Read carefully and let us know what you think.
I have the advantage of being an insider in the oil business, no it does not get me cheap gasoline.. It does give me a lot of people to draw information from.
The industry driven media leads the cry to blame oil prices on: The lack of production - Katrina - Threats from Iran - Political unrest in Nigeria - Corroded pipelines in Alaska - Demands by China and India - OPEC - The one about refinerys being shot down for repair!!!! They do this every year as they switch to winter blend of fuel, and don’t kid yourself into thinking that they do not have a tank farm full of product to carry them over...
OPEC embargo of the 1970's, My inside source at that time was Gulf oil,, now BP. There was no shortage of product. JUST hold back product and create demand, and sell at a higher price. OK now it is 2007 and we have the same thing , just in another way.
Lets start by a new word: (Advertising people like to coin words that they only know the meaning to, or they make up their own meanings) "CONTANGO" A STOCK MARKET TERM FOR A SITUATION IN WHICH A COMMODITY – LIKE OIL —HAS A HIGHER FUTURE VALUE THAN ITS CURRENT PRICE.
Oil companies and others like to buy futures contracts to make sure they’ve got oil coming to them well into the future. But lately, people who have nothing to do with the oil industry are buying oil futures, holding them as can’t lose investments that can return well over 10 percent.
Investment banks from Morgan Stanley to Goldman Sachs are making so much money from oil futures that they’ve become a hot investment for all sorts of big money players.
Some of the biggest players are the U.S. pension funds, which have put billions of dollars into oil futures. At least one analyst thinks that pension funds have become part of the machinery driving higher gas prices.
Pension funds and other investors are buying oil to remove it from the market – which can help drive up demand – before selling it for a profit some months later..
WHAT CAN BE DONE: Reduce consumption till storage space is no longer available

 

If you can, switch to an alternate, renewable source of energy such as solar, wind, thermal, etc. That looks after heat and light. Still working on the transportation part. Now if I can just get my work to install a stable, I could ride my horse to work lol

 

I agree, Thorny.

It's all about choices - choose to use, pay the price. The right price for any product on the open market is exactly what the customer will pay for it - and that's just the way it is. Make a different choice and you may see your world change. Complaining about the price of fuel while making choices that maximize your need for it is a great silliness of modern living . . . and a habit that is highly entrenched in our collective entitlement attitude.

 

People put their heads in the sand till, some one kicks them in the butt and says hey pay your loan, pay your house, But I can't cause I had to pay $100 for a tank of gas. To show the public around me I drive a 50cc scooter, I began to ride it as an example, now I love it,, There are 14 that have changed here in a work force of 400, and all in two months.. I arranged for special parking, and now it is the thing to do..

Gas prices have dropped .50$ in the last month.. and it is sad to see people begin to splurge again.. to make this work you have to cut back on a permanent level..

 

I'm in Minnesota and they've gone up in the last few weeks. The price of gas is really a sore spot with me. I've cut my gas consumption in half, maybe a little more than that...There are some things that I need my car for, but if I don't absolutely need it I don't use it. Others need to cut down, I totally agree, but they just seem to refuse to do that. What a shame!!! I wish I could afford to change my car and go green....

 

I am going to build a sailcar.

 

Roflmfao,,,,,

ROFLMFAO,,,,,I save all my farts and put them in my tank,,,

 

Just stick your head in there and light a match.....lol

 

I'm willing to bet they can afford to buy more storage far easier than I can afford to not go anywhere.

 

Hang on, every effort is worthwhile a few years ago I bought an old pinto, and put it on the road for a total of $200. in repairs, I have gotten up to 40 mpg on trips and 33 mpg around town. before that I drove a large commercial dodge van that got 12 mpg.. I still have, but it only gets started about once a month, for a 2 mile drive.. Now the Pinto sits still a good bit, for I ride a scooter to work at 120mpg. two weeks ago I took the pinto on an 800mile trip to pick up a moped to restore.. That trip at 40mpg was not bad. had i taken the van for the trip, I would have been broke for a month.. . The scooter does not fly down the street , but it gets to be more fun every week, and I pour .8 of a gallon of gas in the tank..
If everyone would cut down as you have,, it would not take long before storage tanks of gasoline would have to be sold, or would go bad.. that is when price stabalizes.. The same with refinerys

 

I wish I could drive less, but as it is I'm 17 miles from work, soon to be 30 miles away. But I do drive an economical car at least. But the cost of gas plus the increased cost of general grocery items is killing me. And its for no good reaosn at all, which really pisses me off.

 

I sure have missed you ThronyRose and how wonderfully you point out the obvious business cycles that the oil companies go through every year just about as regular as clock work and the only thing that really ever changes is the reasons they make up for it.

It is so easy if you just look at it from the perspective of monopoly marketing because that's what it really is. Market forces to date have nothing to do with it really because the oil companies know that especially the American public will pay almost any amount. So the only trick is how much to gouge the consumer at any given point, and as TR points there are now millions of parasites sucking something out of every drop of gas.

It is also easy to see and track the lies and if you do they will almost always lead you to our own government. Why have we been screaming reduce our dependency on foreign oil since 1970 and never really done a damn thing about it. Because the oil companies didn't want us to and so neither has our government and that is ok with an apethetic pulic until the price of gas gets so high it really starts to hurt them. Then there are some protests and call to action and the price of gas will go down just as suddenly as it went up. But it will only go down a fraction of what it increased and then eventually start creeping up again.

And it will continue to do so because the world oil supply is dwindling and so they will charge more for it as they make the tansition into bio fuels, electricity and water. You did't think the "oil companies" would stop just because they ran out of oil. Of course not, they are energy companies and their commercials are brainwashing as you speak.

If you watch BP's commericals you would think BP stands for Beyond Petroleum, when actually it stands for British Petroleum which it would take someone like ThornyRose to know is and alwas has been good old Gulf Oil just avoiding American Taxes.

And what really gets me is myself and people like ThornyRose also know how easy it would be to actually change this. It is this simple. The oil companies and refineries not only can't afford to shut down, they can't even stop. Think about the phrase we sometimes use about putting an idea or a question or request in "the pipeline." What does that imply? A confined transportation system that once something is placed in it will just keep flowing at it's own pace. Ever heard the phrase "we'll just stop the pipeline"? Nope because you can't. Even if you shut off the pumps the oil keeps flowing.

With pipeline capacities, oil shipments, refining capabilities already booked in advance and running on a tight 90 day cycle they can't afford to be wrong on consumption. Or the American public's ability to see through their monopoly and take a stand against them. This one would be easy because they are actually just business people who we have handed the riens to, and it's our own fault for letting them run away with us.

The is the most basic economic lesson there is. Everytime you see the price of gasoline, diesel and/or oil increase you can apply just about that same percentage increase to just about everything we buy. Because if it's not made with oil (plastics ect.) it's damn sure transported by oil.

Hemp Leila will not burn your eyes as bad as diesel I can assure you.

 

This was meant to quote Stumblers piece
you said it: Oil companys have stepped in and are controling the ethonol production... and the oil companys and others are controling the price of ethonol by the same way that gas has gone on the futures market.. But the Oil companys have invested in Corn and Soybean futures, and have driven the price up to where their PR people can say "ethonol cost as much as oil "

Remember when you said to me, "If they built gas pipeline from Wyoming to the east coast we would have plenty of fuel"
OK China is building a gas pipeline all the way across China to bring Gas to the populated east side of China, and they predict that it will be done in 2-3 years....to be complete by 2010

 

I'm not going to give up, I refuse to be a part of the huge profits the oil companies are making. A scooter sounds like fun, but it wouldn't work here in Minnesota in the winter. It would be a little chilly!!! The prices of everything are just getting so high because of the oil situation...I know that I've had to cut back because of it, hopefully, it will start to hurt enough that others will start using less fuel...

 

I recently purchased a Toyota Prius. I drive 60-75 miles a day and was spending well over 300 a month driving my Maxima, I now spend about 125

 

I read an article awhile back (and I referenced it in another thread) that said that the manufacturing process to make the batteries that go in hybrids creates an ecological disaster all it's own. Perhaps someone more industrious than myself can find out about that and share some info.

-S-

 

What you say is true, just as the fact that we discard milions of batteries daily, but that does not stop us. The typical Prius battery lasts about 200,00 miles (that is from people who are driving them not some government study). If that takes 15 years to come to a point where the battery is discarded there will have been billions, if not trillions of flashlight (and vibrator) batteries thrown into landfills. What is not being seen is there is another entire industry that will spring up as a result for the need to dispose of these batteries with minimal echo impact.

From a strictly personal point, I am spending well over $1000.00 less each year for gas, and that directly impacts my wallett.

 

It's not the disposal of them, it's the actual manufacturing. The article said that one plant in Canada has destroyed the surrounding environment to such an extant that NASA sometimes uses it to test rovers designed for the astroid craters of Mars n'such.

-S-

 

The days of cheap oil are over. With global demand increasing, proven reserves decreasing, the cost of extraction increasing, and the all to unstable geopolitical climate it is no wonder that oil is expensive. When one considers the tremendous growth in China and India and their demand for fossil fuels it is understandable that the price of oil is being driven by the huge demand of those nations and the west. The only way to reduce the price of a commodity such as oil is to reduce demand.

There are many additional factors that negatively influence the price of fuel here in the US. Chief among these is limited refining capacity in the US. Additionally there are multiple grades of fuel that must be refined for different geographies here in the US and these are mandated by the EPA. For example the gasoline that you purchase in NYC is a different formulation than fuel you would buy in Houston, Denver, LA, etc. Additionally there are many environmental groups that oppose tapping or opening up known areas of production. Ethanol is a WASTE of time and resources. Not only is ethanol of lower energy content than gasoline it is probably as polluting as fossil fuels when one accounts for all the energy and resources that are used to distill and transport ethanol to a distribution center. I did see above the comment about food being more expensive....if the food stock has corn or any corn derivative in it you can directly link the increase in the cost of that item to the increased use of corn based ethanol production. My food is more expensive and I am buying the government line that ethanol is a savior of the climate from the would be plague of global warming....give me a break.

So my solution to all this.....Biodiesel and ethanol provided by algae. I know some of you are laughing, but I think algal farms that can provide biodiesel and ethanol are the answer until the market can bring real live hydrogen or fuel cell technology to the market. Hybrids are a good stop gap, but all the toxic waste is going to leave a mark somewhere. Of course I can already hear the bitching that only rich nation states can afford that. Well duh....it is up to us to save the planet...we consume the most and we are going to be the ones to bring that new technology to market just like we always do.

And my parting shot is why is it that we the west are always being guilted into doing something for the environment? We have stringent regulatory agencies that mandate how much fuel mileage car must get, how many pollutants per mile a vehicle can produce, etc etc etc. And yet the third world is cutting down forests, burning crappy gasoline, killing wildlife left and right and no one condemns them for despoiling the environment? I posit that the third world is just as greedy as the west when it comes to using natural resources to further their growth and development.

Your thoughts?

 

i'm pretty much in agreement with your remarks. i would raise a couple points though. gas is cheap... in the US. In real dollars, compared to real estate/homes, a gallon of milk, a movie ticket, gas is about as expensive as it has ever been.

ethanol is not an answer in any form it comes in, unless the question is; "how to reduce our dependancy on foreign oil?"