Thats funny ! You just made Aunty's point... lol

Aunty,

Apparently I've been asleep at the wheel these nigh on nearly two decades. I've heard Gore's speil about global warming (some of it seems right and some of it seems wrong - pretty typical for politics). I'm not dialed in to Gore's two decade old social experiment plan to be achieved via high gas prices. I'd be interested in a good citation source or two.

Now it's pretty hard to complain about Obama's qualifications to be prez. He meets the Constitutional requirements, and Bush proves that any American born jackass over 40 years of age can be prez.

I'm not cheering or booing the high gas prices. I agree that we've needed something like this for a long time. The US is on an unsustainable energy path. But like Gore, I guess, I'd druther the higher prices be in the form of taxes to build a more sustainable transportaion infrastructure. The current prices are fueling off shore bank accounts and won't provide anything for improving infrastructure.

I do agree with you that the Democrats are engaging in an arrogance that could cost them the election. They seem so confident that the Republicans have screwed up so badly, that even a female or black Democrat can skate into the White House. Either confident or stupid. I'll vote for any Democrat just to be voting against the Republicans for inflicting Bush on me the last 8 years. However some Americans will vote for McCain simply because they will not under any circumstance vote for a black person. For the Democrats not to be giving that a major consideration in their electoral strategy reeks of incredible arrogance or major stupidity when every indicator is that the election will be close. If it's gonna' be close, only an idiot runs a candidate knowing he or she will alienate some percentage of the voters. Oh well.

Sg

Like Sg said, it's a far different situation to see hundreds of billions of profit come from $4.50/gal. gas, rather than see higher gas taxes leading to $4.50/gal.

At least with the hypothetical high gas tax the money could be used to develop alternative energy systems rather than buy yachts for bigwigs.

Fish on...

Todd

It's hard to argue against environmental communism, and then have any complaint with the price of gas. If you favor the governemt taking action, then that itself is something you'd expect from a socialist or communist regime, not a capitalist regime.

If the price of gas is too high, then stop buying so much. If it's too inconvenient to buy less, then the price isn't too high for you. That's the way capitalism works.........at any price, for any product, there is a price that's too high for some. If you're paying it, then the price isn't "too high".

And if you want to take a system that seems out of whack now and screw it up even further, then get the government involved......windfall profits taxes, rationing, ALL the kind of tinkering government can do will not solve the problem.

The only people that don't want lower gas prices are those that sell it, and those in competing industries. Anybody telling a different tale is full of sh!t. And the gov't can't tax, ration, drill, subsidize, or do anything to significantly change it. The only thing that will significantly change the price of gas is people finding ways not to use it........and only rising price will lead people to find ways.

Drill ANWAR, drill right off the coast......it won't change your price for a gallon of gas by any significant amount. All the extracted oil will go along with all the Saudi oil, the Venezuelan oil, the Mexican oil and the Canadian oil.......straight to whoever will pay the most per barrel for it. And the weak US dollar isn't helping any.

We'd probably better get used ot it, because all the sniveling in the world isn't going to change the price of oil.

Good post Dan !

+1

Um... OK? I guess I still don't understand the point you think you've made?


And, Dan, nicely put.

I think the point is still tht Obama sucks...

The bigger issue to high fuel prices isn't whether or not families have to decide if they are going to drive two vehicles to little Tommie's baseball game or just one. Or, how they're going to cut back their driving by 1/3 to offset the cost. More important is what's going to happen to all the businesses that have to transport goods or perform services at these prices? Not every business can "just pass on the cost to the consumer." End result is going to be more loss of jobs. That's not an inconvenience. It's a consequence that our economy can't really "afford" right now.

Let's be fair here. Bush's buddies are not all in the oil business. He has lots of friends that are defense contractors too.

Uh oh, Dan has put his economist hat on. (He's right, by the way.)

Again, the difference is HOW the fuel prices got high...high taxes that would limit consumption while providing funding for alternative fuel sources would something I would support...

Thesame high fuel prices fueled instead by greed, lying, and speculation is NOT something I support...unlike RWWJ's, and apparently the pseudo-centrist AuntyM, I do not think that the end justifies the means, either.

Fish on...

Todd

Marsha, I can't tell if you are missing the point, or purposely muddling it...

The price of fuel is what will drive consumption, no doubt. As the price increases, people will have to decided if it is worth it to them to buy fuel or not, or how much fuel they will buy, or how far they'll be willing to drive to work, etc.

The price of fuel, however, can be changed in many ways...two of the possible ways are increased fuel taxes sending billions of dollars to government research into alternative fuel technology, or in collusive and outright deceitful practices sending billions of dollars to offshore accounts and the treasure chests of big oil executives, who not only have no motivation to end our dependence on oil, but have the exact opposite motivation, to keep us hooked and using.

The biggest problem for us Americans with this, of course, is not only the money being generated in part through non-market forces, and that they are outright lying to you about it, but that Bush and his cronies are lying to us about it, too.

Just yesterday Bush made a big deal about ending the moratorium on new offshore drilling leases....while there are 68,000 acres of existing offshore drilling leases that the oil industry is purposely not drilling on RIGHT NOW.

Privileges granted to industries like Big Oil to extract a public resource from public lands for private profit who choose to not do so in order to artificially manipulate the market for that resource ought to have the privilege revoked and handed out to another who will use the privilege to benefit both themselves and the public.

Use it or lose it...those leases are given out so that oil companies can make a profit while providing the public with a necessary resource...they are not handed out to be used as pawn pieces to manipulate the not-free-at-all-market of gasoline and oil.

Bush lying to us about it...as usual...only makes it worse.

Fish on...

Todd

We've been investing even more in oil/gas via subsidies and look what that's done for us.

Marsha, the pathetic thing here is your continued farce of calling yourself a "centrist", and your continued name calling when you have nothing valuable to add to the conversation.

stlhead, giving those oil exploration leases, which are sitting idle, are subsidies for the oil companies...we're giving them acess to public resources on public lands because they are supposed to be providing a public benefit.

Instead they are sitting on 10,000 leases and NOT drilling, and instead are speculating on the value of the unused leases, and that is what is driving up prices.

I hope that the public will continue to use less and less oil and force the oil companies into actually providing the benefit for subsidy obligation that they entered in to, but that BushCorp. clearly has no interest in enforcing.

Fish on...

Todd

I still think we the tax payer should be in the oil business ouselves and cut out the middle man. In this instance I highly doubt the govt will be more expensive.

I mentioned oligopolies in a post above.

Bringing anti-trust suits against the companies that the gov't shouldn't have allowed to merge anyway, and breaking them up so that there are enough oil companies to actually compete against one another - like drill those friggin' leases - instead of the apparent collusion that's going on of late.

I think the gov't was sold the merger idea on the basis of increased efficiency of economy of scale. That works - up to a point. Then the allure of actually controlling and manipulating the market for even bigger profit intercedes. The too few oil companies are too big, and it's decreasing competition (via good ole capitalism), and we're paying for it.

Time to take 'em down a peg or two. Up the revolution!

Sg

A less friendly administration will result in a drop in prices. Big oil knows just how far they can push without going over the edge.

If you mean less friendly to the oil industry, then I think you are right...they didn't have to push BuchCorp. anywhere, just run around behind them while BushCorp pushed for them.

Fish on...

Todd

Seems like people have a pretty darn short memory. Remember back in the first year or so of Bush when California suddenly had an energy crisis? Remember how the whole thing was said to be caused by the environmentalists stopping new power plants from being built? Remember how it finally came out that Bushes buddy's were gaming the system and ripping the public off for some 18 billion or so? Ya,so now the enviros are causing high gas prices? .......Holy $hit!

Keta,

That's what a few of us have been saying in this thread...price manipulation by the industry.

Enron had plenty of electricity to sell during the "energy shortage" in California...they just banked it, and speculated on it instead, and got rich...while Californians got less power than they needed, and payed more for it.

This is the exact same scenario playing out again...the oil industry is purposely NOT using the 10,000 oil leases it already has, is not running its refineries at full capacity, is not looking to build any new refineries, and is trying to parlay this into an excuse, with BushCorp leading the way, to drill offshore and in ANWR.

They speculate on the oil futures to get rich, at our expense, rather than provide us with the public benefit we deserve in exchange for the private privilege we taxpayers give them to extract a public resource from public land for profit.

And BushCorp and Cheney, Inc., are leading the charge.

Fish on...

Todd