Yes I deleted my last post and decided to post something more useful. McCain is up to the same old tricks that he used against this fellow Republicans during the primary. He just keeps repeating lies about his opponents as if it were the truth. I heard him time yammering on mainstream media saying that Obama is against Off-shore drilling (which is not true). Obama is opposed to the type of corporate welfare offshore drilling that McCain supports but Obama supports offshore drilling with caveats. Then McCain smirked and said "Senator Obama thinks you should keep your tires inflated." ((snicker snicker)) WELL, guess what? I heard tonight that by following such a recommendadtion we could save 200 Million barrels of oil each year.
McCain is dumber than a rock! He graduated fourth from the bottom of almost 900 students. That is dumb. Please remember that--he obviously can't.
MYTH: McCain tried to trivialize Obama’s message regarding properly inflated tires, and once again he fell flat on his own Republican face.
FACT: Obama was right. You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires. Properly inflated tires are safer and last longer. The equivalenet savings is $0.12 a gallon. (On a 12 gallon tank this amounts to $1.44 cents each time you fill up. If you fill up your tank at $3.96 a gallon twice a week–one month = $11.52 savings. All this just from properly inflated tires. Obama was right. McCain is silly.
Go to this site to learn more:
Of course I am supporting Obama, so I am a little bothered by these claims, but even if I were not, I just think it is silly to point our fingers at one group and say it's all their fault.
Because of this, I was inspired to write this post, after doing some research of course.
While many Pols may be blocking new drilling leases in places like ANWR, Alaska (which just so happens to be a Wildlife Refuge, hence the name A-rctic N-ational W-ildlife R-efuge) and currently off-shore oil sites along all three major coastlines, this may account for part of why oil prices are high, it is by no means the only or prime factor involved.
Additional Factors? Read On, my friend, read on!
Factor 1 - Production/Refining
Current US Oil Consumption = 20.7 million barrels/day
Current US Refining Capacity = 17.4 million barrels/day
And yet, we have fewer refineries now than we did in 1982 (149 today compared to 301 in 1982) and we have not built any new refineries since 1976. Why? Simple. They are too expensive. Refineries can take 10+ years to get permitted and built and can cost upwards of $3.5 Billion to build. With this type of time and capital expenditure, it could take 13+ years for a single refinery to become profitable. Companies just aren't wiling to do this.
With this being said, I would love for these "Drill Heads" to explain to me how we are going to refine all this "new oil" that we pull out of ANWR and other areas, when we already can not refine enough gasoline to meet our current needs. We are already importing refined oil as well as unrefined oil. Do they just want us to drill for more oil here in the US so we can then ship it to another country to be refined and then ship it back to the US for public use? Wouldn't this be costly as well?
Factor 2 - Non US Production
Most of us have probably also heard the occasional person blame OPEC for our current oil woes. While again, they certainly have an influence on oil prices (just as refining does) they are also only one of the factors involved. What most people don't know is that we actually import less than 50% of our oil from OPEC countries. In fact most recently it was 47.28%. Clearly production control over 47% of our oil will certainly affect our prices and I am by no means suggesting that it doesn't. What we fail to recognize is that we are not the only market they sell to, and as far as world demand goes, they have not had huge outcry from all of their purchasers to increase production. Additionally, they produce oil for profit, and if it were your business, why would you sell your product for less than what you could get for it? What can we do about it? Well, we could start buying more oil from Non OPEC countries that prove they are willing to sell us oil for less.
Factor 3 - The Open Market
As with other commodities like gold, oil is traded on the open market. You can trade oil and gasoline just like you can do with gold, stocks, and bonds. This also impacts our oil prices due to people expecting oil to become more and more valuable over time causing them to purchase this commodity, which in turn sends the price up. If we increase refining/production or reduce demand we could impact prices, but again we are not the only people wanting to buy and use gas and other oil products, so the amount of the impact is unknown.
Factor 4 - Inflation/Dollar Devaluation
As we all know, inflation has a major impact on the price of goods and services. Over the past 40 years, the US dollar has lost over 80% of it's purchasing power, meaning and item that cost you 16 cents in 1968 would cost you 1 dollar today. When you look at it from the perspective of 1 dollar it may not seem like much, if you look at from the perspective of a house, it is huge. Take for example my home. Today it costs $150,000 for my 3/2 suburban home but in 1968 it would have cost a mere $24,000. That's a pretty big difference, a $126,000 difference in fact. Overtime, as the dollar declines in value (or as inflation goes up whichever way you prefer to look at it) this raises the cost of what we buy. Gas in 1968 a gallon of gas cost about 34 cents/gallon. Today it costs an average of $4.02/gallon. If inflation were the only cause then gas would be around $2.15 - wouldn't we all love that! :)
Factor 5 - Oil Company Profits
I have also heard people on the left (my peeps) complaining that oil companies are to blame. The greed of these companies is the great unspoken evil of our time. While again corporate greed is a factor, it is by no means the main factor. When Bush took office in January of 2001 (technically February since he was not sworn in until the 20th of Jan) the price of oil averaged $29.00/barrel or $1.52/gallon for gasoline. Today oil closed at $134.86 per barrel or $4.02 per gallon. If you do a simple ratio on this, if oil companies increased their price per gallon at the same rate as the increase of oil prices then a gallon of gas would cost you $7.07. So, even though the Big Oil companies have been making record profit, they have not been increasing the price of gas at the same rate that the price of oil has been increasing. They have however, made quite a bit of money off of the other products derived form oil such as fertilizer.
A special note about drilling leases, off-shore and other-wise:
There are currently over 6,000 leases that the oil companies have that are not being utilized. Some of these are offshore leases and some are not. Many are asking the oil companies to use these leases rather than trying to obtain new leases. In rebuttal - I have heard some Oil Company Representatives say that they are not using them because it is bad land and doesn't have oil, or at least not enough oil to make it worth it. OK, so why are you paying the lease then? Why don't you stop paying for land that can't be used? Doing this would be more in line with your corporate charters that state that you cannot knowingly make financial decisions that are bad for your companyâ??s bottom line. Are you telling me that you all are choosing to spend money you don't have to for land that you can't use? Are you saying that you are knowingly going against the best interest of your company and it's shareholders? Are you saying that you are knowingly violating your corporate charter? Do you not realize that doing this can get your company's "C" status stripped away?
If you believe the oil companies when they say that the land is bad and doesn't have oil, then you should be upset that the oil companies are not lowering their expenses by getting out of bad investments like these unusable leases; and if you do not believe them when they say it's bad land, then you should want them to use those leases before they get more.
All in all, I think it's fair to say that there are many factors involved in the increase of oil and gas prices. Every thing from demand to production, to the market and more. I write this to ask you to think about it more in depth the next time you hear any politician or pundit blame any one of these factors for our current situation. My suggestions? Try to shop smart for gas (not all gas stations are priced equally) and do your best to reduce your own dependence on oil. You could try to get a car that gets better gas mileage, or see if your boss will let you work from home, or work an alternative schedule like 4 ten hour days instead of 5 eight hour days, or take public transportation at least 1 day per week. I know that these suggestions are not feasible for everyone, which is why I believe that our only true recourse is to starting investing in/using alternate fuels.
Thanks for reading!
Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://www.factcheck.org/...
http://www.westegg.com/...
source:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/06/22/house_hunting_in_the_age_of_4_gas/
There is a new commuter culture emerging as it becomes more expensive to drive to work these days. What's the trend - living close to the places you need. People are starting to move closer to work, or where they need to be to cut down on driving to save money. But the added benefit is that they are saving themselves and the environment! By driving less they pollute less. AND (I can only hope) this might be the start of a national walking culture. (fingers crossed)
One of my dreams for this country is that most people will be able to work close enough to home that they can bike or walk and enjoy life a little more each day while getting exercise and saving the planet. Cities will no longer become centers of urban blight but vibrant communities where people live, play and interact. I think it will bring us closer together as a community and as a country. It is better than reaching across the fence, because there won�t be a fence!
voters. And it will, trust me! We must be willing to, while giving as much attention to environmental concerns as reasonably possible, explore for oil, coal, and natural gas immediately. We must retrieve and process our fossil fuels as soon as we can while frantically developing alternative energy sources with which to power our industry, motor vehicles and homes. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain have beaten Barack and the rest of our party to this unavoidable common sense approach. Barack will ultimately loss the election if he does not realize and act on the fact that our economy is presently and for the near future entirely dependant upon affordable and available fossil fuels and their derivatives. If we don’t act now we may not have the ability to research and develop the needed technologies to make us independent of these fossil fuels. The looming energy crises will put us into the basic survival mode, and the means for such activities will not be available as they currently are. Unless Barack and the rest of the Democrats get on board, the Republicans will continue to run things. Why can’t the Democratic party use some common sense. Why is it always one extreme or the other? It's embarrassing. To the Democrats I beg,… Please wake up??????? We need to get our nation back!
I am a white 61 year old Vietnam vet and a retired building trades union supervisor who retired out of the engineering department at my last job. I am just trying to say many smart common sense people like myself (all races and colors) who want Barack to win and to have a couple of successful terms in office are very concerned that he has not picked up on this. I share many of his views and would like to see a prosperous period where we are not so preoccupied with the fossil fuel crises that we can't implement the needed policies etc. I pray for the sake of our party that Barack and the rest of the party quickly become aware of the gravity closing the door to the immediate pursuit of our reserves will have. This is one of the few mistakes we can make that will allow the Republicans to stay in office, and we are very likely currently making it.
As a nation, we tend to be such Drama Queens, thinking that it is always about us. LOL. We are outraged that gas has reached an average of $4 a gallon. Diesel in Europe today is going for the equivalent of $9 a gallon
Those who travel and live part-time in Europe realize this. For years the Europeans have been averaging the equivelant of $5 a gallon. In the Netherlands in 2006, people paid the equivalent of about $6.73 a gallon at the pump (converting roughly from liters)
Wholesale price of gas is roughly the same world wide but the difference is a heavy tax load that these countries impose to discourage consumption. They want their people to use the mass transit systems and they do. In the Netherlands, in the example above, the gas cost $2.61 and the rest, the $4.12, represents a 158% tax. The US has the lowest tax on gasoline of any industrialized country at about 15%. People in Europe who do have cars, do not on average use them even half as much as Americans so.
Sources:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1809900,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12452503/
The reason our dollar is so low is that our President has seen fit to spend billions on unnecessary military adventures and essentially borrowed money to do it. We are not actually paying for these wars. We are on the installment plan and as enormous debtors we suffer the consequences of people who are in over their heads. Their credit rating goes down. When individuals do this, they pay more in interest, maybe get their car repossessed, or their home foreclosed. When nations do it their currency gets devalued, cheapened, if you will.
Most of our troubles today are directly related to the Bush foreign policy which has made us more isolated, more despised, and weaker, especially economically. Sure, a few people are doing very well, either by sucking up to dictators, or by getting lucrative contracts, but the average person is stuck with the bill. Since we indeed live in a global economy, it might be fair to say that even the term foreign policy is becoming obsolete. A better term might be global policy since we are not outside the world, but participants in it.
Read More »I am not so sure but I can't help but think -- 'What better way to affect virtually every single American in a negative way?' The rising gas prices are here and I might add -- quite suddenly. Why has OPEC recently decided to limit supply and availability of raw sweet crude to the United States? Retaliation perhaps?
There are devastating effects occurring RIGHT NOW in our economy that affect each and every one of us financially, all the way from gasoline prices down to the prices of the foods we eat and feed our children, the airline industry, the transport industry and many more.
Why could this action from OPEC and other middle eastern petroleum corporations that literally control the oil NOT be considered a literal attack on our country?
Is this single issue tearing our economy apart? You bet! I was floored, but not surprised when the White House threatened to VETO the lawsuit against OPEC. The legislation was indeed removed from the bill to help other factors within to pass the Senate.I hear that Bush is personally vested in OPEC and other big oil companies, so this veto threat is perhaps a way to protect his own investments?
Comments?
Following is a campaign poster from 2004. Look at the progress we have made since then. I should say, look at the progress the Bush administration has made for Corporate America, the energy crisis, and the war in Iraq. Well, one thing is certain, all we will need to do is change the date on the poster
Please tell me that we are smarter then this, that we realize that if we put this useless band aid on the debate on oil will cease, the Hillary and or McCain will declare victory on the issue and the media coverage will move on to something else. We need a new solution, a real solution. We need to be involved in the solution.
Here is a start, We can make May 15 National check your tire pressure day. If everyone has properly inflated tires we will increase our MPG. It's a start
Here's what I found Little Dine
Gas Boycott June 2008 will be Exxo/Mobil - July will be Shell - August is Arco/BP - September is Chevron/Texaco - October is Conoco/76. The plan is to boycott the particular station for the entire month across the US.
Here's one I found on boycotting Memorial Weekend - San Diego gasprices
Here's an article I found on msnbc dated May 8, 2007 on why a one day gas boycott won't work. It's rather interesting and has some valid points.
guess he hasn't gassed up the benz lately.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/29campaign.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
(also it is wrong to finance corps with MY TAX MONEY!)
A clerk at a Lenexa, Kan., gas station told police that a man came into the store and asked the clerk if he was Muslim. When the clerk replied in the affirmative, the man reportedly started harassing him.
Soon after the man left the store, a Molotov cocktail incendiary device was thrown through the front window of the store. A similar incident occurred at another store in area. A 26-year-old man was later charged with two counts of criminal use of explosives and one count of criminal damage.
SEE: Molotov Cocktail Hurled At Gas Station (KCTV)
http://www.kctv5.com/news/15721008/detail.html Read More »
Representative Paul has put out a press release that proclaims him the champion of the working class, with plans to reduce the tax burden that we carry on our shoulders. What he does not describe is the effect that lifting that burden will do to the road at our feet. It's time to take an honest look at where his ideology is coming from and where legislative proposals based on that ideology will lead us. It's not a pretty picture.
Read More »November 19, 2007
â??Over the river and through the woods
to grandfatherâ??s house we goâ??
Ah, Thanksgiving, a time for visiting family, leaves rustling underfoot, afternoon football...and high gasoline prices. How did that happen? Gas prices are supposed to be lower in the fall due to lower gasoline use after the spike from summer vacations and driving season. But that isnâ??t the case this year.
Americans have seen a nearly 20 percent spike in oil prices and a 10 percent jump in gasoline prices in just the past several weeks. These higher than normal gas prices could very well persist and even rise, meaning that families may continue to spend a greater portion of their income on gasoline than they originally anticipated this holiday season.
According to the Energy Information Administrationâ??s latest data, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline is $3.111 per gallon, up from the average price for November 2006 of $2.315 in inflation-adjusted termsâ?"a 34.3 percent increase. Gas prices are currently just $0.077 shy of the 2007 monthly high set in May, which itself was the highest average in inflation-adjusted terms since June of 1981. The economic squeeze from gas prices means many Americans will have less to be thankful for this year.
The higher prices will make those long Thanksgiving trips in the car noticeably more expensive this year. A family driving to Des Moines, IA to Chicago this Thanksgiving could expect to spend $90.48 round-trip.[i] That same trip would have cost $67.33 in 2006 and just $40.28 in 2001 in inflation adjusted terms.
Since President Bushâ??s first Thanksgiving in 2001, oil prices have almost quintupled and gasoline prices have more than doubled in inflation-adjusted terms. Since November 2001, when a gallon of gas cost just $1.385 in inflation-adjusted terms, gas prices have risen by 124.6 percent. According to the Energy Information Administrationâ??s latest data, crude oil currently stands at $94.02 per barrel, a remarkable 394.8 percent increase over the November 2001 price of $19.00 in inflation adjusted terms. Read More »
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