Gas Prices - What do you think?

[imnotcrazy]

What needs to be done is remove commercialism and a return to the barter system. Small close knit communities that trade amongst themselves, but that'd be tough to do considering you have to have some form of a trade to survive... At least then everyone would have some purpose... That and a mass conversion to mass transit, similar to the rail systems in Europe. As far as that goes, we're too far behind the times

That or legalize HEMP farming and make the conversion to BIODIESEL, at least then the hemp can convert much of the greenhouse gasses back and we *could* equalize (or close to it) the emmisions or close to it....

 

[marx2k]

What needs to be done is remove commercialism and a return to the barter system. Small close knit communities that trade amongst themselves, but that'd be tough to do considering you have to have some form of a trade to survive... At least then everyone would have some purpose...

Many communities do work with local currencies. In many areas you can work for local stores and get paid (in whole or in part) with local currency that can be exchanged for goods and services at other local stores. It's not a far out idea at all and is being practiced more and more in many areas around the country. Around here if you use local currency, you get discounts at many local stores.

Unfortunately, these currencies don't work at Walmart or Target, so most people don't go in for that sort of thing. But one doesn't even have to use local currency to help their community. Keeping the money IN the community is a great first step. Instead of helping local stores close down for good by shopping at WalMart or KMart or Target or whateverthefuck, shop local stores, get medicine from local pharmacies, buy food from local farmers at the local supermarket, co-op or farmers market. It saves energy as well when you consider how much energy is spent getting foreign and distant products to store shelves of big box stores.

That and a mass conversion to mass transit, similar to the rail systems in Europe. As far as that goes, we're too far behind the times

Good luck convincing people to get out of their cars. Maybe once the price of gas skyrockets a bit more, people might consider it, but probably not. Amazingly, you still have people with the "wouldnt be caught dead on a bus" mindset who are getting analy pummelled at the gas station who still refuse to pay the $1-2 to ride the bus, read a book or listen to music and take the stress off from driving around. Car culture... can't beat it with a stick.

That or legalize HEMP farming and make the conversion to BIODIESEL, at least then the hemp can convert much of the greenhouse gasses back and we *could* equalize (or close to it) the emmisions or close to it....

You know, converting used fats into usable biofuel is just as easy... but people still are not doing it. Know why? They'd actually have to DO something. People in general don't have the DIY mindset as most of us do. Thats why so many more people pay for pot rather than grow it. Same with most foods.

What we NEED is a national distribution network of alternate fuels. What we NEED is a standard for alternate fuel. What we NEED is to not stop at biodiesel. What we NEED is to change the car culture mindset instead of offering a slower killing poison.

 

[Nikijad4210]

And what is more amazing is that those profits are then handed out to CEO's as a bonus instead of the money being re invested in more refineries or alternative fuels.

It's about as disgusting as the Ford CEO being paid $7 million a month. Instead of putting that obscene amount of money into developing fuel efficient SUVs (seeing as how Americans aren't going to give them up any time soon) they pad their wallets.

This time in 2001 gas was $1.66 a gallon. Look at your prices today and ask does this make sense or are we being fucked?

Makes you wonder....

 

[Pops]

If you really believe that America is going to give up driving, you probably also believe in fairy tales. Some of us don't really have a whole lot of options. I live in a small town and it is 10 miles to go shopping. With hardening of the arteries, I can walk a mile or two without cramping, but no more. The ten miles into town would take me over 3 hours there and three hours back, if I could make it.

When I go to help my daughter, it is a 240 mile round trip that costs me $41.00 in gas. I could move closer to her, but the rent in her area is $500 per month more for the same house. A scooter wouldn't help, as I have to cross 4,000 foot mountains.

American society is always willing to take 2 steps forward, but will never take 1 step back. It would take a major disaster for changes to be made. We bitch about high gas prices, but we put up with them. Still, the U.S. has had far lower gas prices than Europe for many years. One of our problems is that we put up with a government that does much to cause these high prices through favoring big oil companies, not planning for the future and for formulating foreign policy that pisses all the oil-producing countries off.

 

[marx2k]

If you really believe that America is going to give up driving, you probably also believe in fairy tales. Some of us don't really have a whole lot of options. I live in a small town and it is 10 miles to go shopping. With hardening of the arteries, I can walk a mile or two without cramping, but no more. The ten miles into town would take me over 3 hours there and three hours back, if I could make it.

When I go to help my daughter, it is a 240 mile round trip that costs me $41.00 in gas. I could move closer to her, but the rent in her area is $500 per month more for the same house. A scooter wouldn't help, as I have to cross 4,000 foot mountains.

Most of America isn't in the situation you're in though. The majority of Americans either live in a city or just outside of one. Driving 10 miles to go shopping is atypical for most people as is traversing mountains to see loved ones. In your situation I can understand the need to depend on an automobile, but for most people in America it's much less mandatory.

American society is always willing to take 2 steps forward, but will never take 1 step back. It would take a major disaster for changes to be made. We bitch about high gas prices, but we put up with them. Still, the U.S. has had far lower gas prices than Europe for many years. One of our problems is that we put up with a government that does much to cause these high prices through favoring big oil companies, not planning for the future and for formulating foreign policy that pisses all the oil-producing countries off.

Personally I have no problem with higher gas prices. The answer is to not become dependant on gas, just as our government is telling us we should be less dependant on [foreign] oil. We put up with higher gas prices because we live in a society obsessed with the automobile and all things gas/electric powered. It's like everyone has become an armchair Tim "The Toolman" Taylor. Why rake leaves when you can get a leafblower? Why use a reel-mower (the type your parents used to walk around with cutting the lawn without gas or electricity) when you can get a tractor-mower with independent wheel suspension, and a cup holder? Why ride a bycicle when you can get a motorcycle or scooter? Why get a motorcycle or scooter when you can buy a hummer? In Europe, gas prices are much much higher and the result is people drive less and drive MUCH smaller cars. The question here is, will Americans follow suit or remain counterintuitive and 'stay the course' with overpowered and oversized vehicles rather than switching to smaller and efficient vehicles or get out of the vehicles themselves and walk/bike/rollerblade/skateboard/canoe/whatever to their destination?

And Im not talking about your situation or you in this next comment, but does it seems like for most people, 10 miles in 2007 seems like a lot longer to walk than it did in 1987?

 

[hardhat22]

Regular jumped to $3.04 here saturday and to $3.09 yesterday.Last year we were told that we would never see gas below $2 a gallon again and THEY were right.This year THEY say that we will never see it below $3.I'm lucky.I drive less than a mile to work.If I was healthy I'd walk.Of course the bush admin and their sponsors are making a killing.They were before Iraq and will after.Bush will take his company out of trust after his reign is over and cash will flow like oil.

 

[Verite]

The problem isnt the gas prices .. its fuckin Exxon making record trillion dollar profits during a period where they have whined like asshats about limited supply thereby falsely inflating the price of demand.

 

[marx2k]

Capitalism *shrug*

 

[Guest]

but with so many people on the road now and people playing their stupid little competitive driving games and putting the lives of everyone around them in danger, driving has become ridiculous

exactly...

And about my xtracycle. I've had it for a few years. I can't think of any drawbacks. In fact, I hadn't ridden it in 3 or so month because I had to move. I finally got it going again here where I live now, the thing rocks. You actually get more respect on the road. The thing kicks ass... I just love being able to throw a bunch of stuff in the back and take off... throw some food, some drinks, and just GO.

Your free as a bird on a bike. You never have to sit in bumper to bumper traffic.

I actually approached some guy in an SUV a few days ago. I've never done that before, but I was feeling extra ballsy. I just asked him why he chose to drive that, when there were other choices... he told me he was on the phone (he was, his bluetooth)... so I went back to the court where I was playing bball. I got so mad becuase I felt he wasn't getting the message. I went back, and just said "think about it" through his window, pointing to my head.

I'm not saying everyone that drives an SUV is bad, maybe some need that space. But many just do it for the looks. And that is the worst kind. Thats trying to be cool and more egotistical at the expense of the environment...at the expense of making my air worse for me to breath.

People just need to wake the fuck up in our country. Too many obese people. Too many lazy people. Too many SUV's. Too much waste.

We don't need 2 extra lanes on our highways. That just invites more cars, and more dependence on the automobile, and then in 5-10 years you need 2 MORE lanes. We need 2 less lanes. We need gas taxes.

We just need to, as Americans, enlighten ourselves to other ways of being/living...

Ever since getting my Xtracycle, I have really reduced my driving. I love biking on that thing.. each trip I take on that bike, adds up. one less car.

 

[Yummybud]

lol I don't even care about the gas prices I spend tons of money on repairs everyear I don't even notice the gas prices when I get to drive. When you spend a few thousand everyear on car parts and repairs then paying for gas isn't even noticable.

 

[HashCat]

this gas situation sucks ass!!!!!I deliver pizza for a living,and in the past two years have taken quite a pay cut!!you'd think that with the way gas prices are, people would tip better but the tips have gone down in the last two years!people still tip like its 1985.$1 or $2 for like a 30$ order...15% of the order is avg.
peace,HC
www.tipthepizzaguy.com

 

[Yummybud]

just drive a geo metro if you're worried about gas lol.

It's funny when people driving huge ass SUVs like Escalades bitch about gas.

 

[Uncle Jesse]

i wouldnt worry either about it but im not getting college footed by my parents, ive actually worked the last 27 years in factory's to make ends meet and yep if i drive something big and gas sucking........it's my buisness ....if i spend 45 k on something that dont bother me as much as prices rising about every memorial day week end and lowering on labor day, thats my prob ........and the USA"s

you drive your metro ......have fun !

 

[thc43]

im paying $1.37 per litre of "pulp98"

60litre tank lasts 200km so fuel even lpg are very expensive. Was under $1 .00 this time last year and 80cents two years earlier..

 

[Yummybud]

I don't even drive at the moment because of all the repair cost but when I drive I drive my porsche 944 2.5 L 4cyl and I drive it hard and fast but it still gets better gass milliage than a suv or a v8 car.

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

Yea those bike engine kits are cool. I think the real problem people is that the traditional price of oil has been grossly undervalued for far far too long.

50 years ago instead of going with the gobble it all up until it's gone strategy we should have thought twice about the reality of fuel. OIL is the shit as far as energy density goes. It's very powerful stuff and very easy to pull up out of the ground consider what it can do. Basically, as far as fossil fuels go oil is about as good as it gets for high power and availability. There is no reason that 40 year ago gas should have been as cheap as it was. It created a golden age of travel and waste, which we are now feeling the backlash.

Look at the facts, the increase in gas price is only slowly making its way into the consumers brain. SUV sales should have been down a decade ago when the trend of ever increasing gasoline prices became more and more obvious.

Who do we have to blame, ourselves. The US is consuming and wasting somewhere around 25% of the worlds processes fuels and certainly we are not producing in GNP or technology anything that justifies our inefficiency.

It's almost as if the strategy is to use American's wealth to make the rest of the world poor. We consume enough for 3 countries our size easily and in doing so we drive the price of gas, food and pretty much all goods up. If American's didn't drive around in 4 wheel drive SUV's revving their engines on the way to the mega burger joint to pack on a few more grams of cholesterol and effectively increasing the nations health insrance costs through bad living maybe the ENTIRE world would be a better place. If you think you guys have it bad, imagine what it's like in developing countries. That's why those people have been riding around on motorized bikes and shit for years. American's can absorb the cost, it's the already poor and struggling nations who suffering. People die all over the globe simply because America has driven up the price of ... everything. Shit, we even try to take the generic AIDS drugs off the market because we would rather THOSE PEOPLE DIE than see our profit margins hurt. And, don't think just because you don't like it that you aren't part of all this. As a silent and apathetic democracy we really do have no one to blame but ourselves.

And look at our fear based society of archaic traditions and perpetual lies and tell me that anything but bad times are coming for the US. A country that can't even imagine a world in which we are not the supreme global power. Well, my friends, someday the powers eventually shift and we are going to be the underdog and our actions as a superpower may not exactly grant us a lot of favor once everybody is a superpower.

So whats the solution, call everyone terrorists and demand they stop scientific advancement in anything that could potential threaten our country. I mean, why not just enslave them all now instead of dooming them to poverty.
Our counties value system is based on total pile of lies. The fact that people still feel like 911 happened for no other reason than terrorists are savage people and suggesting otherwise is somehow unpatriotic is a testament to failure to be rational in the face of slight adversity. I think American's need to re-think this strategy of denial and mass media brainwashing because even if it's effective and profitable it's going to rot the brains of our democratically empowered citizens and for that reason alone EVEN the wealthy should step back and realize that if they disrupt the foundation of the country then they are going to fuck up their profits and their businesses.

We need a good long recession to sit and think about why we sat around doing nothing and remember that times get bad, even for American's and their is no free ride and tax refunds don't change anything and that's what happens when you just spend without any hope for a return on your money. Bad times build the strongest character and right now that's we America needs... character because we have very little and that is demonstrated by our choices in leaders. We need to figure out how one building demolition basically amounted to torture becoming legal. I don't care what fueled the perpetrators minds weather it be blind religion or internal funded conspiracy. It's more important to realize it's just one event and it was bound to happen and it's bound to happen again. You don't reshape your country because of successful military attack. American's have only reinforced their pearl harbor mentality that dictates we must basically be actively policing the globe in order to secure out nation and grant ourselves favor. American's are scared you know, that's why they have to react like that. We've never really had a war in home front in modern times unlike most industrialized countries it's easy to scare us because we've never been carpet bombed by our waring neighbors and lived in true fear of war.

Beside the retarded fear of the Germans or Japanese invading the western coast all American's have honestly had to fear was the nuclear threat, but that was a fear for everyone. Beyond those events America has had little experience overcoming these illusionary fears of the breach of sovereignty simply because we get attacked. Look at Palestine and Israel they live greater fear everyday than American's have ever had to face. It's just weird you know. 4000 people die from 911 as this single happening which avalanches into the Iraq war and the deaths, injuries and displacement of millions of people and it's like nobody cares that we kill 100 times more of them then they have ever killed of us. It's just like.. that doesn't matter.. we're America. So, you can say well 911 was preventable so we need to do more to stop the risk, but what risk. The risk that an insignificantly small amount of people die. It's just a matter of an uneducated public. 20,000-40,000 people die a year from the flu in the US. Now you can SAY that's not preventable, but I think if we had national health care for instance we would prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of American's EVERY year, not just one.

It's not really about life or death or even war. We aren't fighting for human life or freedom. It's an opportunist power grab, the US gets strategic global position for decades right as the energy crunch is potentially happening and draws up plans for Iran. Well if they are a nuclear threat that won't back down someone has to take them out and liberate their oil fields. It certainly can't be China and their relatively close million man standing army. The one thing that's going to hold china back is oil and maybe thats a good reason that alternative fuels are not a key US focus. As I said, we can afford to pay more for energy, it's the growing countries that truly suffer, but in the end we teach them efficiency and ourselves wastefulness and that is what these great monolithic mega corporation don't see. It's also why so many foreign workers can do the job for much cheaper. Well, first off, they are usually harder workers. They want it more, they have more to lose and more to gain and the harshness of their economic system in many times doesn't make these evil liberal communist programs like unemployment, workmens comp, child labor laws, 8 hour workdays, minimum wage very much impossible. No social safety net as they would say.

Gas is just the tip of the iceburg. America's new national slogan is give me convenience of give me death. We are a materialistic society that DEMANDS instant gratification and the only thing that will set us straight are bad times, unemployment, perhaps some real estate value decline. Sadly the wealth will still be wealthy after all that so little will ultimately change and they will continue to unbalance our government and economics in their favor.

Change, I predict, will come with bad times, a good leader and an angry public. Negative stimulus is always the most productive, if not, we would have never made it this far. Same reason people love bad news instead of good news.
It's just the innate function of the human brain to think of bad things first, jump to conclusions, and gain intense interest in other peoples misfortune, but rarely their accomplishment, which is more likely to make you jealous.
Human nature is a bitch. Hmm I think I should make that into a bumper sticker. Oh wait, I can't now, I'd give up my cover.

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

food based fuel suck because people can't eat slower to get better calories per mile. Creating low cost subsidized fuels actually makes the problem worse because it creates the illusions of a solution. Hence, GWB's support of ethanol. In the short term it's a great way to waste money and raise the price of food while effectively delivering very little fuel to people. If they can get the refinement process down to something that requires no power and works in industrial levels then maybe it'll become a real alternative. You can run your car on freakin vegetable fat if you want, but cars aren't cheap and running them on shitty fuels just wears them out faster.

Nuclear power right now is the only solution that could even remotely meet the demand, but our storage plans are a joke and the freaking Yucca storage leaks radition through groundwater, that's why it's so far behind schedule (some of those contracts who always rip off the government, once again ripped off the government by falsifying ground water tests since it's just easier to lie than do it.

So anyway, go nuclear dump billions into upgrading our energy delivery infrastruture and distribute power across high efficiency lines to electric cars. The cost of going 300 miles would be something like 4 bucks or so with next generation lithium batteries. Of course, it's like a 30k battery, but hey you gotta start somewhere.

Anyway most CO2 is cause by power plants which for makes nuclear a very VERY good option because I think we are about to get our asses kicked by mother nature as climate change open up a can of whoop ass on her the human race, or maybe you still live in denial. If so, don't worry, you'll change you mind in your own lifetime. I think the average person has a hard time grasping the concept of exponential. People don't realize that the earth is a giant heat battery and that warming it up is no small deal. It takes a hell of a lot of power to warm the earth up and it's going to take that much power or more and for the same amount of times to clean the Co2. Even if our measure put us in the clear in thirty years we would still have 30 years of warming which more or less will probably roughtly take a similar amount of time to return. So IF we could reduce co2 to an acceptable level in 30 years it will still take 60 years roughly just to get back to todays climate.. from now. But the real threat will likely be the waves of new bacteria that pop up in hotter and more humid conditions. Oh year, bacterial evolution triggered by climate change. That's gonna be a lot of fun.

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

Has anyone ever just looked out over the city and though about how many hundred of thousands of watts we waste on street lights alone.
I know the government gets deals on mass kilowatt buys, but DAMN
all that power and heat and most of the light are complete wasted. They don't even put good reflectors on them and they pollute the night sky with shitty artificial light. If I was a politcian I'd run a switch to LED campaign or something. With new light sources that last almost forever and produce light from 1/10 of the power I think we could save a lot, but of course the problem presents itself that even if you save money the electric companies will not lower their prices even if we as a society reduces our power usage. In fact, that would trigger them to raise their prices to maintain the same profit levels since they would make less money due to higher efficiency devices.

 

[Yummybud]

that's true. I was looking at the store where I work and there are literallly hundreds of high watt hps lamps hanging from the sealing and they are one 24/7 even after teh store shuts down.

not all of our power comes from hyrdo or nuclear or wind we still get some of of electricity from burning fuel.

 

[Yummybud]

electric cars are probably going to be the cars of the future.

but technology for electric cars needs to get way better / cheaper, better motors, batteries