineries to do something with it, OPEC will continue to have our asses over a…well…barrel.
I think it was Brian Regan who said he’d drill on the White House lawn if he thought there was oil there. I’m in total and complete agreement with that philosophy. Spotted hoot owl be damned.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:50 pmESTANWR is not the “pristine wilderness” it’s made out to be. A lot of it is just frozen wasteland. And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be utterly destroyed if we drilled for oil there. Contrary to popular belief, it is in fact possible to drill for oil without wrecking the entire surrounding environment.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:05 pmESTYes, it’s even been referred to as a “mosquito-infested bog” by some! Which is precisely why McCain’s comments (to which I linked at 6:41, above) are so disturbing — who is advising him? “The Grand Canyon???” Where is he getting this nonsense?
June 11th, 2008 at 7:13 pmESTIf the price of oil goes up any further, I’ll have to stockpile a litre to see me through the next decade or so for chail lube.
Bicycles. a licence to smug…
June 11th, 2008 at 7:13 pmESTWe go to war, conquer a country that has some of the world’s largest oil fields and I’m paying $4.55 a gallon for gas.????????????????
June 11th, 2008 at 7:28 pmESTGas prices - that’s not important.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:41 pmESTThe stock market taking a dive (down 1.5%) today (Wednesday), now that’s important.
$4.50 a gallon minimum in San Diego. I’m taking the bus.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:42 pmESTI have a riding mower, but the authorities really frown on me when I leave the lawn.
I read where Cuba, with Venezeuela’s help, was drilling 60 miles off of Florida (Cuba is only 90 away at the closest point, but I digress). We won’t permit our own companies to drill that close to certain coasts. Cheese-n-rice!
June 11th, 2008 at 8:05 pmESTFor some reason, perhaps because I have been lucky enough to be able to afford to fill up my vehicle without worrying too much about the cost, I hadn’t been paying enough attention until regular gas in my neck of the woods (northern California) went over $4.00 per gallon last week. My tank had gone nearly to empty, and filling it cost about $80.00.
That got my attention. I started to wonder how people are managing with this kind of expense (and I felt ashamed that I had not started to wonder sooner).
I have always been an environmentalist, but I think drilling technology is clean enough these days that we ought to be drilling wherever we have a prospect of finding oil, and I think we need to start building nuclear reactors, and we need to start developing the Bakken Formation.
But none of this seems likely, with the prospect of a socialist president and Democratic majorities in congress.
Jamie Irons
June 11th, 2008 at 8:11 pmESTButthurt is an understatement. I drive to Bolling AFB every single day, and it’s 90 miles door to door. I can’t telecommute, because everything I work with is classified, and I can’t take it home. I can’t afford to work in the area, because no one here will pay me the kind of mad money I get working at Bolling. But it takes me about $40 a pop to fill up my little Nissan. It gets 38 miles to the gallon, but still… given the distance, it hurts! BAD!
June 11th, 2008 at 8:43 pmESTDrill here, drill now, build refineries, go nuclear, eco-tards be damned.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pmESTHey Mighty Samauri,
Have you been to Alaska? I have , it’s friggin’ AWESOME and yes, it is pristine.
Full disclosure, I work for the Government and my job takes me to the most pristine places in the country, so I guess I’m a litte protective because I see how these places are shrinking.
There are few places onthe planet as un-fucked as ANWR. If we really need it, I’d say go ahead, it’s not worth WWIII over. ( Our next war will be over energy) but it is my opinion that we have plenty of oil to get us thru the electrical revolution.
ANWR oil is 10 years from being on-line, and that’s if we started yesterday. 10 years from now, we’ll be mostly Nuke, Sun, and wind.
Can we please not fuck up ANWR until we absolutely HAVE to? Don’t belittle the value of it ( like calling it a mosquito infested bog) just because you think we’re out of oil.
Say what you will, this sure as hell isn’t New Jersey.
And no, I UNDERSTAND that the drilling would really destroy more than a couple hundred acres. It the thousands of poeple, with roads, houses, WalMarts, and the power plants to power thier homes and garbage trucks and ……….
That’s what will destroy much more than just the drill site. Not to mention, the pipeline. ugh.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:25 pmESTI ride a motorcycle to and fro, so I get about 44 mpg. I fill up about 2 - 3 times a week, at about 2.5 gallons per fill. When the weather sucks, I drive my 12 mpg ‘friend of OPEC’ pickup truck. Filled it up for the first time today after about 2 weeks or so. $63. Nice pictures PARA, now why don’t you show the people the 2,000 acres out of the 19 MILLION acres that would be drilled on? You know the ones - flat as a fricking pancake, frozen solid as steel in the winter, and nothing but mud, puddles, and misquitioes during the sorry excuse for a summer. You say you work for the government, so you must think we are as stupid as your fellow government workers. You say the oil wouldn’t be available for ten years, uh yeah, that would be the same ten years they were talking about 16 years ago, right?!?!? Again, how STUPID do you think we are? And yeah, I’ve been to Alaska too. Funny, ALASKANS want nothing better than to drill, and drill NOW.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:51 pmESTYou know - when I was a kid, it took a year to build a new strip mall. Now it takes 3 months. Just say’in.
Besides - I live in a Pious State. Shouldn’t those tiny tiny cars being doing something by now? Yet I’m still paying some of the highest prices in the nation. Every one of them I see has an Obama sticker on it. Well… maybe one in ten. But still.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:13 pmESTSteve,
Did I say you were stupid? ( I’m kinda convinced now, but I digress)
The point is, that ten years from now, we will not need the oil from ANWR ANYWAY and since we have oil in Colorado and Brazil ( shitloads of it) why do we need to go into a yet untapped wilderness? It just makes no sense. Ten years from now we will have nuclear powered electicity. We wont’ need it, so why waste effort and resources chasing it, ESPECIALLY if it ruins a pristine place?
If it was of any use, I’d be for drilling, but the project has no merit. Explaining away that “the land sucks” isn’t a justifiable reason to destroy it. We have alternatives. Let’s try them first. Is that your idea of STUPID???
And yes… Alaskans do want us to drill now. You should ask them why. I’ll give you a hint, it’s because they used to get nice big checks every year from the State Government known as the “dividend”. Over the past several years, those checks have gotten smaller and smaller.
Here’s a chance for some very poor people to get some free money.
Now they, Steve, are the ones who are not stupid, they get free money.
*UPDATE* I forgot to mention, as for the people I work with, I’m the only one in my office without a doctorate. I work with good people, smart people ( a little Liberal at times) but good nonetheless. I used to work for Colin Powell when he was Secretary of State. You may have heard, He’s pretty smart too. But hey, if it makes YOU feel smart, go ahead and disparage us civil servants. Me and General Powell are former military men, probably won’t mind it, but you will probably make some of these people mad if you write them off as stupid.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:14 pmESTPara,
You keep mentioning Brazil. Last I checked, Brazil is an independent nation, not a member of the United States. Have I missed something?
June 11th, 2008 at 10:24 pmESTThe money is not free. It is earned, much the same way casino profits are shared amongst members of an Indian tribe.
What makes you think that we can’t bring the oil on line withing ten years, with technologies and prcesses we already have in place, but by gosh we ARE going to have effecient electric cars. And nuclear power plants, because as we all know, Greenpeace and all those other anti-nuke people are just going to roll over and take it up the wazoo, well, just because. The US hasn’t even built a nuke in the last 30 years, why is it all of a sudden going to have enough plants to take up the slack?
Between the wife and I, we use between 200 and 250 gallons of gas per month. Some is going to work, most is going out of town on the weekends or going to the lake. The gas bill is very very large every month… we haven’t quit driving, but we’ve had to cut back in quite a few other places.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:26 pmESTHere are some pics Jonah Goldberg took when he traveled to ANWR a while back. They show the area that would actually be drilled.
Gas was $162 last month for me, and my car gets about 34 (38 if it’s pure highway, but I almost never drive pure highway). Personally, I would like to be able to walk/take public transportation (one thing I love about Rome/NYC/Boston/Germany is how easy it is to walk to the subway (or S-Bahn) station, hop on a train, and be at your destination after a short ride), but that’s not an option around here. We don’t have zoning laws like the rest of the country, and we spread out, not up, so you cannot live in this city without a car.
Edit: Para, one immediate benefit of drilling is that it would change how people are speculating on oil futures. And there is no shortage of stupidity in civil service. Lots of bright and/or highly educated (just because someone has letters after his name doesn’t mean he’s actually smart) people, yes, but definitely a lot of rigidity, a lot of bureaucracy, and a lot of resistance to new ideas and new ways of doing things. (That’s not addressed to you - I’m actually thinking of private spaceflight vs. NASA.)
June 11th, 2008 at 10:27 pmESTPara,
I spent 20 years in the AF, so I know exactly how people in the government are. I worked in the same ether layers as the SecDef for the last five years of my service. A few of those people were scarey smart. Most of them, not so much.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:33 pmESTYes, indeed. I’d rather not say what agency I’m with now, but rest assured, these people are smart. We’re all workers and do-ers. Not egghead decision makers. I understand some of those folks are a little, um rigid?
I did like Goldberg’s pix. Especially the Caribou. Makes me miss Alaska, but I’m going back in a few months. YAY!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:35 pmESTSteve,
We already have some promising electic cars.Several models go online in 2010. And I believe ( as do some other “stupid” peope I work with) that 7 bucks a gallon is enough to shut up the anti-nuke people and get some facilities on-line. Building in Georgia is a LOT easier and faster than building up by the Arctic Circle by the way, and much cheaper. Our last Nuke power hurdle is hot waste disposal, and we’re pretty damned close to wrapping that up.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:40 pmESTSo glad to hear Joe is doing better and Rupert is coming home.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:41 pmESTIt took $64 to fill up my mini-van last time. I do this weekly. Hubby’s company pays for his gas but I’m sure it’s outgrageous as he has an SUV. Our gas has doubled but everything else is killing us too. Our heating bill was over $300/month from Jan-Apr. The price of everything has increased because of the cost of gas.
I’m trying to look on the bright side of things. The high price of gas hopefully will speed up the race for alternative sources of fuel. When that is achieved then we won’t have to look to the Middle East for fuel. They loose their meal ticket so to speak.
My son is obsessed with why everything is made in China - even our daughter’s American Girl doll! I’m wondering if the soaring price of gas will stimulate production of locally made goods. If it costs me $64/week to haul my kids around how much does it cost to bring this shit over from China?
Let’s make finding an alternate fuel our Man on the Moon mission.
I know of a few companies who have switched their work week to four 10 hour shifts. One less day of commuting. Wish hubby could do that but he works way more than 40 hours a week.
So you must be one of the stupid people Steve was talking about, huh. You worked for the Government, right?
(BTW, Thanks for your lifetime of service, bro, really)
June 11th, 2008 at 10:42 pmESTABOUT ANWR:
(in response to Para)
Yes, yes, vast tracts of ANWR are lovely…but not the part where drilling is proposed!
Have you seen that part? It’s a vast mud-flat at the best of times; a frozen sheet of ice other times; it accounts for a fraction of a percent of the entire Reserve, and it’s the armpit of the reserve. (Whaddaya know…it IS New Jersey!)
Sorry! Just kidding, Jerseyites. (Those of you who aren’t Islamists, I mean; those that are can be as insulted as you bloody well like.)
No, no, no.
OUR CORRECT POLICY:
As was stated previously, we need:
- Lots of nuclear power;
- Lots of drilling, onshore and offshore;
- Lots of refining;
- A rate hike in nominal interest rates sufficient to get real interest rates above 0% and to compensate for the last few years when it’s often been in negative territory;
- Tax cuts to counteract the pain of interest rate hike, probably delivered in the form of doubled credits for married-filing jointly, and doubled child-credits…or better yet, child-credits calculated as a percentage of income;
There are a couple of other ideas which could help:
- AFTER all of the steps described above, we should all go Brazilian. (No, not what you think. I mean, flex-fuel vehicles and no trade-barriers to prevent sugar-based ethanol, as the Brazilians did.)
- And only after THAT should we consider, as a last resort, a form of egregious protectionism for domestically-produced oil: A per-barrel fee on imported oil (close allies like Canada and the Brits excepted) with the resulting revenue, whatever it is, being split evenly into per-barrel subsidies on domestically-produced oil.
This should be small, it should come AFTER all the other steps, it should increase as the price of oil rises, and it should decrease as the price of oil falls. The incentives, to OPEC, should feel like this: Raise the price of oil, and you further incentivize our domestic production to compete with you; lower the price, and the domestic subsidy subsides.
But it’s the lack of drilling, refineries, and strong currency that are our biggest problems.
When you see us using our domestic capacity to the full, and refining it with capacity to spare…and when you see exchange rates of one dollar per pound sterling (I hate the bloody euro), you’ll rather enjoy the gas prices then.
ONE FINAL POINT, ABOUT EFFICIENCY…
The fact is that right now, oil-based energy is the most efficient way of getting work done, in a physics sense, for transport; and nuclear is the most efficient for non-moving infrastructure.
For this reason, large-scale use of “alternative sources” is not yet economically wise.
If we “wean ourselves” off of oil too early, all we’ll do is:
(a.) Reduce demand, thus reducing price…but allowing those who didn’t “wean” themselves; i.e., the Chinese and Indians, to reap the benefits of the lower prices;
(b.) Economically disadvantage ourselves by using a source of energy that’s less efficient; that is, more expensive per unit of work.
So, alternatives are not the answer, yet. They’ll only become the answer when oil becomes so scarce, and the natural market price of it rises so high, that some other energy source is actually, without subsidies, less costly per unit of work.
Until then, ride the oil.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:43 pmESTNow, see, my mom didn’t believe me when I said people were suggesting Sarah Palin as a VP candidate, and here it is.
I don’t let my tank go below 3/4 usually–gas was $3.99(9)/gal. on Sunday (today I drove by and it was $4.03 I think), and it cost me somewhere around $49. 2002 Subaru Legacy. I have just shy of a 10 mile (but sometimes 45 minute) suburban commute to work, and with the heat wave on the East Coast, lots of AC use. And I was recently denied a small raise for being handed parts of a “redundant” person’s job. Horrible.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:45 pmESTOh believe me my friend, I understand that the drill site is disgutsing. SO gross in fact that all the people who will work to support the ANWR drill site will not live there, instead, they’ll live where it is very nice. That’s the problem, the development of the nice parts!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:50 pmESTMy dad has one of those cars. He bought it brand new in the early 90’s. He has parked his big ol Dodge and drives that to work again. It sure doesn’t take much to fill up.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:38 pmESTGeo Metros don’t even run off gasoline. I think all you need is a bag of oats for the gerbils and some WD-40 for the little exercise wheel. Yikes. Are we THAT desperate? It’s $4 gas, not $40.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:08 amESTJeez-o-Pete,
More than 130 comments since I checked slightly before this was posted.
I drive a 1994 Lincoln Town Car I picked up cheap because it doesn’t get good gas mileage. I spend about $130 to $150 per month because I don’t drive much. I can go out in my front yard and see if the boss has got to work three blocks away. I’ve had the car slightly more than 4 years and in another few hundred miles I will have put 15,000 miles on it in that time.
I guess I’m like the revolutionary who waits for things to get really bad so they can spur others to action. We need to kick the crap out of the environmentalists who are in it more to be obstructionist than to protect the environment.
Drilling in ANWR is something that will help long-term and it won’t disturb the pristine beauty of anything. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no concept of the size of the preserve and of Alaska.
We need more refineries to turn the crude we produce into petroleum products we use. We can’t produce more oil without the means to make use of it.
Another thing that will help is drilling off the coasts. Before drilling began in earnest off of the Texas coast fishermen were concerned that the rigs would hurt fishing. Since then some of them have gone off-line and the fishermen now demand the rigs be left as artificial reefs. Fishing has actually improved around them.
Yes, conservation is important and we need to find more efficient ways to get from A to B. We need to find ways to heat our homes in the winter and cool them in the summer that doesn’t use as much energy. The thing is these approaches aren’t mutually exclusive. We can do both.
So it takes 10 years to see the oil from new fields at the pump. In that 10 years we can begin to see improvement in conservation. Like the guy who said he’d like to go back and learn to be a lawyer but he’d be 60 years old when he finished college and his friend said “So how old will you be at the end of that time if you don’t go back to school?” Those 10 years will pass whether we do anything or not. We should go for it.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:13 amESTUp until 2002 I drove a 1990 Dodge W250 Club Cab, 360CID engine. From 1990 till about 1998 it got between 11 and 13MPG city, about 17MPG on long freeway jaunts.
Then the (expletive deleted) EPA decided that the chicagoland Ill Annoy area needed multiple formulations of crappy gas to reduce emissions by about .07%. After that the truck got the same mileage if I drove 60 miles away to get gas; on chicago area gas it got around 9MPG in the summer and 6MPG on winter gas.
Traded in on a 2002 Jeep Liberty 4WD/AWD V6 when it was starting to cost for repairs. The Jeep gets about 15MPG city and 22 highway with gentle driving. Gas here is at $4.18 for regular, higher in Daley’s fiefdom where the tax-trolls reign.
My wife has a 2006 Mini Cooper ‘S’ and gets about 23MPG on premium around town; it nearly gets 30 on the freeway; not as good as her previous Corolla.
I miss my truck. Stinking EPA.
BTW still have my currently not running 1971 Challenger in the garage. Last time it ran it got 16MPG around town on Union 76 leaded premium. Can’t get that any more. Stinking EPA.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:09 amESTHey now! Don’t be decribing the Duster as “shit” anything! It was a great car!! And… it was a 1975, not a 1976. And it was by Plymouth, not Dodge.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:27 amESTDude,
It’s kinda my job to have a concept of the size of Alaska, since I work there several times a year. And yes, 10 years from now, we could have oil from ANWR. But in 10 years, WE WON’T NEED IT!
I dont; know why people are so hell bent on ANWR, when we have oil other places, and LOTS more of it. Theres predicted to be 5 times the oil in Colorado and 100 times more in Brazil.
*hint* STEVE- Brazil is an ally, and not a home to radical Islamist Terrorist, so yeah, probably not much different that England when it comes to importing.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:46 amESTMy commute is about 30 minutes each way. Even driving an economy car like I do, the gas prices have more than erased the raise that I received this year.
Para said:
If we hadn’t blocked drilling 10 years ago, we’d have oil now. And I’m more than a little curious as to why you think we won’t need any new oil 10 years from now. For the record, more than half of a barrel of crude goes to things other than gasoline, such as plastics and lubricants. I don’t see any new replacements for these things appearing magically within the next decade. And yes, we have tons of oil shale. We can also gassify this country’s vast coal reserves. However, the powers that be who are so strongly opposed to drilling in 0.01% of ANWR apparently don’t want to do those things either. In fact, here’s what some -not all, because not everyone is stupid- people seem to be saying:
1) no drilling in ANWR
2) no drilling anywhere off the US coast; please ignore China drilling 50 miles offshore
3) no oil shale
4) no coal gassification
I’ll ignore the anti-nuclear faction for now as we haven’t really figured out how to put small thermonuclear reactors in our cars yet. So tell me: exactly how are we supposed to keep this country running without some sort of petroleum product? And your 10 year period for drilling in ANWR is pretty close to the time required to build an extraction facility for oil shale or coal gassification and get it online. Why is the ANWR oil the only source that gets poo-pooed for its 10 year lag time when all of the other sources take just about as long? Because I really want to know.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:12 amESTHmmm. I thought I recalled that these ran off a rubber band and propeller, but I *might* be thinking of the Yugo.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:19 amESTI fill up about twice a week at $75 a pop (at Costco). Up until this year, I was the guy always flooring it getting onto the freeway. Because.it.is.fun. Now? I just merge. Not because I can’t afford the gas - I can - but because the concept of wasting that much money on that short of a thrill just isn’t worth it. If I wanna blow that much cash on a cheap thrill, I’d go to Disney World…
BTW, I think the “Drill it like a cheap prom date” is hilarious. I agree that it would take a long time to see benefits, but the line is funny.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:21 amESTAmerica: Please stop snivelling about petrol prices.
If you want *pain*, come here to Britain. To fill the tank in my 1800cc family car would cost me - at today’s exchange rate - approximately $116
The USA’s a great place, I’m sure, but you’re featherbedded on energy prices and have been for years.
maximus otter
June 12th, 2008 at 7:23 amESTIt costs me $130 to fill my truck with diesel… thank goodness for telecommuting.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:52 amESTI agree with Para that we should leave ANWR as is for now, but not entirely for the same set of reasons (although he does make some good points). The important thing is to drill offshore now and save the shale oil and ANWR for later (and, yes, we will need it later). The reason is simple: ANWR and shale oil are on American soil. There is a hell of a lot of oil and gas offshore and a lot of it is in international waters. That means Mexico and Cuba and countries that still own Caribbean islands can get to that oil before we can. It’s called competitive draining and it happens in the Gulf of Mexico (and probably other places) between the oil companies right now. Get that oil now while it is still there.
After that, you still have two large reserves. ANWR will be fairly easy to exploit, because the only real problem is cold weather and its effect on men and machines. It also gives us time to work on the technology to produce shale oil without trashing the entire area.
(Full disclosure: I make my living as an engineering consultant for the offshore oil and gas industry. This probably biases my opinion somewhat, but I think the above logic is still valid).
June 12th, 2008 at 8:04 amEST“The USA’s a great place, I’m sure, but you’re featherbedded on energy prices and have been for years.”
… and what are your gasoline taxes in the People’s Republic of Great Britain, Maximus Otter?
I’m betting that’s a good bit of the difference, if not all of it.
For the record, I drive a 2005 Lexus ES330. I could run it on regular unleaded, but the mileage per gallon for running it on premium more than makes up for the cost difference, even moreso now that regular unleaded is around $4/gallon. Not looking for sympathy, because I can deal with it. Doesn’t hurt me nearly as much as the rest of you, though.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:05 amESTMy son is feeling the pain big time. He’s a salesman and has to drive and he has to have a truck. He’s got a Tacoma and gets pretty good mileage on it, but still he’s hurtin’
And I hear Obama wants gas prices to go higher. I’ll bet any amount of money that he has no idea how high they are. Senate critters live very insulated lives.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:09 amESTI normally go just over a week between filling up on my Camry. Painful, but not as bad as others.
My wife sold her Expedition and also got a Camry. When we made the cahnge we figured to save $90 a week on $3/gal. gas 2 years ago.
Unforetunately, The Peoples Republic of Rhode Island has an annual ‘capital’ tax on your car. It increased big time for a new car. Insurance went up too. With $4/gal. we might be ‘in the black’ with her Camry. Sheesh, what a pain.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:20 amESTfelicity says:
That’s what makes it so insidious! The snide, condescending tone that implies that’s baaaaaad. Ugh. Emphasis on the baaaaa because so many sheeple gobble up this kind of tripe.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:21 amESTCan’t Obama just clap his hands and create an alternative fuel? I just “HOPE” he can. Maybe if he and Al Gore both clapped their hands together at the same time it’ll work. I really HOPE so.
So many people are complaining about the profits of the oil companies. If they were permitted to drill on the coasts and continent in more areas, they would be spending earnings and thus reducing profits. That spending would be in the form of US wages and US made drilling equipment(well we used to be on the leading edge of drilling technology.) If they were allowed to build refineries they would be spending money and thus lowering profits in the same fashion by building refineries. That is what profits are for. The problem is the oil companies are shackled by the enviromental laws of reactionary legistlators. They can’t react the way capitalism says they should be reacting.
Full disclosue: Vehicles owned- 2000 V10 Excursion 13 mpg, ‘95 Honda Accord 20 mpg. In the market for a 3rd vehicle for wife to drive to new job since son now has full time job. Even at 13 mpg and current gas prices, will continue driving Excrusion because total costs of replacing it for fuel saving car is still greater than keeping Excursion.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:44 amESTmaximum otter … when you enlarge the country to the size of North America … come back and talk about petrol proces, m’kay? Driving from my brothers place in Holland to the plant I was visiting crossed damn near the entire country … and was almost as many kilometers as I used to drive to work daily in Alberta.
I think it was Iggy Waaayyyy back there in the comments that remarked on one of the major causes of the increased price of gas … and increased it is … when I started driving, it was 17 CENTS an imperial gallon. You could go a fair distance on a buck … even in a gashog.
Back from that digression … WTF is this whole thing with futures? I can live with the cost of drilling, the cost of processing, the cost of transportation, and I begrudge no one a profit. But these assclowns that are allowed to insinuate the futures “market” into the picture - providing no value whatsoevere - but raking in bucketloads of money for the privilege of causing this much misery.
I can buy into a lot of solutions that have been proposed … but I think we should run a new one to the top of the list. Well, ok, two:
1) line up the fuckers driving the prices skyhigh with their “futures trading” and shoot the bastards in the head. Three times to make sure they’re not twitching anymore I’ll chip in on the ammo, or volunteer to pull the trigger.
2) do exactly the same with every politician who has voted to allow this stupidity.
Bring back supply and demand and start whacking the assholes who insinuate themselves into the process just to skim the cream off the milk.
Everytime I read something by Para … starting from his megainsulting responses to anti-McCain responders, I think even less of him. I think that to stop the vein on my forehead from throbbing so vividly, I’ll just have to skip his entries … sigh
Yeah, I’ve seen ANWR, I’ve lived in the arctic for a 3 year stretch, in a town with 13 miles of road (to the airport or the town dump), I’ve hunted caribou and seen what “natural environmentalists” Indians (or Eskimos) are (not). Based on my experience … drill! Then drill some more. Suck out that oil and send it south.
Crap, the break even point for mining fucking oil sands was only $20 a barrel back in the late 70’s when I worked for the biggest oil sands project in the world. Why are we not developing the oil shale formations, and sticking pipes down everywhere the stuff is lying? Not in my back yard? Bullshit! I have wells all around my place here in Michigan, I couldn’t travel 2 minutes from my place in Alberta without seeing a well. I wish they’d placed one on my property so I could have shared in the dividends, but try as they might, they never did find any so I only collected for their use of the right-of-way and test wells. Yeah, they’re an eyesore … but so are skyscrapers, city skylines, and government schoolgrounds. At least the oil wells put out something useful, unlike government schools (sorry Mighty, I’m frothing today, LOL).
Among the eyesores here in mid-Michigan are the cooling towers that would have been a nuke plant, except the greenfreaks managed to get that project killed while it was being built.
so … my plan:
- execute futures traders
- reduce the size of government by executing all the greenies, envirowackos and other non-contributing members
- build nuke plants here, there and everywhere (my propane bill for the month of January was $872)
- drill everywhere that there isn’t already a donkey engine laboring away
- build refineries here, there and everywhere
- charge greenie protestors $10,000 a day for any protest permits - per person
Oh, and where it took most of a $5 bill to fill the tank on my Goldwing back in ‘02 when I bought it … now I can’t fill it for a $20 bill. But, at 40 mpg when I ride somewhat reasonably, I do the 14 mile roundtrip to work on a motorcycle about 90% of the year.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:54 amESTHaven’t you people seen the price of arugula lately? Why worry about the price of energy when fancy salad is just so expensive?
OMG, I’m starting to feel all clingy and stuff. I’ve got to go shower or gargle or something; excuse me just one moment…
June 12th, 2008 at 9:10 amESTGlad I graduated last month. I was driving 90 miles a day, five days a week for college. I have a 2006 Honda Accord. Here in northern NH, gas is about $4.08.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:22 amESTWhoa - lots of comments. I use a tank of gas a month. When I run low, I stop going places. Simple. Just doin’ my part. Keepin’ my carbon footprint small. Thank goodness my chainsaw isn’t a gas hog - I can still cut down trees without harming the environment.
I am all for drilling all over the country - Alaska sucks - who cares if it is pristine - I sure don’t. I’d rather log it and suck all the oil out of it, then leave it for what it is - a frozen waste land. Drill all around the coasts - when was the last time we had an oil rig blow out? Mine the heck out of oil shale and oil sands - what - someone in North freakin Dakota will whine? So what? It has usefullness besides being a fly-ridden litter box? Not to me - mine it.
Ok, there, I feel better now. See how simple energy policies can be?
June 12th, 2008 at 9:25 amESTAnd just how is that going to happen? Is the great Energizer Bunny going to wave his magic wand and and the wacko enviro-nuts going to withdraw their objections to ANY type of energy production? Hell, they couldn’t even get a wind farm built in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts because it would disturb the great Teddy the K’s view.
Are China and India going to stop their industrial expansion? Are you going to prevent other countries from doing the same?
Are we going to stop using petroleum for everything else? Guess what, the food you eat probably was grown using fertilizer - fertilizer that was made partly from petroleum. The plastic all around you was produced from petroleum products.
The time will come when we can look back and consider the use of petroleum the same way we think of using whale oil, but not in 10 years. There is an inertia to industrial production that mimics Newton’s laws and like a body in motion it will take effort to change methodologies, and that takes time.
Next time you see the magic Energizer Bunny, send him my way. I could use some help with keeping my house cool without spending a fortune on electricity.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:42 amESTI only notice the price of gas in the news. Been riding my bike for the past 6 years. Nukes are great, It’s a pinch for you guys, but just think how ridiculously cheap it’s been for 20 years. Cheap as water. Easy for me to say, it doesn’t hurt where it counts. These rising prices are BAD for this election. I saw all these huge s.u.v.’s and thought “hmm, after gas lines in the 70’s, never thought I would see that”.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:14 amESTPeople are pissed and here comes the big change and we will have a socialist president. Then you will feel real pain.
Well, not directly, but what about?
[Uh oh -- nitpick moment! I'll be over by the 'swear jar!']
June 12th, 2008 at 10:16 amESTYeah, let’s see:
I Do not Hate John McCain.check
I Do not Hate Gays.check
I do Not want to fuck up the environment.check
Yeah, I guess my lack of hate and concern for the envoironment makes me a horrible, horrible person.
I rest my case.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:28 amESTFelicity:
I like the ultra-capacitor idea for powering cars, but I’m still curious as to where some people think the electricity stored therein will come from.
I finally read through the comments and just stumbled onto this:
Heh. My wife and children probably think that my car is already powered that way as I eat lots of beans, broccoli and cabbage. I don’t know if it helps the mileage much, but the memory is seared- seared- into my nostrils, as well as anyone unfortunate enough to be riding with me.
Speaing of methane, the world produces a buttload of cow farts each year. All we need to do is stick balloons on each cow ass, wait until they’re inflated and then tie them off and remove. Everyone can carry home their very own fuel balloon. It’s such a good idea that I’m gonna propose it to my congressman. We’ll call it Super Hot Individual Tanks that Help All Producing Persons Eat Nice Stuff.
Okay, that was a crappy effort. Someone else please do better.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:38 amESTI have two tanks on my truck. One is 19 gallons, the other is 15. Most pumps around me turn themselves off at $50 or $75 gallons, so I hardly ever fill all the way up, but when I do, it hurts. A lot!
I work one gallon from home. My parents are a gallon and a half from home. My mom called the other day, Sunday, and asked me to come over and do some work on her computer. I was all “Hell no, that’s $12 of gas I’d be using! I’ll come by later this week when I’m in the area.” She did not take that well.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:41 amESTIt could be worse; I own 9 over the road Freightliners and my fuel bill was about $16,000 last week. My friends in the truck sales and finance business tell me business has all but stopped, and reposessions are going thru the roof.
When you look at your grocery bills this is where a lot of the cost increase is coming from, and it will probably get worse before it gets better.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:04 amESTIf only we would drill off the Florida coast, like Cuba and China are now.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:39 amESTAt $7/gal, I will be homeless, unless I can get a serious increase in income. When I bought my house, gas was less than $1.75 a gallon. Now the current prices on gas are making it nearly impossible to pay my mortgage. I buy hardly anything that’s not necessary, I go to the store once a week or less, except to stop there on the way home from work to pick up something in between times, and I nearly always take a bag lunch, rather than going out, like many of my coworkers do.
I can’t afford to sell my house, either. It would cost me too much, because I wouldn’t be able to sell it for enough to cover Commissions.
Cosmo, it must be nice to be able to scoff at gas prices. Some of us just can’t bring ourselves to scoff at something that’s gone up over 150% in the past 4 years.
June 12th, 2008 at 12:29 pmESTLove it! But there are two problems:
1. The methane comes out the front end (the shortest route from the fermentation chamber to the great, wide world!), so you’ll need to come up with a mod for your collection device — gastric tube? — since taping a bag over the ‘moo’ would kind of vitiate the whole exercise.
2. You’d better act quickly! The Warmers are after the supply!
June 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pmESTNo offense taken, Dani. I don’t mind the concept of the Prius, but I’d much rather have the Acura.
My complaint about SUVs is for folks who think they NEED a Yukon to move little Madison and Abigail around town. Seriously, wouldn’t a sedan be more functional? Do they really HAVE to haul the whole soccer team around? Do they really HAVE to haul all that crap? If you really have a whole horde of kids, or actually travel off-road, go right ahead, but when I see my neighbor driving his Suburban by himself, it looks like he has a house grafted to his ass.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pmESTI remember the good ol’ days. In 1970 when I started driving my 62 Chevy Nova - there was a place I could get gas for 19.9 per gallon. The usual price was 33 cents or so. Those days are long gone.
I have a Nissan Titan -and I cannot afford to feed the beast - so I parked it for camping duty only. I drive a 4 cyl. car now. We have to act like European white trash now.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:50 pmESTI agree, drill off the coast, yes.
June 12th, 2008 at 2:56 pmESTYeah, how dare people of other countries want to own, control, and profit from their own natural resources.
It would be better to pull out of those countries and drill, drill, drill and refine, refine, refine our own oil reserves, which are now estimate to equal or exceed the amount of oil that has ever been drilled anywhere, anytime.
The Russians and Chinese are now drilling “ultra-deep-wells” and will soon have rigs off the coast of Cuba and Venezuela, if they don’t already, while all the academic, socialist theorists here in the US whine and moan about barren, forsaken areas of Alaska being “destroyed” by oil exploration.
If we don’t pull our head out of the utopian, techno-idiot correctness than infects our collective small minds, we will soon be owned by the Russians and Chinese, and they will be here drilling it and seling it back to us for $200/barel as we slave away in their hotels, call centers and refineries as good third-world chattle citizens of the new, not-so-kinder-and-gentler world order.
/rant-mode-off
June 12th, 2008 at 3:49 pmESTYep, nothing is free. Alot of energy and real nasty stuff is used to make batteries, and there are waste problems even with the best recyling. The same is true of solar panels.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:52 pmEST1995 Mazda that gets around 26 mpg
27 mile commute each way
Local gas prices currently $4.29 a gallon and it cost $53 on my last fillup. I work a shift where I cannot car pool.
It’s not the gas prices killing me. It’s the $11 an hour with no raise in 2 years that hurts. If it gets much higher, I plan to sleep in my car at work a couple of nights a week. I don’t see any other way around it. At those wages, I can’t afford to replace the car.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:03 pmESTYeah, ALASKA is a really beautiful place. ANWR is not. Your three pictures don’t prove a single thing. My apartment is a filthy trash hole, but I bet you I could take three careful pictures and make it look as clean as a microchip assembly room.
Oh, so it’s okay to drill in my backyard but not okay to drill in yours?
Where’s all your concern for the “pristine environment” at the bottom of the ocean?
June 12th, 2008 at 6:09 pmESTMcCain does. He supported a failed 2006 Arizona decision to ban gay marriage and opposes gay civil unions.
By your definition, that makes him a bigot and a homophobe.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:11 pmESTSo it’s okay for a foreign country to illegally seize control of American economic interests?
June 12th, 2008 at 6:13 pmESTMighty S.
I’ve come to realize that you are going to react in the opposite way to anything I say, so out of the goodness of my gigantic heart; I’l like to offer and idea:
Let’s make a pact to not waste each other’s time by commenting back and forth. You automatically disagree with anything I say, even when I’m agreeing with you, and quite frankly, you annoy the ever living shit out of me.
Let’s just not talk ,okay.
Maybe I just don’t understand you. Then again, I don’t expect to understand a person who actually calls themself “mighty samauri”, what the hell is that anywyay? Are you a real Samauri? I mean, I call my self Para, short for Paratrooper, because, well, I’m am a paratrooper. Are you a “mighty” person or a “samauri”? I know you’re mighty annoying.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:48 pmESTI’m sorry, but I just have to laugh at this (not at the fact that you can’t spell “samurai” though, that’s just kinda sad).
Making fun of my username? That’s the best you can do? Seriously?
There’s a poster here named “Mata Hari”. Are you going to make fun of that? Someone else is named “PaleoMedic”. You gonna make fun of that too? Hell, there are people with letters and numbers in their usernames. Are you going to make fun of them too?
Yeah, I’m sure you do find me mighty annoying. A lot of people find it mighty annoying when someone else exposes the flaws in their arguments.
And I should point out that YOU started this argument, not me. I was responding to Felicity’s post quoting John McCain, not yours. So respectfully, if you don’t feel like finishing a fight, don’t start one.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:04 pmESTMighty, Para:
Ya’ll play nice, or I’ll take away your toys.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:34 pmESTPaleoMedic is a military medic.
And yes, I type with great dyslexia, you got me there.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:41 pmESTMighty, Para,
Doggone it! It really was my post that started this whole exchange. So, since I stupidly started it, can I beg you to let it go?
Please?
It would stink if either of you were to drive the other away. At least it would stink for me, because I come here not just for Rachel’s brilliant humor and insight, but for the mental challenge (yup, as if I’m not mentally challenged enough!) of hashing out ideas — some of which have resolutions, some not.
During the recent troll war, somebody compared this comment section to Rachel’s dining room table — I love that analogy! You two bring differing perspectives to the table. I, for one, value that tremendously.
So can’t we keep it civil?
June 12th, 2008 at 9:28 pmESTOk, so they drill here at home, and find all kinds of oil, and drop the prices of gas, and we are all rolling deep again.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:38 amESTBut what happens when THAT oil runs out?
Last time I checked, we weren’t making any more oil, just like we aren’t making anymore earth.
Big picture people, big picture.
Do you want the price of gas to go down?
We pay about $130 a barrel for Arab oil.
We sell the grain (corn, wheat, etc) to those countries that we buy oil from for about $5-$7 a bushel.
Raise the prise of exported grain to $100 a bushel and only lower it as the price of oil goes down - a lot.
Then immediately start growing our own domestic production (Drill - and do it now).
June 13th, 2008 at 4:35 amESTDavid,
Unless I’m mistaken we pay 130 bbl for all oil, because the wall street speculators buy futures on the oil, and the set the future price ( that’s over simplified I know). I think Exxon still pays much less for Saudi oil, and sells it to the commodities traders for a profit ( abotu 10%) and then those dudes are markign it up like crazy. Last week, even thet Saudi crown prince was saying the price was ridiculous, since it’s not them charging that price.
It’s the middleman, and frankly, he needs to have his kneecaps broken.
Donna,
Big picture indeed. I think at 7 bucks per barrel, we’ll think seriously about alternatives and we won’t have to worry about oil in the future. Yes, we’ll need it for plastics, but not so badly that we have to drill in pritsine places, rather only a few “bottom-of-the-ocean” type places. good point.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:17 amESTI recently bought a new car, a Corolla and it gets great milage. I work one mile from my home and I’d gladly walk to work everyday, but I’d have to walk through the ‘hood, and I’d really prefer not to.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:54 amESTI used to love road trips on the weekend but no more. I fill up when I’ve used anywhere from a quarter to half a tank - it hurts less.
Relatively, yes.
You make it sound like these “American economic interests” are always established in a honest, fair, equitable manner. They are not.
There is usually alot of corruption and fraudulent arm twisting of whoever is in power at the time. Of course they benefit economically, but all the working class people that end up working in the fields and pumping the oil for us good ole’ americans end up on the short end of the stick.
Someone finally comes along and calls us on the charade, successfully overthrows or replaces the regime that “negotiated” with the american companies, and exposes how the deal was fraudulent or acheived by undue force, and decides to re-negotiate a better deal for his people.
Of course american companies then start screaming about “communists” or “terrorist” and “nationalizing US economic interests”, and start hand waving or finger pointing at all the less than perfect character traits of the foreign patriot ( to his country), turn him into a boogie man or monster, and send in the spooks or troops to maintain control.
We do not have a moral “right” to other countries’ oil. Especially while we have so many undeveloped reserves, it is foolish to put so much time, energy, and money into trying to get access to their oil instead of investing in more drilling and refining here.
Then we could wash our hands of their regional messes and let their neighbors, like the Russians and Chinese clean it up, instead of being tricked into being their mercenaries, all the while depleting our resources and killing our economy, which diminishes the US capacity to compete as a “super power” in the world.
I do like the idea of raising our export food prices in proportion to oil prices. That’s clever.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:26 amESTFrank and I work about a block from each other, and the puppy daycare place is about half a mile from work, so we carpool and drop off puppy on the way. We fill up for about $65 (Santa Fe) every week and a half or so. The commute takes about 25 minutes each way, but we’re antisocial like you, so we go to work, church, and the grocery store, and that’s about it.
It’s cool, because all the money we save on gas would go to pay for the increased cost of food, but thanks to Amazon Prime and buying non-perishables in bulk with free shipping, the money we save on gas instead goes to buy more video games and DVDs of TV shows so we can support our antisocial habit.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:47 pmESTCost almost 20 bucks ta fill up the scoot today.
4.5 gallons of premium. She gets 45/50mpg solo,
40/45mpg “Two-Up”. NOT stock! LOL!
Ya know, back in High School, in ‘73, gas was
about 40 cents a gallon fer PREMIUM ta run in my
hot-rod ‘68 Mustang. 20 gallon aftermarket fuel cell cost less than 9 bucks ta fill. “Gas crunch”
back then. LMMFAO and cryin’ at the same time now.
The ‘05 Ranger with extended cab and 1000 lbs of tools and shit would cost 75 bucks ta fill. 20mpg.
Ain’t seen the full mark in over a year.
I throw $20’s at it, but they bounce off now!!!
Jus’ use the truck fer work and big stuff now.
Y’all would be AMAZED at how much crap ya can put on a HD softail! Bungee nets ARE yer friend!
Secure that 10 lb bag of taters REAL well, tho!
(Remind me ta get some BIG saddlebags, my old ones
just ain’t cuttin’ it anymore!)
Pic, maybe? http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p267/twolf2u/10_07HDFsig.jpg
Hell, off topic, but while I’m here, this is tha
DAWG! Turbo, or “Turbo Von Snorkenberger”! I made that up,’cuz he THINKS he is of royal lineage! He
just SNORKS a lot and looks like a pure Malonois!
Really Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, and PIT!
hehe! SMART, but STUBBORN!
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p267/twolf2u/Turbocouchpic.jpg
In ‘69, we used ta fill up our lil’ Honda dirt bikes fer 20 cents a gallon.
Now the following is all JMHO. I’m a contractor.
BUT I think I got a lil’ bit of a grasp on economics.
ANYWAYS,and back ta the topic, TRUE inflation from
‘65 (when silver coins turned ta nickel/copper
slugs) to 2005 averaged out ta roughly 6%.
“Rule of 72″, the price of everything averaged out
to a doubling point every 12 years. Check it out
y’self! The Gov’t lies about inflation, too! DOH!
Federal Reserve BULLSHIT!
Big ticket items, from houses ta cars ta Harleys
and refrigerators show the 6% figure ta be true over that timespan. Fuel costs either tracked the
inflation rate, or were below it, making the cost of regular “consumables” relatively cheap.
(Groceries, and alla the rest of the stuff ya don’t think twice about buyin’. “Necessities.”)
Figure compound interest tables (inflation) over those 36 years, and thru sheer manipulation by
several of the “Powers That BE”, we have been payin’ prices equal or less than inflation fer fuel over that time period.
20 cent gas in ‘69 = $1.63/gal in 2005. That is about where it was, if I recall.
In 2006-2007, we are seeing things turn around.
Big ticket items start ta go level, while the
“consumables” rise along with gas prices. By mid
2007, housing and vehicles along with all other
“big ticket” items are startin’ ta go fer a song.
The dishonest and purely IMMORAL and ILLEGAL
practices of many mortgage brokers takes it’s
toll, not as a “trickle down” effect, but more
like a California mudslide. Expensive stuff gets
cheaper by the month.
Gas is $2.50, when it should be $1.83.
Y’all remember what that did ta bread, milk, meat,
and all, right? Y’all should ALREADY be buckled in fer what’s comin’. Y’all ain’t stupid.
One year later, the “big ticket” sellers are
scramblin’ ta sell houses and vehicles. BUT, the
cost of gas, which should be around 2 bucks/gallon
is double that now in 2008. Cheap houses and
vehicles, but EATING jus’ got ta be a CONCERN!
Overall, I think that “inflation” will go DEEP
inta the teens this year due ta “consumables”
being continually priced higher due to the cost of
transport. I ain’t got a percentage, but I’ll flat
fuckin’ GUARANTEE ya that a lot of people in this country are lookin’ harder at what they can put on their table than what they can put in their garage!!! Aside from dumpin’ the gas hog fer a better option.
OK, I gotta confess. I had ta go ta the dentist today, and I am hurtin’, pissed off at the money I dropped over there, and tryin’ ta stay out of the
Percocets. Ain’t had one fer 4 hrs…
Nope, pain is comin’ back. I can handle ANYTHING but tooth pain, my teeth are a buncha lil’ pussies.
Way late in the AM, I need ta eat one more and SLEEP!
Hopefully, reloading components will remain at a
price that we can afford. (NO smiley there, guys!)
Allright, I gotta go. I have an irrational
craving fer a big ol’ sliced TOMATO with a LOTTA
pepper and a lil’ salt on it…
Take care now, y’all hear? Nite.
June 14th, 2008 at 4:54 amESTMy father used to be proud of what I did until recently. He now just tells people I play piano in a whorehouse. What I actually do is….I am an engineer in the oilfield. There I said it. I can assure you I am not the reason…at least not the only reason…that oil is priced at it’s current levels.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:59 amESTMy wife has learned not to complain though because our livelihood, her car, her house, the honest Kitchen food (thanks Rachel for that…at like a million dollars a pound) all are paid for by that pump.
Is it as bad as it is going to get? Not if we drill for more and build more refineries. Is that going to happen…not with demorcrats running the show. Sorry folks…you can have your opinion about that…but you can’t have your own facts. Supply and Demand always wins.
Well, I’m an old lady here but my granddaughter told me I might like this blog. I can see I will, but on this point here, I’m going to have to beg to differ.
Personally, all this mumbo jumbo about drilling here or there and yadda yadda seems ridiculous to me. As do the suggestions by some- and not just here in this comment trail- that oil has somehow become a renewable resource. I’m well past retirement age, but even when I was in junior high school and high school we learned that crude oil and related sources of energy are not feasibly renewable. This pseudo sciency junk I’ve been reading lately irks the crap outta me.
To my I’ve-seen-many-things mind, it’s well past time to get heads out of asses and use the fireball in the sky to power our lives. No pollution, no decimation of the only planet habitable - at least in what’s left of my lifetime - and feasible in a very short amount of time. Then, guess what, no need to drill or pay oil taxes or up the interest rate or any of the other numerous things suggested here. Use the sun and let’s move on.
Because the gas price issue is a combination of Wall Street, Big Oil, foreign consumers, and demand. Unless we nuke China, India, and South America there isn’t much that’s going to stop the sliding dollar or the rising cost of gasoline and petroleum products.
But Amen to whoever said stop with the corn ethanol. Hello, I’d like to be able to live the rest of my life eating the occasional red meat with a glass of milk. At the cost of beef and dairy products now, combined with the gas rate, this old lady is gonna have to bicycle and eat grass.
June 15th, 2008 at 3:54 amEST