The Specter of Gasoline At $5 a Gallon 1205
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that gas prices are already at record highs for the winter months — averaging $4.32 in California and $3.73 a gallon nationally. As summer approaches, demand for gasoline rises, typically pushing prices up around 20 cents a gallon. But gas prices could rise another 50 cents a gallon or more, analysts say, if the diplomatic and economic standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions escalates into military conflict or there is some other major supply disruption. 'If we get some kind of explosion — like an Israeli attack or some local Iranian revolutionary guard decides to take matters in his own hands and attacks a tanker — than we'd see oil prices push up 20 to 25 percent higher and another 50 cents a gallon at the pump,' says Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research. A sharp rise in the prices of oil and gas would crimp the nation's budding economic recovery would cause big political problems at home for President Obama, who is already being attacked by Republican presidential candidates over gas prices and his overall energy policies. On the other hand, environmentalists see high gas prices as a helpful step toward the development of alternative energy. Secretary Treasury Steven Chu notably said in 2008 'we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe' to make Americans trade in their 'love affair with the automobile' for a marriage to mass transit. In the meantime President Obama is in a bind because any success in tightening sanctions on Iran could squeeze global oil supplies, pushing up prices and causing serious economic repercussions at home and abroad."
Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
we already top that in the UK:(
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to say - if I only payed $5.00 a gallon I'd throw a party. Right around $8.50 (give or take based on the exchange rate) a gallon is what I consider normal. Between this and the Americans I heard complaining yesterday that the Raspberry Pi boards didn't look to be available in the US -- I have to say that it comes across as petty whinging to the rest of the world.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to say - if I only payed $5.00 a gallon I'd throw a party. Right around $8.50 (give or take based on the exchange rate) a gallon is what I consider normal.
I assume you realize that your high gas prices are the result of high taxation and not natural market forces. You live in a democracy, right? Maybe you should do something about your own high gas prices rather than criticizing those of us that do. Unless, of course, you like paying more, then good for you. Stop berating those of us who like to pay less.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Funny)
It's more tolerable there given their denser population [...]
Judging from the snippets we see from the current US Elections/Pre-elections/whatever-you-call-that, the Americans are the denser ones....
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part, people have been moving to mass transit and more cycling (better cycle lanes), rather than renewable fuels. Also, people are moving more into cities, and investments are being made to make them more livable.
All the mass transit / cycle lanes, etc investments are paid for by ... fuel taxes.
In the event of a sudden crunch (eg. oh, a war in the middle East) and oil rises dramatically, it becomes possible for (more) people to switch from cars to buses. Also, the government can temporarily drop the fuel tax to stabilise matters for its citizens; and/or subsidize the poor (e.g. for home heating oil). These actions aren't available otherwise.
Dramatic moves to renewable fuels weren't expected this side of the Atlantic (by anyone sane). Do the numbers: there's no way of growing that much biofuels without substituting for food. Its really only pushed as an answer in the US where solutions of moving away from automobiles is not seen as politically possible.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
Mass transit is better suited to the higher population densities of European cities, much of the USA is too spread out.
Cycling doesn't work in some parts of USA due to weather extremes. You can't bike when its 40 below zero wind chill, or on snow and ice.
(and parts of the south are too hot.)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass transit is better suited to the higher population densities of European cities, much of the USA is too spread out.
While true, it is important to remember that the lower population densities and sprawling suburbs of the USA are an intentional creation of the auto industry, not just an accidental development or a law of nature.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that's just not true.
The US automotive industry certainly didn't discourage the continuation of low population density areas but it had absolutely nothing what-so-ever to do with their creation.
The low density started when farming/fishing and the fur trade was ubiquitous. Earlier than that it started when nomads travelled large distances to track fauna for subsistence living.
You might think that's being overly pedantic on that matter but it isn't. The US had a much different history than Europe did. The US didn't colonize "naturally", it did so very forcefully and quickly by foreign pressures. That history is reflected in the layout of it's population.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference between europe and the US is that europe never dismantled their transit systems. Most countries were struggling to rebuild after the destruction of WW2 and they needed to repair and maintain their infrastructure.
How do you think people got around US cities before the 1950's?
Every US city and most towns had extensive privately financed and operated mass transit systems before the massive government subsidies to free roads and parking were instituted. Gas taxes only pay for a portion of federal interstates, not the majority of roads, parking and asphalt required to support the car infrastructure.
Once a free government funded socialized road system was ready in the 1950's the auto industry bought up most of the private transit operations (street cars) and replaced them with buses while reducing service.
Many of the costs of driving are also subsidized by product prices and tax breaks. Building codes require minimum numbers of parking spaces. These private parking spaces are paid for by the prices you pay for products. Parking lots pay lower property taxes and employers can deduct the cost of parking provided from their income.
This year congress cut the mass transit tax deduction to $125/mo while increasing the parking tax deduction to $240/mo. In 2010, these were both $230.
Is this in the public interest?
If we could return the true cost of driving to drivers, mass transit would be profitable once again.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Now why would they want to do something like that?
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, GM paid to scrap a lot of streetcar systems that were in place - except in a lot of cases these were just barely hanging on anyway. In the Chicago area the decisions were pretty simple - massive subsidies to continue a failing mass transit system in suburbs or just scrap it. Ridership has pretty much fallen at a steady pace since the 1950s and nothing seems to be able to stop it. All of the suburban bus lines were discontinued and the service taken over by a regional bus company with considerably reduced service. Even in Chicago itself the mixed elevated/subway trains have been cut back because of lack of ridership.
I suspect most US cities have had similar experiences. The problem is really a chicken-and-egg problem: to have a large robust mass transit system you need a lot of ridership which will not materialize without a large robust system. There is no way to "build up" a mass transit system because until you have the geographical coverage and schedule people will just use cars.
Now, the way to force mass transit in the US would be to first mandate that all companies have to be located in the city center and not in far-flung suburban locations. Except in most US cities the city center is a decaying mess that has been abandoned. Even the police don't want to be there. So there is a lot of crime on people left over that didn't escape or have come to see the sights - muggings, rapes, and robberies. So you need a safe, clean and well-maintained city center before you mandate companies move there. Of course, over the last 80 years or so the infrastructure (restaurants, shops, etc.) all left the city center as well, so you need to figure out how to get them back too - or companies can't move there because there is no supporting infrastructure left.
OK, so after passing some draconian laws about where a company can be located and forcing other businesses to locate in the city center you now have a safe and secure city center all ready for workers. You can get rid of all the parking lots as well and mandate that people use mass transit to get to work. Except the transit companies sold off the train cars because they weren't needed with reduced ridership. So now you have to give money to the transit companies to rebuild their fleet of trains and buses to cope with the increased ridership. And you need to do that first before the people need it.
Sure, it could all be done. Except it would take a big city to spend billions on infrastructure and mass transit and still force - by rule of law - companies to spend billions collectively to relocate to city centers. I don't think there is that much money laying around right now to do that with. Certainly no city would be able to do that today without massive government support.
Should the US government enact a program like this to remake the country back to the way transit was in 1955? I would offer that a lot of people would say that instead of looking back we should be looking forward with whatever that means. So the decision is anything but clear. I'd say mass transit in the US is dead and or dying and destined to be permanently so. It has taken 60+ years to remake the cities the way they are now and it might take another 60 years to move in a different direction - if everyone could agree on a direction.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it is an active choice to spend more money subsidizing roads then building mass transit. If for instance big rigs had to pay for the road damage they do, all freight would go back to rail.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
My city (pop: 365,000) Will not even put in sidewalks.
It is a 30 mile hike to the nearest Bus or train terminal.
In the last city counsel meeting where it was discussed, the decision was made to maintain the status quo. because Buses, sidewalks, and trains bring in "The undesirable lower class people"
So, I am not sure that the "Auto industry" has a lot to do with it!
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
We can only cover three quarters of the population economically, I guess we better not bother at all.
Part of the problem is not population density but urban layout - we have designed our cities for cars and not walking, cycling, and mass transit. The sooner we try to fix it the better.
Yes you can. Many people do. They make bikes, clothes, and accessories for this purpose.
People manage to bike in third-world and developing countries in the tropics. Take a nice easy pace and it is no more strenuous than walking, and you create for yourself a nice breeze.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
We can only cover three quarters of the population economically, I guess we better not bother at all.
Part of the problem is not population density but urban layout - we have designed our cities for cars and not walking, cycling, and mass transit. The sooner we try to fix it the better.
Yes you can. Many people do. They make bikes, clothes, and accessories for this purpose.
People manage to bike in third-world and developing countries in the tropics. Take a nice easy pace and it is no more strenuous than walking, and you create for yourself a nice breeze.
What he was really trying to say is that Americans are generally too fat and lazy to ride bicycles or walk rather than drive cars. Hell, even on /., I've had Americans claim that walking four blocks to a subway station, riding the subway, and then walking another four blocks to where they need to go was too much work. Personally, I'm American and I'd love a European style train system in the US. However, it seems that most of the US, just want their cars between convience and the idea that only poor people on welfare ride buses.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass transit is better suited to the higher population densities of European cities, much of the USA is too spread out.
No shit, Sherlock. So your answer to that would be, what? Continuing with the same stupid behavior and hoping for the best? Or should we grow up, and recognize that they way we've been doing things is not sustainable and pursue a course that is?
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
No. Just no. While thats true for some people, many people live in places well suited for public transportation, they just dont have it.
I live in LA. Winter means I might want to put on a scarf early in the morning, but I still may want short sleeves by the afternoon -- that's not weather extremes. Its also densely populated. This place would be great to have public transportation --- but they filled in half the light rail lines decades ago because they decided to be a 'car town'. Now, I'm fortunate to be able to take a bus to work only because my (large) employer subsidizes the city to keep my line open, and though I live on a metro station it doesn't seem to go anywhere I'd actually want to go -- the beach, the airport, etc.
While that excuse may work for Wyoming, the excuse of us being more spread out is nonsense for most Americans, just as it is when we talk about our flagging broadband market.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Informative)
40 below is 40 below.
It is the one temperature that is the same in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans don't have to pay what they pay either - there are taxes in US fuel prices, just not as many as in some countries. The cheapest fuel is not in the US.
Some countries actually subsidize fuel for their citizens. I think that's a dumb choice, but it's their choice.
An interesting side effect of higher fuel taxes in Canada and especially in Europe is that vehicles tend to be smaller and more fuel efficient. That allows for denser parking (since vehicles don't take up as much space) and easier visibility for drivers on the roads, not to mention making our limited supplies of oil last longer.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Interesting)
We do subsidize our gasoline in the United States, to the tune of $10 Billion in tax breaks a year [ideonexus.com], with which the Oil Industry did nothing to lower prices, but rather maximized profits with record earnings.
I actually hadn't noticed gas prices going up here in the States. That's probably because my hybrid-electric nerdmobile can go 500 miles on a single 10 gallon tank of gas. In fact, everytime the price of gas goes up, so does the resale value of my car. Must suck to be one of the majority of Americans who didn't pay attention in science [wikipedia.org] or math [yahoo.com] class growing up. Ignorance is expensive.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Voters and governments in Europe have made the choice to tax themselves up the wazoo on fuel. It's more tolerable there given their denser population, better public transit and "leaner" lifestyles.
And do you think this is a coincidence?
If prices had been higher in the US, perhaps the urban sprawl would be less since people would not be as willing to throw money out the tailpipe. If there were higher densities "suburbs", then mass transit would be more practical and cost effective. If higher density developments were the norm, then it would be easier to roll out things like high speed Internet (a la Korean and Japan). Lower density housing also corresponds to higher rates of obesity (cf. multiple studies).
So the choice to tax gas may be painful in one way, but it has (IMHO) ended up benefiting European citizens in many others. And now that oil prices are set to rise due to pure market forces (supply/demand), the Europeans are also in a better absorb the shock of it compared to the sprawling 'burbs of the US.
You reap what you sow.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
Being from Germany myself, I consider it a good idea to use taxes to promote some adaption to a less wasteful lifestyle. And the income from fuel tax could be used to finance tax breaks in other fields (in practice, our government prefers to waste the money).
About the renewable fuels:
In 2008, when mineral oil prices were as high or higher than today, plant oil as diesel fuel had a small boom in Germany. But then mineral oil prices declined, and roughly at the same time (starting in 2008) energy taxes on plant oil used as fuel were introduced. Those taxes have been gradually increased over the last years, and from 2013 they will be just as high as on diesel.
So the cost advantage has been lost with the difference in taxation disappearing, and renewable fuels are no longer attractive from a financial point of view.
An exception is natural gas, which still has a tax privilege until 2018.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
You are probably right about the reason for the higher price - though if Europe consumed at the same rate as the US - then prices would be quite a bit higher for everyone. So is isn't as simple as - "You chose higher prices."
Secondly - it's a democracy - though right now the EU and US are making lots of noise about it being less of one. (Hungary) But more importantly, for simplicity, let's say it's a democracy just like the USA. Why do you think the people who feel the pain of high gas prices are in favor of them? Any American should know that democracy does not equal 'regular people' getting a fair hearing or equitable level of influence in government. In my case specifically it doesn't really matter at all as I'm an ex-pat and I can't vote here.
But I'm not berating you for liking to pay less. I'm berating people who complain about the fact that they live some of the most priviliged lives on earth and still feel wronged. You just need to step out of the little bubble, see it from the outside for a bit, and it becomes painfully clear. (And rather embarassing)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume you realize that your high gas prices are the result of high taxation and not natural market forces
You think natural market forces have anything to do with road transportation in the USA? How much subsidy - state and federal - does the highway system get? What about the car makers (and I'm not just talking about the recent bailouts, look at tax breaks for factories at the state level too)? And that's before you even look at the cost of wars to secure the oil supply.
A little while ago, someone posted a complete breakdown that showed that car travel receives, in total, something like three times as much subsidy as tail travel per passenger mile in the USA.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not smug and superior. They simply have a different world view. It's your xenophobia and myopia that lead you to make that comment. If I could pay $8.00 a gallon for gas in exchange for the kind of mass transit they have in countries like London, Sweden, France, I would take that deal in a heartbeat. Right now, I have a 1.5 hour commute each way into Boston. I take the commuter rail and subway, both of which are great examples of crumbling infrastructure in the US. I suspect that diverting money from the morons driving up route 3 into boston every morning into cleaner, more efficient mass transit, would do a load of good for everyone involved.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Funny)
countries like London
Ummm what? London is a country? Errr...
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the City of London is pretty much a sovereign city-state operated as a for-profit corporation.
(It's only a central square mile in the rest of London, though.)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Interesting)
Better to pay a weight and odometer tax.
Set the per mile tax rate based on vehicle weight, going up with the fourth power of vehicle weight (which is one figure given for the damage done to roads by heavier vehicles). Then, tax the odometer based on that rate.
Fuel taxation doesn't cover alternative-fueled vehicles very well.
Of course, you could have an additional non-renewable fuel tax, to compensate for the cost of using up a non-renewable resource, and any health issues caused by the emissions.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
You're not being berated for paying less. You're being berated for whining about it while abdicating your responsibility to the international community by being fuel hogs.
The US imports 10,270,000 bbls per day. The EU imports 8,613,000 bbls per day.
It appears that US is not the only hog in the pen.
The US has 300M people, the EU has 500M. So that's .033 barrel/day/person in the USA, versus 0.016 barrel/day/person in the EU.
Who's the gas hog now?
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a difference of scale.
How far do you in the U.K. drive in an average work day?
Here in the states, some days I drive 400+ (~640km) miles, especially when prospecting for new clients. Even when not prospecting the distance is around 100 miles per day (~160km) because I live in a rural suburb.
Any differences in price of gasoline (petrol :) might be partially accounted for by sales volume.
The United States is a big frikkin' place.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is why younger people are focusing their lives in the urban centres where possible. The benefit of mass (cheap) transit and shorter commutes trump rural idylls. Eventually it will be come untenable to live in the countryside unless you have work there.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
I will not be forced to live in a walk-in closet in a controlled compact city, to be taxed and poisoned to death.
No one is forcing you to live anywhere. What you are whining about is that you can't afford a giant (and yes, 2500 square feet and above is giant) house in the middle of the city, and instead want to be able to afford driving from the suburbs to work in a space and gas wasting oil burner.
What I find untenable is that you're asking others to subsidize your life style. And make no mistake, cheap gas, suburban sprawl and roads to everywhere, including the suburbs, requires money that comes from everyone else.
People who "focus their lives in the urban centres" (centers in the USA, btw) are, by and large, some of the most spiritually and emotionally empty, uninformed sheep I have ever met in my life.
So to top it off, you are insulting the people who are paying for your ability to live in the suburbs. Nice.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not unique to America at all. Neither are long commutes.
Commuting is becoming untenable, no-one is trying to offend you. It's a fact of life. I can't live on the moon because, although pretty, the commute is a bitch and costs a fortune. Your case is a smaller version of that except the parameters are changing. It's getting progressively more expensive due to free market forces outwith your control. There's only so much oil in the ground and sooner or later it will all be gone. Then what? You can't get to work and your house is worth dick.
Cheap fuel created the suburb. Expensive fuel will destroy it.
You might want to read The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Interesting)
What's that?? Us English shout and scream every time the Government raise petrol tax. Occasionally we protest too.
As far as I know we're already diluting regular unleaded with up to (by law) 5% ethanol - with the resultant loss in MPG, and there's moves to increase this to 10%. Alas figuring out who's diluting regular petrol with this crap and selling it for 5p more than my current supermarket petrol is difficult.
I'm talking about a tank of fuel that one fill up takes 35mpg from station, to 25 from another ... same journeys, same weather. same week.
I drive a good 130 miles a day to work and back currently. Though in the UK that's not a normal commute.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Informative)
The United States is a big frikkin' place.
So is greater Europe - if a German salesman chose to cover Northern Norway through Southern Italy as his territory, he's be doing a lot of travelling too.
You drive about as much as you choose to drive, if you don't like driving so much, get a different job - possibly in a different town. In America it is popular to live in your car 2 hours+ a day (sometimes 8+ hours, as in your case), but it is not required, or necessary.
When I lived in a suburb of Houston, my house was 4 miles from the office and 1/2 mile from the grocery store - the idiot in the cubicle outside my office commuted 3 hours a day, he could afford a house in my neighborhood, to rent or buy, he just chose not to.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
I do 500 miles in a standard working week, doing one journey a day to/from a bog-standard 9-5 job at a single site.
Where do I live? London.
Where do I work? London.
How much would it cost on public transport? More than my (expensive UK) petrol costs, mainly because of a very efficient engine, in a 15-year-old car. That's not counting my extra lost-time travelling, though.
How much more hassle is it to rely on the Tubes, Buses, etc. instead of a car in London? Add about 2-3 hours onto my working day on a PERFECT day with no stoppages or delays (which I've never witnessed on the London Underground) and where I catch everything just as it leaves the station. Some days, it's actually technically impossible to do that journey by public transport because of all the outages.
Direct, my place of work is half-as-many miles from me, involving THE worst roads in London and hours of queues every morning. A 7 mile detour onto the orbital motorway around London saves me over an hour every day and stops me crawling at 20mph along miles of main "A" road.
I do *not* live on the very outskirts. If you do, you can drive much more than me (about 30% more I'd estimate). Going North/South is even worse because of the direction of most traffic through London at that time of the day (and you can burn more petrol than a 100 mile a day in a single journey just queuing through everyday queues).
Now multiply that up by people who *can't* afford to live near London and/or commute in from Oxford, etc. and it soon gets just-as-crazy.
The American disease is thinking you're worse off than everyone else and making a bigger fuss than everyone else. The English disease is *knowing* you're not worse off than others, but moaning like you are anyway.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
I was going to say - if I only payed $5.00 a gallon I'd throw a party. Right around $8.50 (give or take based on the exchange rate) a gallon is what I consider normal. Between this and the Americans I heard complaining yesterday that the Raspberry Pi boards didn't look to be available in the US -- I have to say that it comes across as petty whinging to the rest of the world.
The rest of the world can go pound sand then, because the reason you have expensive fuel is your own fault. You elect governments that keep the price artificially high in order to discourage cars and shovel people into mass transit. A huge chunk of your price is taxes. If you don't like this, then it's fully in your power to change it by changing your governments. If high gas and mass transit is what you want, hey, have at it. But quit telling us we're "whining" because we want to do it differently, and actually notice when prices go up.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone world wide consumed like the US does - gas would be a lot more expensive in the U.S.
And you don't have to like it - or care how it looks - I'm just telling it like it is. Feel free to revel in the position of wasteful jerk that's proud of his excess and complains at every inconvenience.
Re:But this price rise is artificial.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't think the US should sell oil to foreign markets, why do you think Canadians should? Or Saudi Arabia for that matter?
Re:But this price rise is artificial.... (Score:5, Informative)
You're correct that the price rise is artificial. It used to be that while unleaded gasoline and oil were traded as commodities, there were limits on the exchange that prevented the sort of out-of-control prices we're seeing. When those regulations were removed, traders were free to drive up prices, and here we are.
The solution to this isn't necessary drilling more. Any undeveloped lease has a lag time of 10 to 15 years before stable production is reached. The tar sands and shale oils in Canada and the Dakotas are amazingly difficult to produce. You don't simply drill a hole and dance around like an 1870's prospector when the oil comes raining down on your head. To get oil from tar sands you have to strip mine the sand, then heat it to a couple hundred degrees until the tar liquifies. Once liquid, you run the tar though the distillation and cracking process like any other crude oil. The kicker is that tar sand oil is mostly heavy ends and is amazingly high in sulfur.
When you talk about ends in oil, that is a measure of quality and viscosity. Light sweet crude from the wells in the Brent North Sea fields is far easier to refine than West Texas crude because the Brent oils already have a low viscosity, are low in sulfur, and have a naturally occurring percentage of light and medium end products like petrol and diesel. In fact, Brent Light Sweet crude is so light that it can be used as six oil, also called bunker fuel which is the main form of liquid fuel for large ships, right out of the ground. This means that Brent North Sea crude requires fewer steps to distil the product you want and will leave less residue products. Less steps means cheaper refining means higher profits.
Tar Sand and Shale Oil require a massive amount of refining. At room temperature, both products are about as viscous as glass and need to be run through the coking process to even get up to the status of a heavy fraction. From there, additional cracking (adding heat and hydrogen to chemically change the oil) is required to produce medium and light ends which are then distilled to diesel and kerosene which can be distilled or hydrocracked to produce petrol, naphtha, octane, or natural gas.
This is why tar and shale are usually left alone until per barrel prices reach a certain level. They simply aren't profitable to extract and refine without massive investment. You've also got all of the sulfur to deal with, and that stuff recombines to form all sorts of nasty products that tend to be highly corrosive and acidic and require a whole new set of industrial processes to convert in to useful products.
The real kick to the testicles in all of this is that the tar sands oil that Canada produces is already on contract to China. The Keystone XL pipeline that is in the news would connect the tar sand fields of Canada to the refineries at the Port of Houston and the Port of Houston would be shipping all of the refined products to Asia.
Should we have laws that say domestic oil stays domestic? I'm not sure, but I do like the idea. The problem with that is that Canadian oil isn't domestic and they produce more than the US. The other problem is that cheap oil is only going to encourage the kinds of things we should be working to prevent. Namely, I hate being able to see the air I breathe.
What I'd really like to see is all of this drilling technology and know-how be re-purposed for harnessing geothermal energy. Less pollution and it all stays domestic.
Re:But this price rise is artificial.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you don't realize that oil companies typical profit percentage is in the 6-7% range do you? The reason why they make so much money for their shareholders (who happen to be most people with retirement accounts), is that they sell so damn much of what they produce.
Now, if you want to talk about not paying taxes (which the oil companies did), lets talk companies like General Electric (whose CEO is the POTUS econ advisor) who paid $0 taxes in 2010. Or lets talk about Warren Buffets company (Berkshire Hathaway) which owes almost 1B$ in back taxes.
Or is it excessive profits you don't like? Well why don't we hit Apple on the excessive profit margins? Their PM is close to 30% now, 4-5x that of a company like Chevron or Exxon.
Finally, under what law can the IRS tell Apple what to do with their money? Or are we now living in a country where the federal government is the sole final arbiter on corporate decisions?
Re:But this price rise is artificial.... (Score:5, Informative)
Both you and the GP seem to have no idea how the world oil markets really work. The big oil corporations make record profits on volume not on price gouging. The people making the killing are the Wall Street speculators investing in oil futures. They typically bring a stable price to the oil companies who would otherwise would potentially suffer from fluctuations in price. They would rather take the guaranteed amount from the speculators than accept potential risk from market fluctuations.
Likewise building a pipeline doesn't really affect the price of gas in the US. It doesn't even affect supply, it just decreases the transportation cost from getting oil in tar sands from Canada to refineries in the US and makes it so that oil companies don't have to invest in building any new refineries (which consequently, would create a LOT more jobs than building a pipeline). These are all costs that only have a modest affect on the price of oil and even then it just increases the supply on the global market more meaning that China could still double demand in the next 10 years and the price of oil STILL goes up!
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of us would love to use a viable and convenient mass transit system, and thus use as little fuel as you are able, but it's simply not practical.
I've tried to use the bus system in my city - I can drive 15 minutes to work, or I can bus for about an hour and fifteen minutes. It's not worth losing an hour each way.
Unfortunately, cities here are focused on building massively expensive 'boutique' mass transit that only gives current riders fancier options, and doesn't actually introduce new riders who used to be driving.
We really need more subways here in US cities, but even those might have limited use as so many people live in suburbs where an underground probably wouldn't run anyway.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, purlease. Pick up keys, get in car sitting right outside, drive.
Versus squeeze into lycra bondage gear, pick up keys, haul the bike out of secure storage, check tyre pressures, ZOMG where's my super-safe-helmet, find super-safe-helmet, realise you've dropped the keys, find keys again, undo seven kinds of lock, put on cool looking yellow glasses, finally climb on, wobble off, stop to adjust squealing brakes, get hit by your wife coming home in her car with the loaf of bread.
For context, I cycled to to work today, but all that healthsome fresh and exercise didn't somehow destroy my ability to look at a watch.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Funny)
I can play this game too. . .
Pick up keys, get in car sitting outside, notice check engine light is on, call the shop to schedule an appointment that will cost you $1273.39, drive to store, spend 40% of your time sitting at stop lights breathing in car exhaust, stop at the gas station, wait five minutes, shut off car, swipe card, read error, swipe again, pump gas, get back in car, continue driving/sitting at lights, circle parking lot 7 times trying to get a spot, walk across lot, get backed into by someone backing out, yell and swear, get bread and products for the next new diet fat (can't understand why still fat, these products all claim weight loss without exercise), walk back out to car, find dent in door from shopping cart, drive/sit at lights back home, pay car insurance bill.
Pick up keys, get bike from garage, ride to store, chat with pretty girl on bike with flowers in her basket at stop light, park at the bike racks right up front, lock, get bread, unlock, ride home.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Those who say the US can use mass transit have never been here.
San Francisco is not like Denton, is not like New York City, is not like Kansas City, is not like Conshohoken, is not like Phoenix, is not like Columbus, etc.....
You also can't use mass transit in farming communities.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:5, Interesting)
here in Rochester, NY the buses run relatively on-time, they're not over crowded, text or email the bus stop number to the transit authority and you'll get a reply with the next arrival time, most of the stations in the city have lighted signs indicating arrivals and departures, and it costs a buck, and has for 20 years. Add to that the day passes, electronic passes, and the fact that the system extends to all the suburbs you find many people riding these buses.
Many of the problems you mention still exist, the hour long commute most obviously, but it's not the worst place in the world to catch a bus.
Re:Welcome to our world (Score:4, Informative)
My last fill-up of diesel was £1.429/litre, which is £5.41 for one of your tiddly US gallons (£6.50 for a real gallon).
At today's rate of £1 = $1.5942, that's $8.62 per US gallon.
Your world is smaller than ours (was Re: Welcome.) (Score:5, Informative)
How often do you need to drive from Dundee, Scotland to Poole, England?
646 km seems to be about as far as one can drive in the UK --- that's just 400 miles --- not a terribly long trip by U.S. standards and for me, located in a town which takes advantage of its central location as an argument for businesses to locate here, or do business w/ businesses here, won't get one to more than a small portion of the U.S. (and part of Canada --- New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and most of Ohio, Vermont, and parts of Kentucky and North Carolina --- there are 50 states, and that's not even the original 13 colonies (but includes parts of territories and subsequent additions).
I've hopped in a car and made a solo trip of 900 miles one way in one 18 hour haul (had to finish a shift working, then appear at a conference and there wasn't a convenient airline connection) --- even that wasn't half-way across the country.
When I was stationed in Texas we'd get students in from Europe and the Middle East and they'd have purchased 30-day Greyhound bus passes thinking that they'd be able to see the U.S. on the weekends --- had to explain the reality that if they hopped on a bus Friday at 5:00 p.m., they'd reach the boundaries of Texas just in time to have to turn around to return for class Monday morning (that same 400 mile radius doesn't quite cover all of Texas (but does most of Oklahoma, almost half of New Mexico and small bits of Arkansas and Louisiana (and a portion of Mexico)).
William
This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard for the average person to accept such a large swing in gas prices in such a short time especially when there are little alternatives. In Europe you have a good mass transit system. You even have Ryan Air for cheap air travel. The US doesn't have nearly as good system of trains and buses.
So when gas prices change like the following:
http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html [randomuseless.info]
It puts a strain on people's budget especially during hard economic times.
BTW, I'm a Republican and am no defender of Obama, but I would love to ask the Republican candidates who was in charge when gas prices started to ramp up in the year 2000 and why it did so.
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Insightful)
If I remember correctly, there was a change at the end of the 90's that changed the way that the oil market was traded, and it decoupled the price of oil from the actual supply and demand model to a speculative model. The reason oil prices jump dramatically whenever Iran sneezes is not because the actual supply changes, but because speculators think it will change. The oil market is very happy when the price goes up now but the supply doesn't actually decrease, because in that window between the 2 events they make a crap-ton more money.
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:4, Informative)
It's not as clear as you describe. I live in France. Gas prices here work out to $7.50 to $8.00 per gallon of diesel. However, while I have the option to take the train instead (an option that is often missing in the US), the train ticket for just myself is more expensive than burning the fuel would have been. Taking a family on the train is ridiculously expensive. It's not even the high-speed train.
Yes, we have options in Europe due to better mass transit infrastructure. However, they are *all* expensive.
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time America civilized you people.
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong you are over 3x above average. The average American drives less than 30 miles per day:
http://www.bts.gov/programs/national_household_travel_survey/daily_travel.html [bts.gov]
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:5, Informative)
Trust me, with our current socialist trends...
Warning: misinformation code phrase!
The US fed refuses to allow any new refineries.
The US federal government does NOT have a moratorium on building refineries. New refineries are currently being built in Arizona (Arizona Clean Fuels Yuma, LLC) and South Dakota (Hyperion). Additionally existing refineries are being upgraded in place, like the Motiva Houston refinery that doubled capacity.
Here [factcheck.org] are some facts about US refining capability.
Re:This is an americano-centric joke (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, up until there, it almost sounded like you were a rational, sentient being.
I disagree. I thought the possibility of rational, sentient being went out the window with "Trust me, with our current socialist trends,..."
Shale is coming (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of spurring development of clean alternatives such as solar-charged fuel cells and the like is very appealing, but these technologies are simply not up to speed yet and likely won't be for at least several years.
Meanwhile, U.S. firms are busily building infrastructure to extract oil and gas from shale deposits estimated to hold 1.5 trillion barrels, or about 5 times the current Saudi reserves of 300 bbls. There's an additional 60 bbls in the Gulf of Mexico and another 30 in Alaska. Fully exploiting these deposits would cause the U.S. to become an energy exporting giant in about ten years, even as the Middle East oil supplies begin to wane, leading to a dramatic shift in global geopolitical priorities.
Environmentalists like Treasury Sec. Chu obviously won't approve of this trend, but the hard reality is that fossil fuels are not going away soon, thanks to technological advances such as "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing using horizontally injected water).
I really don't think it's a good idea for the Treasurer of the U.S. to advocate high gasoline prices. For gasoline to rise above $5 may make sense from the point of view of encouraging conservation and alternative systems like hybrid electric and plug-in electric cars, but in the short term it would cause tremendous hardship to the people. As transportation costs rise, so does the cost of basic necessities such as food, clothing, and daily commutes. Airlines would suffer as well. The economy will probably sink back into recession, and you can just picture Mr. Obama calling the Secretary into his office: "What were you thinking, Steve? It's election year!"
Personally speaking, as a solar buff, I would love to see a massive conversion to cleaner and more efficient methods of transportation and heating/electricity. It would also be nice to encourage more use of bicycles (and even walking) as an alternative to the almighty automobile in the U.S. From that point of view, high gas prices are great.
But when it comes to jobs in an already shaky economy, it's going to be disastrous, and may in fact change the electoral outcome this November.
Re:Shale is coming (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear is ready. But everyone is scared of it. And no one wants to deal with the waste (even if you plan [wikipedia.org] to bury it it the middle of the desert, 2,000ft underground).
Re:Shale is coming (Score:4, Insightful)
As for Sec. Chu advocating higher gas prices, the time to do that was when prices were lower. Paying extra money to your own government - i.e. to yourself - in taxes is quite different than paying it to OPEC or Venezuela where you will never see it again. The extra gas tax could have been used to provide more efficient transportation options so higher gas prices were more tolerable. But of course this talk is all nonsense - politically, the US is nowhere anywhere near any sort of planning or sacrifice for the future. We're not even close to paying for our own current expenses. Despite all the vitriol, Obama nor Chu haven't done jack to increase gas prices. You can put your finger on a couple things like the Keystone pipeline but the figures don't add up to anything significant.
It's just pathetic to watch us go through this cycle of high gas prices and incessant whining again and again, like clockwork, each time being shocked and outraged, and doing nothing substantial about it.
Re:Shale is coming (Score:5, Funny)
And when we win that war because we have oil-based tanks and you have inferior solar ones that can be defeated by our ever-expanding smog cloud we'll use our riches to clean our own air and export you the black death of soot and smog. You'll all look up and shout "Save us!"... and we'll look down and whisper "No."
Wind, solar (Score:5, Insightful)
One problem is the disingenuous "all of the above" stuff you hear them spouting in the media. Wind and solar are not anywhere near being able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Rather than massively investing in building out wind and solar we should be spending all that money researching ways to make it viable instead of a gimmick designed to enrich campaign donors and their startups' poor business plans.
It's the same with ethanol - it's not viable as an energy source, but it's quite profitable as a political source.
Yet another point of dishonestly is even using the phrase "reduce our dependence on *foreign* oil" when really they mean any oil. This is not bad in itself, but it's also weasel wording to imply they'd like to leverage more domestic oil sources when really, they want nothing of the sort.
We're never going to get anywhere on energy policy until we make honest efforts and have honest discussion.
Re:Wind, solar (Score:5, Insightful)
In the UK they've used HUGE prices. So solar power starts to break even very soon. when it gets to about 7-10 years I think about it. The problem now is i don't want to install stuff and 15 years later have to pay for obsolete stuff to be removed, just as it breaks even.
Re:Wind, solar (Score:5, Funny)
campaign donors and their startups' poor business plans.
Re:Wind, solar (Score:5, Interesting)
Public transit sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
trade in their 'love affair with the automobile' for a marriage to mass transit.
Mass transit is great until they go on strike [www.cbc.ca].
I took the bus for a long time. It was always a miserable experience (crowded busses, never on time, routes that made no sense, etc..), and this strike was the final straw. Went out an bought a gas guzzling car.. and will probably never use the bus system again.
(Just felt like venting that...)
Re:Public transit sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
It was always a miserable experience (crowded busses, never on time, routes that made no sense, etc..), and this strike was the final straw. Went out an bought a gas guzzling car.. and will probably never use the bus system again.
(Just felt like venting that...)
Yeah, because every mass transit system must be just as bad as the lame one that you suffered through. Right? There couldn't possibly be any cases where a mass transit system, and a community planned to make efficient use of it, would actually work. Right?
Gas Prices (Score:5, Insightful)
1) stop the massive systemic subsidies to petro-firms (including tax breaks and hidden subsidies like free/cheap land use fees, etc.)
2) apply a DIRECT user-tax to vehicles, based on their mileage at registration (ie you buy your annual tabs, report your mileage, pay a tax). This would be based on road maintenance costs.
3) tax gas like any other sale.
I drive 100 miles a day, I don't mind paying a user tax on those miles, because I'm using the shared resource of roads. But it's bullshit that they can apply a gas tax (ostensibly for highway maintenance) and then steal that money for other purposes in government, then come back saying the tax isn't high enough.
With a tax code that (depending on who you talk to) is 50k pages and 5 million words long, we really need to stop social engineering in our tax code. It's a crazy idea, but maybe taxes could just be about, oh, covering the cost of government, and not about incentives or disincentives decided by some dude in an office somewhere.
I know, crazy ideas.
Ah, another confused driver (Score:4, Informative)
The idea that road and fuel taxes pay for the total cost of road maintenance is a persistent myth. It is totally and completely untrue. The cost of road maintenance, construction alone is far higher, add the costs for emergency services dealing with road/car related issues and it goes even higher. Add policing for safety and the costs skyrockets.
Not that we have a choice, we need roads but we ALL pay for them from our ordinary taxes. Money from fuel tax might go somewhere else but that just means money flows from somewhere else to the roads.
Social engineering works (Score:5, Informative)
The effect of the European tax regime has been to encourage efficient vehicles, and both European and Japanese manufacturers benefit. It also pads the effect of fuel cost, since taxes can be adjusted to slow the rate of increase and so reduce economic dislocation.
When the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked that taxes were what he paid for civilisation, he was in effect pointing out that all taxes whatever are social engineering. Small Government Republicans always claim that they want to reduce taxes, but somehow it turns out that as soon as the economy has a bit of slack representatives will vote for pork barrel (your bridge in Alaska in exchange for my bioethanol subsidy). Personally I think it is better if people without an axe to grind work out how to use taxes in a socially beneficial way and politicians only get to vote on it.
let's normalize and remove taxes from discussions (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's stop the influx of "get over it" comments from Europe by removing the taxes from the price discussion. Then we can all equally complain about the cost of refined petrol instead of how much our governments like to add to the fees.
Cognitive dissonance (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really mind-blowing is the GOP candidates (except Paul) attacking Obama for both
1) not being tough enough with Iran [nytimes.com]
2) and for high gas prices [nytimes.com] (!)
In what universe do they live in where they don't realize pressuring an oil-producing country is going to raise oil prices (and hence gas prices, it doesn't fall from the sky)?
Re:Cognitive dissonance (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but these people who love the free market are complaining that the president isn't playing dictator and directly controlling gas prices. They want an open market for oil, which is exactly what we have today, yet blame the president for how that open market acts. I'm not shocked at their own hypocrisy, I'm just always surprised at how many people fall for it.
Re:Cognitive dissonance (Score:5, Insightful)
In the same universe where Obama was solely responsible for:
* Invading Iraq and Afghanistan (he voted for it as senator, but so did almost everyone else)
* Causing the financial crisis (he wasn't in the senate when most of the deregulation occurred that caused the problems)
* Allowing illegal immigrants to take over the country (actually, he's deported more illegal immigrants than any other president)
* Taking away your guns (actually, the only gun-related legislation he passed made it legal to carry guns in national parks)
* Massive increases in federal spending (the food stamps and unemployment spending were just the Obama administration following pre-existing law)
But if you listen to the Republican debates at all, you'll find that these are the kinds of things a lot of that party really believe.
The "speculator" boogieman has already come out (Score:5, Insightful)
I've already seen some of my Facebook friends grousing about how speculators are gouging them. They have a hard time understanding how much the world has changed in a decade. Most of it is due to static oil supply meeting rapidly rising oil demand, coupled with extremely inelastic demand for gas. Within a few years we have another billion or so people competing with us for the same barrel of oil.
It's actually hard to speculate in oil, simply because there's no place to store enough to make a huge difference. Most "speculators" are sovereign countries, who are wagering that oil left in the ground today would be more expensive tomorrow.
Iran produces about 5% of the world's oil. If Israel and Iran go at it, the price of oil would go through the ceiling. The price of oil is set by the cost of extracting the last barrel of oil, and tapping those deep-sea oil wells and Canadian oil sands for that last barrel of oil is extremely expensive. If it costs $100 to produce that last barrel of Canadian oil, why would Saudi Arabia sell their oil for $20 instead of $100 too? They'd be leaving money on the table. That's why the last barrel sets the price.
And if a country expects a barrel of oil to shoot up $50 in the event of war, it makes sense to either charge more for pumping it today, or leave it in the ground until the price goes up naturally.
To put this in Slashdot terms, supposed you had a complete set of Babylon 5 collector plates that were worth $100 today, and you expected them to be worth $1000 next year from now, would you sell them now or wait? The smart thing to do is either wait until next year, or require the buyer to pay you a premium today above the $100 asking price. Expectations affect the price. And if you wait until next year, you have reduced the global supply of collector plates on sale, so the price goes up a bit to compensate. Supply and demand also affect the price.
If you're really worried about speculators, buy a Prius, Leaf, or Volt. Last time I checked, no one's been able to form a cartel on sunshine and wind. And if you drive a big SUV, stop whining about how speculators, government, Democrats, or "The Man" is screwing you, and take a long, hard look at how you are screwing yourself.
Inflation (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you all recognise that the prices of gas are being moved up by inflation, not by any increase in demand (demand in US is lower than 5 years ago), not by any decrease in supply (supply is greater now, with the demand being lower, and shale oil came online, there is more output).
It has nothing to do with any speculation on oil prices - speculators only discover the price that the economy sets for the underlying asset in whatever currency that is being speculated in. There are always 2 sides in every speculative action - some bet that prices go up and some bet that prices go down, you don't see politicians come out and blame speculators for LOWER prices, politicians like to take credit for lowering prices themselves, but speculators are always blamed by the politicians for higher prices.
In totalitarian nations (like former USSR), speculators were actually sent to prison, if not worse, all while government was printing billions of worthless paper and fixing prices, which always creates black markets and causes prices in the devalued currency to spike.
USA will not see lower prices as long as the Fed keeps printing, and the Fed will keep printing to prevent interest rates from spiking during T-bill and bond auctions, Feds promise to keep interest rates down for years, and this is done by buying up the Treasury debt with fake money.
I had a funny thread going on here [slashdot.org], the guy can't understand basic inflation and that his house price is falling in terms of real money and in terms of his purchasing power, he expects the value of his house to go up, believe it or not.
Real values of the houses cannot and should not go up, the Fed is trying to preserve the nominal values, so money supply is inflated, real prices are falling, while nominal prices are staying up pumped by inflation that the Fed creates. This will cause all nominal prices to go up, but real prices are falling because of under-consumption, but not because people are saving. USA is using less energy than before (even less electricity), this is inconsistent with any recovery, it's not a recovery, people cannot afford to spend. But they can't afford to spend because they are not producing anything themselves, and they are not producing anything, because manufacturing left the country and manufacturing left because money is not good, inflation is killing savings and investment and taxes are historic high.
They'll tell you that taxes are very low based on % of GDP, but that's nonsense, GDP has been falling for 2 decades as real inflation is 11-15%, and so the deflater that is applied to the GDP is fake. USA is in a real depression, not a recovery, not a recession even. This is all done with fake money. The banks' earnings are fake, they are moving Fed's money and Treasury debt around, that's all they do. You can't have real investment credit because there are no savings, savers are being wiped out or pushed out of the country, all while the politicians are using every tool in their arsenal to gain popular vote, it's called class warfare and it's being used against you to destroy your economy.
Re:Inflation (Score:4, Interesting)
Supply is growing, but demand is growing faster. You do understand that supply-and-demand is about the imbalance between the two? As that imbalance grows, the price of oil will continue to climb.
- market is a balance game, that's why with increased demand, the prices will go up and cause more supply to come on line, and that's exactly what we observe with fracking and shale oil. Oil sands were not coming on line until the prices (but in reality inflation) allowed the companies doing it to become nominally profitable. The real innovation is of-course in fracking, not in shale.
America is no longer the primary driver of either the world economy as a oil, or the oil market. Again, you really need to open a newspaper and see how the world has changed the past 10 years.
- tell me something I don't know.
You do understand that supply-and-demand applies to cash as well as oil? The US didn't "set" the Fed rate low.
- that's a failing sentence. The Fed sets the rate based on what it perceives to be its mandate, but in reality the Fed sets the rate based on what the member banks and the Treasury and the government want.
The Fed is providing the member banks with 'credit' (it's fake) at 0%, while Treasury provide the banks with bonds (fake investment) at some 2-4%, depending on what they buy and how they buy it. They make the spread.
The Fed is actively buying US Treasuries, almost all of the new debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Fed. That's how they attempt to keep the interest rates low, and they have no escape from this, the moment they allow the market to set the interest without creating the new currency, the interest rates will skyrocket and the US economy will be obliterated, all banks will fail (they are all bankrupt, only held afloat with fake 0% interest rate that allows them to show a fake 2-4% spread in the black).
The world economy is awash with capital looking for a safe harbor, and relatively little demand for that capital.
- the world economy is awash of fake money, not real savings, and this is exactly what inflation is, and that's why the prices are rising for oil and all other things that are not currencies.
However there is huge shortage of real savings that could be used as investment, and that's why nobody can get a business loan - real interest rates are enormous, real interest rates cannot even be imagined, millions of percent, nobody can get them. There is enormous shortage of savings and real capital. And demand/supply ratio sets real interest rates to be so high, nobody can afford them. All this while only governments are able to get credit from banks, but only because it's fake credit created by the central banks.
When the supply is high, and the demand is low, the price (in this case interest rate) falls.
- demand for savings and investment is higher than ever and that's why real interest rates are higher than ever, and that's why nobody can get any business loans.
Conspiracy nuts have a hard time understanding that the Fed doesn't "set" the rate. It looks where the market has shot the arrow, and moves the target there.
- talking to you, is like explaining to a microbe what the Sun is all about.
Because that worthless Keynesian shamanism has proven remarkably adept at making predictions on inflation and growth on an economy against the zero-bound? Just because you personally don't like Keynes, doesn't make it any less right, any more than hating the fact that 2+2=4 will make it suddenly equal 5.
- Keynesians are everywhere, and now they are faced with the final stage of their existence. No longer can the people stay blind to the fact that printing money is not good for economy and no longer can Keynesians explain why all of their theories are falling apart, including the nonsense about lac
Obama's Fault? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are the high gas prices because Obama decided not to give more subsidies to gas companies? Is it because Obama has somehow magically started a secret war in Iran that nobody knows about but Republican candidates? Or is Obama literally 51% or more of the oil speculators?
I'm all for making your opponent look bad, but I have a hard time seeing how Obama is to blame for current gas prices. Feel free to enlighten me.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
The writing's been on the wall for years. If your car gets 35mpg and you live within 15 miles of your job, an increase of $2 a gallon hits you with a whopping $5.80 increase per week -- what's that, a big mac? A latte and a half?
And if you *haven't* got a fuel-efficient car and tried to live where you work or close to transit, given how long we've known that gas prices fluctuate in response to world events, well, you've done it to yourself. Shut up.
Free market, y'all. You asked for it, you got it, and you demanded a house with a lawn and an SUV anyway, and now you've got the nerve to cry about gasoline prices? I believe the french refer to this sort of thing as 'yo problem'.
Look at what the world pays and stop whining (Score:4, Informative)
Check out what the rest of the world pays per litre, look at how far down the US is on the list -- even lower than Canada, which produces the damned stuff.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_gas_pri-energy-gasoline-prices [nationmaster.com]
Now STFU and pay like everyone else -- WITHOUT government subsidies!
Get out more (Score:5, Informative)
cheap still (Score:4, Insightful)
We pay $7.5 a gallon NOW.
We are in Europe. In the so called socialist Netherlands.
Your country was designed wrong.
Gas guzzling cars. (still!) Cities with no real transportation infrastructure other than for cars. Large distances, even in cities.
How well will this work when gas hits $8?
Your cities need to be more compact. As do your cars. See the European and Japanese smaller cars. (small: weight is less than 1.5 metric tons)
Consider a diesel!
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Largest GDP per capita? More like 7th (nominal) or 15th (ppp) depending on how you count.
What is it with you having to believe you're the best in everything?
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:5, Funny)
None of those metrics include patriotism or American spirit! Goddamn commie statistics...
Liar (Score:5, Informative)
You are a liar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita [wikipedia.org] shows the US at around 10 or lower. But then, you quote Reagan, I suspect facts and figures just enrage you.
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the old "we're the richest therefore we're entitled to waste the most" argument. And it's not even true. [wikipedia.org]
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, our 4% of the population has the largest GDP per capita than anyone else in the world. In other words, yeah, we use the most energy, but we also produce the most stuff with that oil.
How can you be so proud of wasting natural resources ?
It took nature millions of years to create them, and we'll finish them in less than 200 years.
Using the GDP as an excuse just shows your arrogance: me, myself and I before the rest of the world ! I have money, so I can piss on the rest of the world.
The real problem is how we'll be able to maintain our current level of life.
1) Either we let the resources deplete, and we'll be forced to find new energy methods.
2) Either we try to reduce our consumption, but China is coming and will probably beat US GDP in 5-6 years.
In either cases, the resources are limited, so the price will continue to increase, and once there are no more resources, the change will be hard to handle. A lot of large companies will disappear and we'll need to rethink our way of life.
Personally, I don't think that the government should hide the real cost of gas, by subsiding it.
At a given price, new alternatives will become cheaper than using oil, so let's just wait.
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
And how much of the excess $5/gallon we don't pay at the pump goes towards environmental stewardship?
It's a chicken-and-egg problem here in the US. We have cities and surrounding suburbs built for long commutes on cheap gasoline. Mass transit is expensive to build and even more expensive when it's unused. Mass transit is unused so long as it's less convenient than driving. The problem is we don't see a need to invest until gas gets around $5/gallon to $10/gallon but when it's at $5/gallon it'll be $10/gallon or more by the time decent transit options are built /if we start building them immediately/.
We're definitely opening up ourselves to an oil-based recession.
Re:$5? that's nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it any wonder why mass transit is mostly a big fail in the US? In Europe, we pay for it with taxes. You need to get over the idea that you have to drive your big SUV everywhere and use taxes to build the infrastructure to support a working mass transit system.
Gas is only going to get more expensive, at what point do you get off the gas-addiction wagon?
Disclaimer: As an American living abroad, let me say my view of the US has radically changed in just over 10 years. We were raised in the US that we were the best country in the world at practically everything. Let me tell you, most of it was dead wrong. Yes, there are some really good things about the US but on the whole, I have to say I'm happier, less overworked and enjoying life more in Europe. I would not move back the the US permanently at this point, it would be a downgrade in practically every category.
Re:America is a BIG Country (Score:4, Insightful)
That is a valid point but it seems a little vacuous to basically say "we live in a big country therefore we must live quite far from work". Living 75 miles from your doctor and complaining about the round trip of 150 miles is a bit lame.
You will understand my lack of sympathy when I explain that I live 6 miles from a city centre (the UKs second city) and I whine when my trip takes more than 30 minutes. It's all relative I suppose. ;-)
Re:America is a BIG Country (Score:4, Informative)
If someone is passing a number of doctors during that 75-mile trip then you make a very good point. There are rural areas of the US, however, in which there may be no medical services in that distance. Fewer than 600,000 people live in the US state of Wyoming, an area roughly the same size as the UK.
US Population Density Map [time.com]
Is is true of the entire US? No. It isn't true for the majority of the population (since the majority live in the dense areas- that's why they are densely populated).
Re:America is a BIG Country (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia is a similarly big country, with a much greater amount of vast empty wasteland and having to travel 100miles plus to a doctor (flying doctors normally cover an area around the size of the UK each).
http://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/fuelwatch/pages/home.jspx [wa.gov.au]
The prices are AU$ per litre. Multiply by 3.8 (ish) to get US Gallons. Hint: Diesel's gonna cost ya over 5 AU$ which is more than 5 US$.
If the US price were really hit that bad by petrol prices, you'd have rural petrol subsidies and/or inner-city petrol taxes to compensate.
The US may finally have to live in the real world regarding petrol prices and why European engines are "small" and yet can still do 70mph with a family of kids in the back and towing a caravan without even struggling.
Re:America is a BIG Country (Score:5, Insightful)
You choose where you live. The percentage of Americans living in remote areas is tiny. I live in Oregon, one of the least populous places in the US (and possibly the civilized worlds - where else do you have densities of 1 person per square mile????) But the vast majority of our population lives in Willamette Valley. So you could point to Joe in Wheeler County having to drive 150 miles to see the doctor, but the fact is that even in Oregon the majority of Joes live where they could potentially walk to their doctor's office.
We chose to live where we are within 2 miles of most of our daily trips. Our kids can walk to school until they graduate high school. We go to the local rec center rather than drive across town.
The problem is that most Americans want to live in the exurbs in large homes outside of the cities, and then bitch and moan about "killer commutes" and high price of gas. Give up that fancy home 30 miles outside of town, and buy an older home in the City center where things are within walking distance.
Re:Mass Transportation in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Washington, DC is the size (in area) of London with the "Mass Transit" system of a city one-tenth the size. (And that would be denigrating all the European transit systems for cities that size.) So, Trans. Secretary X, I will happily give you my car when, and only when you arrange "Mass Transportation' in America, but not until then. In the meantime, it would be a good start to take all the current "Mass Transit Planners" out and shoot them. They haven't done "SQUAT" in the last 30 years.
Re:Welcome to fascism (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't necessarily call what the Obama admin is doing on energy fascism. I would call it central planning though. High prices? They want this. His own energy secretary has long had a crusade to artificially jack up fuel prices in order to get Americans out of cars [wsj.com]. Things are proceeding as hoped for:
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” - Steven Chu, 2008
What was it that Obama's former Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel said? Ah yes. "Never waste a crisis". And if you have to make one... do it.