$5 a gallon of gas rant

[elizabethbinary]

Quote:
Not at all, I love riding, and it's considerably cheaper than skydiving, for the thrills....I'm just saying that there are expenses, which the average joe, on the street, is not aware of, when he wanders into the big motorcycle dealer, and noone, there, is going to tell him. Basically, because motorcycle tires are not car tires, they will cost you about $.25-$.30 per mile, for the wear, which knocks a big hole in that 45mpg.

Oh this is true. And leathers and good helmets.... and boots (especially whe your dog eats them)... the do get pricey! But I still enjoy my little pleasures like wind in the face and cheap fills!

 

[Slinkytoys]

The oil pumped out of the US is NOT the good oil. There are different grades, the good stuff is in the Middle East. That's why our oil is sold elsewhere and we import the rest.
Slinky

 

[easttxchick]

Quote:
Not exactly-we do have decent crude down here in Texas.
The real tarry, sulphury junk comes out of Mexico-Mayan Crude.

We have the ability to refine the cruddiest, nastiest junk the earth can spew out right here in the good 'ol U.S.A.

 

[rufus]

Stop complaining! You have no God given right to cheap oil. The price will come down when people stop buying gasoline.

Do something positive. Convert to natural gas. Our nation is loaded with it. It is the Arabs' worst nightmare.

A lot of the cost of gasoline is government taxes. Gas is cheaper in nations that don't tax it so heavily and more expensive in nations that do tax it heavily. Think about that the next time you vote.

Also, gasoline will be a lot more expensive and so will be everything else as long as we have a government that thinks the printing press and higher taxes are the solution to all problems. They print a lot of money to stimulate the economy, and the only economy that gets stimulated is the Chinese. Remember that too the next time you vote.

Stop blaming the wealthy; they all live in the Middle East and the Far East now.

Rufus

 

[Desert Rooster]

this will definetly affect me, im a mobile mechanic and im my own boss

 

[BigIslandChicks]

Quote:
i did not read back to far in this thread but i have to agree with rufus here on the part above that is quoted. i live in hawaii and try my darndest to buy local and not shop at evil walmart where everything is made with poison! ok maybe not everything - i exaggerate!! on average everything here is shipped in from 2,000+ miles away. so things are even more expensive, including gasoline. and even on the mainland most peoples GMO food from the grocery store is from 1,500 miles away. when are people going to wake up to what is really going on here

if we want change, only we the people are going to get that done - not our crappy made in china lovin' government

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
That was obvious, please read:


December 26, 2010
The Finite World
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Oil is back above $90 a barrel. Copper and cotton have hit record highs. Wheat and corn prices are way up. Over all, world commodity prices have risen by a quarter in the past six months.
So what’s the meaning of this surge?
Is it speculation run amok? Is it the result of excessive money creation, a harbinger of runaway inflation just around the corner? No and no.
What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story.
Some background: The last time the prices of oil and other commodities were this high, two and a half years ago, many commentators dismissed the price spike as an aberration driven by speculators. And they claimed vindication when commodity prices plunged in the second half of 2008.
But that price collapse coincided with a severe global recession, which led to a sharp fall in demand for raw materials. The big test would come when the world economy recovered. Would raw materials once again become expensive?
Well, it still feels like a recession in America. But thanks to growth in developing nations, world industrial production recently passed its previous peak — and, sure enough, commodity prices are surging again.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that speculation played no role in 2007-2008. Nor should we reject the notion that speculation is playing some role in current prices; for example, who is that mystery investor who has bought up much of the world’s copper supply? But the fact that world economic recovery has also brought a recovery in commodity prices strongly suggests that recent price fluctuations mainly reflect fundamental factors.
What about commodity prices as a harbinger of inflation? Many commentators on the right have been predicting for years that the Federal Reserve, by printing lots of money — it’s not actually doing that, but that’s the accusation — is setting us up for severe inflation. Stagflation is coming, declared Representative Paul Ryan in February 2009; Glenn Beck has been warning about imminent hyperinflation since 2008.
Yet inflation has remained low. What’s an inflation worrier to do?
One response has been a proliferation of conspiracy theories, of claims that the government is suppressing the truth about rising prices. But lately many on the right have seized on rising commodity prices as proof that they were right all along, as a sign of high overall inflation just around the corner.
You do have to wonder what these people were thinking two years ago, when raw material prices were plunging. If the commodity-price rise of the past six months heralds runaway inflation, why didn’t the 50 percent decline in the second half of 2008 herald runaway deflation?
Inconsistency aside, however, the big problem with those blaming the Fed for rising commodity prices is that they’re suffering from delusions of U.S. economic grandeur. For commodity prices are set globally, and what America does just isn’t that important a factor.
In particular, today, as in 2007-2008, the primary driving force behind rising commodity prices isn’t demand from the United States. It’s demand from China and other emerging economies. As more and more people in formerly poor nations are entering the global middle class, they’re beginning to drive cars and eat meat, placing growing pressure on world oil and food supplies.
And those supplies aren’t keeping pace. Conventional oil production has been flat for four years; in that sense, at least, peak oil has arrived. True, alternative sources, like oil from Canada’s tar sands, have continued to grow. But these alternative sources come at relatively high cost, both monetary and environmental.
Also, over the past year, extreme weather — especially severe heat and drought in some important agricultural regions — played an important role in driving up food prices. And, yes, there’s every reason to believe that climate change is making such weather episodes more common.
So what are the implications of the recent rise in commodity prices? It is, as I said, a sign that we’re living in a finite world, one in which resource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth, let alone a descent into Mad Max-style collapse. It will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources.
But that’s for the future. Right now, rising commodity prices are basically the result of global recovery. They have no bearing, one way or another, on U.S. monetary policy. For this is a global story; at a fundamental level, it’s not about us.

 

[BigIslandChicks]

Quote:
That was obvious, please read:


December 26, 2010
The Finite World
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Oil is back above $90 a barrel. Copper and cotton have hit record highs. Wheat and corn prices are way up. Over all, world commodity prices have risen by a quarter in the past six months.
So what’s the meaning of this surge?
Is it speculation run amok? Is it the result of excessive money creation, a harbinger of runaway inflation just around the corner? No and no.
What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story.
Some background: The last time the prices of oil and other commodities were this high, two and a half years ago, many commentators dismissed the price spike as an aberration driven by speculators. And they claimed vindication when commodity prices plunged in the second half of 2008.
But that price collapse coincided with a severe global recession, which led to a sharp fall in demand for raw materials. The big test would come when the world economy recovered. Would raw materials once again become expensive?
Well, it still feels like a recession in America. But thanks to growth in developing nations, world industrial production recently passed its previous peak — and, sure enough, commodity prices are surging again.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that speculation played no role in 2007-2008. Nor should we reject the notion that speculation is playing some role in current prices; for example, who is that mystery investor who has bought up much of the world’s copper supply? But the fact that world economic recovery has also brought a recovery in commodity prices strongly suggests that recent price fluctuations mainly reflect fundamental factors.
What about commodity prices as a harbinger of inflation? Many commentators on the right have been predicting for years that the Federal Reserve, by printing lots of money — it’s not actually doing that, but that’s the accusation — is setting us up for severe inflation. Stagflation is coming, declared Representative Paul Ryan in February 2009; Glenn Beck has been warning about imminent hyperinflation since 2008.
Yet inflation has remained low. What’s an inflation worrier to do?
One response has been a proliferation of conspiracy theories, of claims that the government is suppressing the truth about rising prices. But lately many on the right have seized on rising commodity prices as proof that they were right all along, as a sign of high overall inflation just around the corner.
You do have to wonder what these people were thinking two years ago, when raw material prices were plunging. If the commodity-price rise of the past six months heralds runaway inflation, why didn’t the 50 percent decline in the second half of 2008 herald runaway deflation?
Inconsistency aside, however, the big problem with those blaming the Fed for rising commodity prices is that they’re suffering from delusions of U.S. economic grandeur. For commodity prices are set globally, and what America does just isn’t that important a factor.
In particular, today, as in 2007-2008, the primary driving force behind rising commodity prices isn’t demand from the United States. It’s demand from China and other emerging economies. As more and more people in formerly poor nations are entering the global middle class, they’re beginning to drive cars and eat meat, placing growing pressure on world oil and food supplies.
And those supplies aren’t keeping pace. Conventional oil production has been flat for four years; in that sense, at least, peak oil has arrived. True, alternative sources, like oil from Canada’s tar sands, have continued to grow. But these alternative sources come at relatively high cost, both monetary and environmental.
Also, over the past year, extreme weather — especially severe heat and drought in some important agricultural regions — played an important role in driving up food prices. And, yes, there’s every reason to believe that climate change is making such weather episodes more common.
So what are the implications of the recent rise in commodity prices? It is, as I said, a sign that we’re living in a finite world, one in which resource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth, let alone a descent into Mad Max-style collapse. It will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources.
But that’s for the future. Right now, rising commodity prices are basically the result of global recovery. They have no bearing, one way or another, on U.S. monetary policy. For this is a global story; at a fundamental level, it’s not about us.

i did not say that the fed and our government and americans not making anything anyone wants was the only problem with why gas is $5 a gallon... i was just agreeing with a part of what someone else said regardless if i read all 4 pages or whatever it a rant and it is MY OPINION. at least i put up my OWN opinion and not something that someone else wrote

and oh i did not see By PAUL KRUGMANs/b] post in the last 4 pages laying out his opinion either!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
No! There are different grade crudes, that is true. Some have high levels of asphaltines, some have low levels. Some are sour, some are sweet. Some are so thick you have to heat them to get them to flow and some are so light you can burn them in certain engines without processing. Certain regions do tend to produce certain types of crudes but it can vary within the same region. Some are from shale sands, some from oil deposits, and some contain a lot of condensates from natural gas. The grade of crude can vary within regions. When you talk about crude, you have to add a qualifier, such as West Texas intermediate. Not all West Texas crude is intermediate. An important qualified is sweet. Sour crude contains hydrogen sulphide gas which not only kills people but has some nasty byproducts from the treatment phase. There are mountains of sulphur that have been removed from certain crudes that are so big they can be seen from space, such as at the Tenghis field in Kazakhstan. Most US Gulf of Mexico crudes are sweet, but some are sour, such as some fields off Alabama and in certain places off the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana.

Refineries are designed and built to handle certain types of crudes, heavy-light, sweet-sour, whatever. It can take millions of dollars and often months of closing a refinery (with no income during that time) to modify it to handle a different grade of crude so they can't economically switch back and forth from one grade to another. So refineries have been designed and built to handle the types of feedstocks that they are expected to refine. They have some range of crudes thay can handle, but those ranges are limited.

The reason some of our crude is sold overseas and we import some is not about the quality of the crude. The refineries have been designed and built to take care of that. The reason some of our crude is sold overseas is because of transportation expenses. It makes a lot more economic sense to ship our Alaskan crude to Japan for refining and ship crude from Mexico to the US Gulf Coast refineries than to ship crude from Alaska to the Gulf Coast refineries around South America (most oil tankers will not fit through the Panama Canal) and ship Mexican crude to Japan.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I live in a comfortable middle class neighborhood. My kids go to a neighborhood school, no one lives more than about a mile from the elementary school. I live in Texas so it is rarely "too cold" to walk to school. It might be too hot, but not too cold....so do kids walk to school? No, most are driven and picked up. The pick up line starts at least 15 minutes before school is released. Those parents sit in their cars, idling, and running the air conditioner. This happens about 180 days a year, every year.

Until Americans change their attitudes about driving and consumption, and reduce demand the prices will continue to climb. Driving a half a mile and idling for 15 minutes or more is not smart consumption. It is a lazy, priviledged attitude that most of the world cannot afford. When Americans realize they can't afford it either, then consumption will reduce. My neighbor's husband is making 60% of what he used to, the kid now walks home from school most days. Burning gas for 15-20 minutes for nothing more than waiting in line isn't affordable for them anymore.

Prices will go down when demand goes down.