Get Used to $4 Gas

How does any of this affect the price of oil? As far as I can tell, it is controlled by people outside of this country that don't give two shits what we care. A windfall tax brings down the price how?

If we want to bring down the price, then we should do more drilling here in the US. Drill right through some fucking elk and baby seals into the ground to find the oil.

Yeah! Fuck nature!

As far as I know there are only a few ways to bring down the prices of oil.

*Pump more domestic oil and reduce import.
*Oversaturate supply.
*Reduce taxes on oil.
*Subsidize

I heard Congressman Peter DeFazio (D, OR) on the (great) Thom Hartmann program talking about some of the factors going into this current price f**k.
Here it in podcast form here.

Pretty interesting in light of how the media is covering the current gas crisis.

Who gets the subsidy? Am I going to get a check every month to offset the money I spend?

As to Laverne DeFazio's pop, if that is truly the case, and I suspect that that isn't the entire truth, instead of jacking their asses for the tax money, let them keep the money and create legislation to force them to develop these domestic areas. Give them X numbers of years to produce X number of barrels. If they fuck that up, then fine their asses like its going out of style.

As to all the supposed leased land just out there, I suspect that if tomorrow all kinds of new rigs started going up, there would be some environmentalists out there screaming their heads off to get them to stop. You can't even cut down a fucking tree, but splashing crude all over while you drilling is going to be A-OK.

I don't see A-D doing anything at all to gas prices. Partisanship needs to be set aside here, the Democrats do not have a miracle cure for gas prices. Taxing the oil profits is a bad idea. Howeber I agree that we can and should reduce or eliminate tax breaks the oil and gas firms get today (which amounts to $17 Billion a year I believe). If a company makes godloads of money there is no reason to susbsidize them. But taxing them for being successful and working supply and demand? Sorry, that's against our Capitalist system and leads down a slippery slope. Hey you! You're too damn successful! Give me some of that money!

Personally, I am FUCKING GLAD that gas costs $4 a gallon. Hell, make it $6! That is the ONLY way that Americans will stop buying these giant dumb ass cars and consider alternatives. Expensive gas burns me as well as I have no choice but to drive 17 miles to work each day in Atlant's shit-ass traffic and I have had to make choices due to the lack of income from expensive gas. But it's about damn time something hurt people's pocketbooks enough to make them reconsider buying that 4x4 or sports car that only uses premium gas.

My dad does shallow water oil stuff. And if they so much as fart wrong they will get fined back to the stone ages.

Exactly. The bottom line is that we need to vigorously pursue alternatives to fossil fuels. There is hybrid technolgy for 100 mpg cars, experimentation with solar panels on cars, not to mention wind, geothermal and solar energy.

The whole closed oil market is such a vast conspiracy to thwart progress. It's only corporate financial interest that keeps fossil fuels so profitable.

And electrichead, you're right; I don't want to the oil companies to drill for those reserves, but the point worth making is that the oil industry doesn't need ANWR. It's a load of $@#.

I really doubt this hurts those people the most.

It's the family with the 1985 Chevy Econoline that gets fucked.

Judge, I'd like to qualify your statement by adding that "people who don't fucking need giant big ass cars should stop fucking buying them". I understand the need for trucks and jeeps for trade. Ain't no way you're hauling lumber or plumbing gear in a Prius. To soccer moms and various other suburban dwellers (and especially urban dwellers: really, a hummer in NYC? Fuck you.): odds are you aren't going to be hitting any off road on your way to the god damn Short Hills Mall.

You say that now but when the zombie apocalypse happens, how many bodies can your Corolla run over before it just can't anymore?

I think of the Harvey Dent quote "its always darkest before the dawn, but the dawn is coming"

I totally agree that the Democrats have no miracle cure, but America is in the dark, and it will just get worse if we dig for oil, as thats just delaying the much needed change. I mean its going to get worse as we will have to go through the hoops of fire to get everyone on more fuel economic vehicles cars.

Hell, infrastructures will probably need to be redone, but we got to go through the worse to get things better.

Christ I miss the Cold War, at least we were all trying to innovate then.

True. There are going to be seas of second and third generation used dinosaur SUVs funneling down through the cost brackets that will put the highest fuel costs on the poorest people.

A real fix would be to have some massive auto recall that retrofits all cars on the road with hybrid engines.

Limiting our fossil fuel dependence shold obviously be a top priority. That said, what really bothers me is that what DeFazio talks about above is almost completely ignored as a cause of rising prices. More drilling isn't the answer and an ill-advised gas-tax holiday certainly isn't a cure. We need to push for regulation of the speculative market for petroleum if we want to see any kind of sgnificant change in pricing in the short term.

You are right about that. The issues Goldberg brought up were about bringing down the price of gas, not finding an alternative. That is the key to all this shit, and everyone keeps blaming the car manufacturers or oil companies. Oil companies want to keep shit the way it is, auto people are losing their asses, so you know they are going to figure something out or die.

The fix to this is to find different energy sources, but no one wants to talk about that, only bitch about the money the oil companies make. If we want to fuck the oil companies, then develop new energy sources, stop buying gas, and they will get a major ass fucking.

Close the Enron loophole and set massive fines on those brokerage firms that defrauded consumers (allegedly Morgan Stanley, to start), Sue OPEC under GATT, cap gas prices and as a national security issue, release strategic oil reserve crude and require the oil companies to put more existing refineries online.

?? Could work.

Of course. Hummer (GM) is going crazy trying to get rid of their vehicles.

Just look back to the 70s. Cheap, efficient imports took over the domestic gas guzzlers quickly.

I don't think hybrids are the answer yet. They cost way too much to make, and they haven't been around long enough for people to realize how much they are going to suck when they start breaking down.

My understanding of the Windfall Profit Tax is not that it's supposed to bring oil prices down, but to encourage (force) oil companies to invest in renewable energies. In other words, they get an exemption from the new tax if they invest those profits into R&D on renewable/alternative energy. So it's money they would be losing either way, they might as well invest it in what will be a profitable business for them. Am I understanding this correctly?

You are right about the hybrids. You really only need them for larger cars. I have a little honda civic, regular, and I squeeze 35 mpg out of that no problem. Just get smaller cars and they automatically come with better gas mileage for the most part.

Billylove, I've had a Prius for five years and (knock on wood), it's been great. I'd rather have the upgrade to plug in/hybrid, which gives you 100 mpg, but I'm in much better shape in terms of weekly fuel costs.

My worry about a gas tax holiday or windfall profits tax is that bandaids could lessen the degree of urgency we face in dealing with these problems in a real way. Jimmy Carter saw the problem 30 years ago, but all of his leaps forward were deep sixed immediately by Reagan. Government is not going to do it as long as industry wields such vast power over it. It has to be a people's movement for change.

There is no way oil companies will invest in the competition.

Yeah, but if Exxon develops the clean energy, then it's not the competition. It's Exxon Solar or whatever.

Except that solar energy isn't a closed market the way oil is. It's not a profitable pursuit, much like GM's flirtation with the EV1, which it subsequently killed.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting debunking of a claim coming out of the recent oil talks:

More at McClatchy .

anyone here every read or watch "Our Energy Challenge" by Richard E. Smalley. http://cohesion.rice.edu/NaturalScie...S%20Boston.pdf

Fuck $4.00 a gallon. A gas station down the road from me is $4.69. It jumped almost $.30 a gallon since I last filled up (I fill up once a week).

Nothing the Democrats are proposing will solve our immediate gas problems. Obama's little speech about investing in renewable energies won't become fruitful for what 5 years? You figure if they come up with a bang up solution next year, they have to do testing and certification etc.. then they have to develop the framework for the vehicle once that is done they have to either build new manufacturing facilities or retrofit them then once they've done that then we might see some of those nifty new cars..

We need more immediate solutions regardless of the outcome of the next election.

Also, if you back out the taxes levied on gas in Europe, they're paying cheaper than us for a gallon of gas.

The problem is market manipulation. We need to have some serious oversight on that and find out who is doing it and stop it. You know we suspended putting oil into the strategic reserve and that has zero impact on the price of oil or the price at the pump?

OPEC has gone on the record and said the price of oil per barrel should be about $60. There is no supply and demand problems, the only reason it went up after Katrina was because refineries were damaged, why have they gone up now?

As it stands now, I'm paying $1,060.80 more in gas this year than I did last year (estimated) and I'm spending on average, $100 more at the store for the things I normally buy each month that's $2260.80 a year extra that I have to make adjustments in my budget and I don't work that far away and I shop on my way home. I can't even FATHOM what other families are having to accommodate in their budget to make up for these costs.

(Yes, Inflation accounts for some increase but the cost of transportation for goods is passed on to the consumers)

Thank you for clarifying Doc, agreed 100%.

During World War II, didn't Roosevelt have all the car factories transform into tank and military hardware manufacturing plants in like 6 months?

I can't help but feel that this "it will take years to see any progress" thinking might be something of an urban myth in that it's unknown on a mass scale, but research has been ongoing on alternate energy since at least the '70s.

Thanks for the link. Reading now.

Little history of your Prius

Took 3 years to get some prototypes for sale in Japan where they were tested out before they hit the global market 7 years after the initial concept. Same thing happens to all newish vehicles (a lot of testing for US cars is done in California as compared to Japanese cars being tested in Japan).
I was being generous and counting on government support \ bail outs with the 5 year number.

Look at the Chevy Camaro, they announced the prototype back in January 2006 and it isn't even hitting the dealerships until late 2009 as a 2010 model.

I remember reading about a Cadillac concept pick up in 1997 issues of MotorTrend.

I drive a two door blazer that barely holds me, the wife, and our two kids(both under 5) how much fucking smaller should I go? My kids ain't fucking shrinking and my job forces me to drive thousands of miles a month NOT COUNTING travel to and from the office and personal time. Smaller vehicles does not fix the problem, it's a leaky band aid. $4 a gallon doesn't hurt rich fuckers who can afford huge ass hummers, it hurts poor ass's like me who can't buy a used pinto.

Snaieke, astute point, but nonetheless, that development has taken place, at least on Toyota's hybrid engine. There's an urgency now that didn't exist while Toyota was developing the Prius. In fact, they were doing that research while the US government was giving huge tax write-offs to purchasers of SUVs and big polluters.

I don't think the political will and leadership up to this point (at least since Jimmy Carter) is such that herculean feats could be accomplished in concert with global ingenuity and hard work. If the will existed, and there weren't enormous pressure from the hugely powerful oil industry, I can see a lot of this stuff coming together fairly quickly. If you haven't seen Who Killed the Electric Car, it would be great if you'd give it a watch. I'm sure about 60% of it you'll hate, but there are sections toward the end about the great leaps that have occurred in alternatives in transportation.

I actually have Who Killed the Electric Car on my DVR to watch (It was on one of the premium channels in the last two weeks). I'll give it a look see sometime in the next week as there is nothing on TV in the summer.

The problem is, they're waiting for the next guy and nothing coming out of either candidates mouth indicates that this problem will be address with any urgency. Obama's solution is to fund alternative fuels and to give some of us a $1,000 tax credit which apparently is going to cover our health insurance, gas, prescription drugs and everything else that he has thrown at us when he said "I plan to give middle class Americans a $1,000 tax credit to help pay for that!". Which if he is elected, I won't get until February (or whenever I file, that is, if I qualify.. what is the annual salary cut off on that?) 2010 I'm paying $1,060 more a year NOW. What exactly will he do about gas next year to lower the prices and prevent them from reaching $6.00-8.00 a gallon in June of 2009?

Aside from a holiday on gas I don't really know what McCain's stance is but I'm sure it's no better than Obama's.

We need oversight into the market manipulation. We need to have investigations on price gauging and we need to have a study done to determine what are real immediate solutions (if it's more refineries, do it!) but we need answers and we need them before the lower income citizens are walking to a soup line freezing in the winter because they can't afford heating. We need these things done before January 29th, we need them done yesterday.

I got a 2009 Corolla Sport that fills its gas with $40. When I bought a 2002 Corolla back in 2001 it filled with $15.

AND it lasts less than before, fuck knows why. Those $40 last me three days, max.

We are in 75% agreement, Snaike, which is good. My main difference is that I believe a commission should be set up in congress with public hearings, under oath, on this issue. I implore you (and anyone else reading this) to write to your representatives in congress on this issue.

On another note, contributing to the general lameness of this entire debacle: I heard on the radio today that there is no domestic supply policy in this country, so that even if the oil companies drill and refine more fuel, it will be funneled into the world market. Even though it comes out of the earth under presumably US soil, it is the private property of the oil companies, to do with what they will.

Ethanol is the most likely culprit. Unlike other ethanol-using countries, the US uses corn while other countries use sugar cane. The fuel content of sugar cane is about 3 times that of corn.

That is good news. Now, if we can stop using oil, coal and other fossil fuels in the power plants, we're on our way. Slowly.

So even their gas is tastier! Damn them!

Well, that'll make it easier when I'm siphoning their gas tanks.

Give us enough time and we can grow sugar cane in Antarctica.

Can't we just do it on the backs of mice.

Toyota's the wave of the past, welcome to the future!

still buying a prius next year (2010 model) but it doesn't mean the car after won't be this one (never buy a version 1.0 of anything!!!)

That's fucking awesome.

That's awesome, but can it please look like a car and not some sort of futuristic pod.

Or futuristic hatchback. I'm looking at you Prius owners.

Maybe a nice 4-door that actually gives you some trunk space.

Ever see a tank of compressed air have it's seal compromised? Can't wait to see the youtube videos from the first time that happens in one of those cars.

Another reason why gas prices are so high: WEAK DOLLAR.