Gas Prices Are Insane!!!!!

[DiscoBiscuit]

That's sound like a lot of fear mongering and doom saying there eh? Not that I haven't been accused of such, but you are pretty quick to point it out. Just sayin'.

This is nothing new. Is it terrible yes, but it's a continuation of policy.

We already hide our unfunded liabilities off the books not to mention Fannie and Freddie are hidden off the books. This would be more of the same and par for the course.

Whether it's the BLS hiding what real inflation is or the CBO hiding what our real debt is the gub is in the business of trying to control perception through BSing numbers, not actually fixing anything.

Same shit different day.

Sounds to me like the same thing that happened to Ronald Reagan. So in the sense it's already happened in recent history (and) we're headed that same direction - IMO it ain't doomsday.

Here's the difference. My scenario doesn't predict hyperinflation and destruction of our fascist fiat paper, rendering GOLD the only avenue of survival. My scenario predicts the rather familiar and unremarkable banana-up-the-tailpipe trickle-up shuffle, i.e. 275:1 in earnings in the last 32 years, exploding debt, biggest recession since the depression.... yawn.

Voodoo economics doesn't just lie when it says the bottom will rise with the top. It says economies will expand. It's only not a lie when you realize the measure of expansion is rich folks bottom lines. Dynamic forecasting doesn't pay attention to rotting boat hulls in the sun-baked mud. It simply measures how high the water mark is against billion dollar yachts and says, "Ahhhh!".

All this is bound to generate a chuckle from the folks who actually consider that opportunity for all means not enough for #1 or the uber deserveds or whatever. Good luck imagining the whole country being dumb enough to fall for this one. There's more to worth than what it generates, especially if it generates mass poverty. Only have to look back to pre new-deal reforms to see poverty on mass scale.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Good luck imagining the whole country being dumb enough to fall for this one.

They fall for the BLS CPI number. They fall for the way employment is reported. They don't take into account unfunded liablities just because it's not "on the books". Not such a big stretch IMO.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

fair enough

 

[SpasticGramps]

I just heard about Newt's $2.50 gasoline plan. Newt the master of the universe is going to control the price of oil. And in the same sentence he was talking about this he started rambling on about how the free market controls prices.

I don't think I can take much more of clowns and their BS.

 

[DuskrayTroubador]

We need to level off our food production and then start to very gradually decrease it to naturally bring down the population of the world. With a gradual decrease there will be no drastic shortages bringing about riots or anything like that, and this experiment is repeatable with ANY species of animal, humans included.
------------------------------------------
You might want to rethink that.
Naturally bringing down the population is called starvation.
Happens every time population exceeds food supply. In the end stages people surely get docile and stop reproducing but until that point is reached people get very cranky.

Would you care about rule of law if your family were dying of starvation?
I wouldn't.

Naturally decreasing population does not equal starvation.

If you put two mice in a cage and give them access to more food than they can eat themselves, the population of mice in the cage will grow until it matches what that food supply can comfortably sustain. Once the population matches the food supply, the population will more or less stay the same; it will fluctuate between periods of being slightly above the average and slightly below the average but for all intensive purposes the population will stay relatively the same, so long as the food supply is kept constant as well.

Now if you start to take away a very very small fraction of the food supply continuously over time, there will be no "shortages of food" among the population of mice, no fighting or starvation or "public unrest" if you will. However, as long as you ever so gradually decrease the food supply over time, the population will ever so gradually decrease as well. It is a fundamental law of nature that applies to all animals, even humans.

Now that you know the solution to exponential global human population growth is not so bad, let's look at the alternative path we are on now: ignore the problem and do nothing.

Up until about 10,000 years ago the human population was roughly 10 million and had been that way presumably for around 200-300 thousand years prior. Then what is commonly referred to as the Agricultural Revolution happened, and people in the fertile crescent began a practice called Totalitarian Agriculture which is a type of agriculture that entails producing huge excesses of food (much more than is needed to support the community) which, as you now know, leads to an increase in population. An increase in population then, in the eyes of some people, "warrants" an increase in food production. It's a vicious circle that has been going on ever since and in 10,000 years has brought our population from 10 million to 7 billion.

Now aside from the more recognized concern dealing with overcrowding and the earth eventually running out of room to sustain the human population, a more pressing concern is the conversion of the Earth's biomass into human mass.

Every single human (and animal for that matter) is made of food, and it is also pretty obvious to all that destroying ecosystems and the environment is harmful to the Earth as a whole (as well as us) yet as our population keeps expanding, we must continually expand our territory as well (including farms and making more room for people to live) and by doing so we destroy all of those ecosystems and the harm we do to the environment just keeps increasing.

The arms race between the U.S. and the USSR could only be ended in two ways, either nuclear catastrophe or by the participants walking away from it. Luckily, the latter happened. The Soviets called it quits and there was no catastrophe.

The race between food and population is the same in that it can be ended by catastrophe, when simply too much of our planet's biomass is tied up in humans, and fundamental ecological systems collapse, but it doesn't have to end that way. It can end how the Cold War ended, by people simply walking away from it. We can say "We understand that there can be no final triumph of food over population because every single victory on the side of food is answered by a victory on the side of population. It has to be that way, it always has been that way, and we can see that it's never going to stop being that way."

EDIT: Didn't mean to get that off topic. But the government REALLY needs to start looking into alternative fuels for the sake of avoiding all of the problems associated with very limited oil and a huge demand for it as well as the ecological issues involved with drilling, spills, and countless other things involving oil.

 

[SpasticGramps]

Ben Bernanke’s gas pump bump MarketWatch
Commentary: QE2 has weakened dollar, and boosted crude prices

Consumers are rightfully worrying while politicians scramble to point the finger. Certainly there is no shortage of factors to blame — precarious international markets, political gridlock, poor consumer confidence — and the list goes on. But a not-so-obvious culprit is causing some of the biggest and longest-lasting impact: misdirected U.S. monetary policy.

Intrinsically, oil prices and the value of the U.S. dollar are inversely correlated — that is, when the value of the dollar falls, the price of oil increases. Traded in the global marketplace, prices are determined by international supply and demand. When the value of the dollar decreases, oil becomes comparatively cheaper for other countries, who buy more, driving up demand and the price. In turn, higher energy costs at home increase operating costs and diminish productivity, which makes America less competitive globally.

The Federal Reserve has pursued a strikingly soft monetary policy. Shaped in part by efforts to revive the downturned housing markets, the White House has supported the Fed’s commitment to near-zero interest rates. Such low rates incentivize consumers here at home to purchase more, but it also makes the dollar less lucrative to outside investors, thereby decreasing its value.

In 2009, the central bank completed its first round of “quantitative easing,” a process in which it injected funds into markets to deflate interest rates to these low rates. It completed a second round, or QE2, in 2011. Oil prices surged in tandem with each. Recently, the Fed signaled again its commitment to zero interest rates through 2014, and already oil and other commodity prices have begun to swell.

Unfortunately, the situation is oddly self-compounding. Low interest rates diminish the value of the dollar, which in turn drive up oil prices. Higher energy costs then increase operating costs and prices for domestic goods, putting the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage to other countries and causing the value of the dollar to suffer even more. As a result, America faces the very real threat of stagflation, a situation in which the value of the dollar is falling as prices increase.

The Fed already knows the economy is susceptible to considerable upset, but has no ammo left in its belt after fighting to bail out banks following the financial crisis. A slower economy on the back of a further rise in oil prices would probably lead to another round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve. But lowering interest rates further in QE3 would exacerbate the problem of high oil prices as the Fed bets that monetary stimulus will expand growth to a greater magnitude than higher oil prices hinder growth.

Since rates are already approaching zero, achieving a QE3 on the back of what is already extremely creative monetary policy implementation is very risky. Thus, the Fed is left scraping the bottom of its monetary policy toolbox searching for massively complex solutions to increasingly complicated economic problems.

 

[SpasticGramps]

On This Day In History.... Gas Prices Have Never Been Higher

Presented with little comment except to remind all those newly refreshed consumers that for every penny rise in pump prices, more than $1bn is added to the hoousehold spending bill (assuming driving habits are unaffected - which brings its own set of unintended consequential events).

For this week of the year, we have never seen higher prices of Gasoline...

and we note that gas prices are rising at almost the same analog rate as last year (and well above average) which offers little hope for the notably higher absolute levels which is all important for our pocket-books...

 

[wantaknow]

its called eugenics ,and its already underway by the nwo ,dont belive me ?go eat a bunch of monsanto food products and tell me all about it in five years

 

[wantaknow]

we the usa were they great experiment ,kenedy was killed to stop his move to return the us to a gold standard,if he had been sucessfull the nwo would not be able to crash our currency ,the fed is printing money to crash us ,we have past the point of no return ,hyper inflation or super recesion either way ,they win u loose,

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Well, it sure ain't rocket science. Gas is high because oil companies are THE most profitable corporations on the planet. Depending on the price per barrel, speculation can add up to $57 per barrel. We're adding fat to lard.

Beyond that, it's an election year. Folks will talk lots o shit to make others think domestic solutions exist. Domestic solutions only exist as a small fraction of the big pic, not the solution in itself. Even if we add only imports from Canada and Mexico, the US can't manage it's daily consumption. No less than a half dozen other oil exporters sell oil to the US.

 

[Molson]

Well, it sure ain't rocket science. Gas is high because oil companies are THE most profitable corporations on the planet. Depending on the price per barrel, speculation can add up to $57 per barrel. We're adding fat to lard.

Beyond that, it's an election year. Folks will talk lots o shit to make others think domestic solutions exist. Domestic solutions only exist as a small fraction of the big pic, not the solution in itself. Even if we add only imports from Canada and Mexico, the US can't manage it's daily consumption. No less than a half dozen other oil exporters sell oil to the US.

Oil companies are profitable because the price of crude is high. It's not the other way around. They're pulling a commodity out of the ground which is selling at record prices. Of course they're going to make money.

That said, refinery margins are in the toilet. That means refining crude into gasoline and other finished products is break even or perhaps marginally profitable. But then how are oil companies profitable? Most are integrated companies, meaning they have operations in exploration & production, refining, and other areas of industry, so while refineries are suffering they're still making money pumping oil out of the ground.

In addition, refineries have to manufacture a different gasoline blend during the summer (per standards) due to increased temperatures. This is slightly more costly than producing "winter blend" gasoline. This is why historically gas prices are higher during the summer (and due to increased demand/more people driving).

 

[SpasticGramps]

Oil companies are profitable because the price of crude is high. It's not the other way around. They're pulling a commodity out of the ground which is selling at record prices. Of course they're going to make money.

This. Oil companies profits depend on the price of crude. The price of crude has nothing to do with oil companies profits.

Aside from QE, wars, etc etc. There is a theory that increased demand in China and India is running into a decrease in the worlds productive capacity or at least it's at a ceiling. This would suggest prices are going to keep rising for a while.

 

[krunchbubble]

thank God Safeway gives you 3 cents off for every $50 you purchase in groceries....

paid $4.14 yesterday, after 30 cents off a gallon...

 

[bombadil.360]

"CARACAS | Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:21pm EST

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela will put 1,500 people to work clearing up an oil spill at a river in the east of the country that has forced the authorities to close a water purification plant, the environment minister said on Sunday.

Officials say an accident on February 4 ruptured a pipeline carrying crude near the city of Maturin in the latest of many mishaps to afflict state oil company PDVSA.

It was not clear how much crude had been spilled in the Guarapiche River.

An opposition lawmaker has told local media as many as 60,000 barrels of crude were spilled in the Guarapiche, but there was no confirmation of that from PDVSA or the government.

Speaking separately to Venezuela's state news agency AVN, senior PDVSA executive Ramiro Ramirez said "a good percentage" of the oil had now been collected from the river, and that PDVSA and the authorities had spared no effort in their response.

Officials shut down a purification plant that supplies water to about a third of Maturin.

"The work of these 1,500 people will let us speed up the cleaning of the river, and we estimate that within a maximum of 10 days we will be able to reopen the main water supply to the city," Environment Minister Alejandro Hitcher told reporters at the scene in Monagas state.

He said there was no risk of drinking water being contaminated because a different plant was being used temporarily to supply Maturin, and that it was a "typical situation" for a country with an important oil industry." .- http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/12/us-venezuela-oil-spill-idUSTRE81B0RP20120212V

of course, the spill still continues, and Maturin is STILL without water service, as there's no "different plant" supplying any water, since it does not exist. my peeps in Maturin are going insane, over a month already without water service. gotta go bathe in a small creek and only drink bottled water.

more lies and bullshit from your favorite "revolutionary" mafia.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Back in the early 1970s, (before OPEC and oil embargoes) the US had this thing called "gas wars." Gas station owners would compete for business by lowering their gas prices. The gas station on this side of the road would lower their price a penny. Before the day was out, the station next door would lower his price by 2 pennies. Lowest I ever saw it go was 19 cents per gallon. Passenger cars had 20 or 25 gallon gas tanks and you'd get change back from a $5.

 

[HempKat]

What kills me about this whole situation is that it's really got people fired up about the idea of "energy security" and that concept has alot of people looking to this XL Pipeline out of the Canadian Oil sands. People are thinking if the pipeline gets approved we'll be much less dependent on foreign oil, gas prices will go back down and it will create alot of American jobs as well. Yet if you look into the matter and examine things revealed by a congressional panel it turns out none of it is true. Well the jobs thing is true but the long term ones will be Canadian jobs. The American jobs will be building it, but once it's built the companies at either end already have all the employees they need. As for the gas prices well keep in mind one thing extracting from oil sands doesn't become profitable until about $100 to $120 a barrel so if we are going to gain security by depending on this source then you can count on gas prices staying high. Then there's the fact that it's dirtier oil so refinement will be more costly. Before any of that takes effect though a big side goal of the pipeline is to make an easier more cost effective way to move out a surplus of oil that's been sitting in the mid west keeping them about 20 cents per gallon below the National average. We're talking much of America's Farms here where a 20 cent increase equals out to $15 Million more per year in expenses. Guess what goes up when Farm expenses goes up? Due to the way supply and demand works that surplus in the midwest has been holding gas prices down. Once Keystone XL is operational one of the first things they want to do is send that surplus down the pipeline to the gulf. It's been sitting where it's at as a surplus because right now it's too costly to move other ways. They say one of the first impacts of Keystone XL will be a 20 cent per gallon hike in the midwest once the surplus is moved out in about 5 months. So....so much for this pipeline bringing lower prices at the pump.

Now on the matter of security. The only way the people of North America get energy security out of Keystone XL is if the refined products stay in N. America. When questioned in a Congressional hearing a TransCanada (the oil company behind Keystone XL) official, when asked if they would promise to keep their products here in N. America only, said, "No, we can't promise that". The bottomline is that this pipeline is all about making it easier for TransCanada to sell it's Oil on the World market. Everything else is the song and dance to try and get it to happen.

If we really want energy security we're either going to have to sieze all the oil and refining company assests that we can and take control (which isn't likely) or we're going to have to make some major strides towards some new groundbreaking alternative energy(which also doesn't seem likely). Whatever the case we need to find a way to cut demand even more on oil since clearly the oil companies aren't looking out for our best interests.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Yeah, imagine weed prices being global. Your next door neighbor would have to pay the same price as the pot head trader in Hong Kong. If neighbor doesn't pay, it's offed in a giant transport to the Pacific rim.

 

[THE TROOPER]

OPEC can charge whatever they want.


They have most of the worlds supply of oil, and you cant do anything about that.



OIL sand pipeline lol


The oil we have under North America is a puny amount compared to the amount we use. WE could suck up every bit of oil we have and wouldn't put a dent in the price, is just drop in the bucket.

they have you snookered my friend.....i spent a lot of time in the oilfields in the 70's and 80's until they pulled the plug on production.

i have been to large oilfields in ok,tex,la where there are hundreds of wells just drilled and capped and still sitting there!
i have seen top/secret geo surveys and other classified info and we have an ocean of oil and more than where you speculate the most is!
a geologist once told me some stuff that would blow your mind while we were smokin some weed i got in oakdale la. and drinking beers....the oilfield we were in, he said you could light all 200+ wells on fire and they would burn for close to a million years!

do you know why saudi oil is so popular...because you go a short distance thru sand to get it which makes it the easiest and cheapest to get!

the chinese are bying it faster than they are using it because their storing it! they don't care about the current price because it is still cheaper for them than if they had to get at their supply!

if our govt. wanted to we could have gas cost us about $1.50 (cost to a gal. of gas)...but why in their greedy little minds would they do that?

things are not what we are led to believe...just when you think you got it figured out BAM!
and i'm pretty sure they can go to other sources of energy that we don't even get told much about but there is an awful lot of oil to use up first and get paid well for it!


TT

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

they have you snookered my friend.....i spent a lot of time in the oilfields in the 70's and 80's until they pulled the plug on production.

i have been to large oilfields in ok,tex,la where there are hundreds of wells just drilled and capped and still sitting there!
i have seen top/secret geo surveys and other classified info and we have an ocean of oil and more than where you speculate the most is!

Approximately 68% of all the active domestic leases aren't drilling wells nor pumping oil. Turns out they're not very promising unless the price continues to climb. Some of these leases may never be utilized. Kinda makes you wonder why they make and continue to hold the leases.

a geologist once told me some stuff that would blow your mind while we were smokin some weed i got in oakdale la. and drinking beers....the oilfield we were in, he said you could light all 200+ wells on fire and they would burn for close to a million years!

Mark Coleman says there's no such thing as AGW.

Come to think of it, a couple of lamp wicks might burn for a million years. j/k

do you know why saudi oil is so popular...because you go a short distance thru sand to get it which makes it the easiest and cheapest to get!

It's also some of the easiest to refine.

the chinese are bying it faster than they are using it because their storing it! they don't care about the current price because it is still cheaper for them than if they had to get at their supply!

The US is what? 5% of the world's population yet uses 25% of the worlds oil. If any other country has a strategic bone left in their body, they're reserving oil just like we do. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve reports close to 700 million barrels of crude - enough for about 36 days of US oil consumption.

if our govt. wanted to we could have gas cost us about $1.50 (cost to a gal. of gas)...but why in their greedy little minds would they do that?

Even the Wall Street Journal is scoffing at Newt's $2.50/gal so $1.50 doesn't sound plausible. I realize it requires the fundamental belief we have vast amounts of available oil and industry analysis is a lie. Truth is, we wouldn't be sitting on decent fuel ore and resorting to wretched tar sands, fracking and ever deeper ocean wells (with their larger disasters) etc.

Government isn't exactly in the business of making hand-over-fist in the oil business. Two things - western capitalism and especially western oil contracts siphon the lions share of revenues to the oil companies. Iraq kicked Bush out of Iraq over Bush's mere offering of his "Carbon Law". The carbon law basically said, we want to rip you off like we've done everybody, including Americans.

If you're an oil veteran, I'm surprised you imagine the government making disproportionally more money with high prices. The proof is on paper, record-quarter after record-quarter. Every oil company has to report their earnings and the big 5? (or whatever number they've managed to whittle it down to) are now the richest corporations on the planet. They were nowhere near their current status in the 70s, 80s and even the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, 1998 was the cheapest oil period in the US. Didn't take long for two oilmen to re roll the dice. And guess what they rolled the very first time? Secret energy meetings consisting of Iraq's newly discovered 1.2 trillion barrel pool, "peak oil" and a new style of accounting that would eventually rock Enron's world into daily headlines. Big oil didn't get popped booking profits before they materialized. Big oil didn't get popped making false trades that illegally increased the so-called value of their products. But big oil did revalue oil reserves, based on what they say is left in the ground.

The US actually cuts it's oil use when prices get this high. Doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the world will respond accordingly.

 

[longearedfriend]