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Comments
The $3.07 station was selling midgrade for $3.32, a 25 cent difference. The other station was similar. Forgot to look around this morning to see if that was holding true.
I also remember the mid 1970s, when there was much doom and gloom about the downsizing of vehicles that came with CAFE- but we adapted, didn't we? We'll do the same by 2020, maybe earlier.
By the way, the Great Lakes water is not the problem- it is in high growth states like California and Texas, where aquifers are being depleted, population is growing and water could be a big problem And at this point anyway, water is not valuable enough to build pipelines from the Great Lakes to California and Texas....
Especially if it's a GTI :P OTOH it would be the end of the world to drive what Jeremy Clarkson called the perfect car, the Peel P50. There's a "road test" on youtube ("clarkson p50" will find it).
My dark side want's an Mitsu Evo X but on my other shoulder, a little voice is telling me to wait out the coming influx of diesels.
Do you really believe that? I hope you're wrong. I've got a lot of liberal friends that are outraged by the disparity between the richest and poorest in this country. I agree, that's a problem. But I don't agree that a society where everyone shared an equal level of poverty would be preferable. The disparity between rich and poor is good, up to a point. It's motivational. It's possible we've exceeded the motivational level and entered a confrontational/contentious level.
That's because we produce 25% of the world's GDP -- we spend 1/4 of all the money in the world. We have the highest standard of living -- even most of "the poor" in the U.S. own a color television. That's why the rest of the world keeps coming here, legally and otherwise.
Petroleum consumption is a symptom of success. Just ask all the people who own mansions and private jets.
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That would be an interesting statistic. How much of that 25% or the world's oil production is used to heat and air condition the 5000+ square foot homes and fuel the limos and private jets.
This is really dangerous territory people are treading on. Do we start rationing house sizes? Do we put a cap on how well you can live? I would think this is why people go to college and try to get good jobs. They try to be the best they can be and get the most out of life. That is really what money is. It is freedom to do what you want when you want to do it.
That's the whole problem. Petroleum consumption is not only a symptom of our success it is a vital component to our success. Since we don't have control over the future availability of petroleum we don't have control over our future standard of living. That should be cause for serious concern. There really needs to be a back-up plan. As far as I can tell none exists.
Tomatoes went from 69 cents a lb to over $2 per lb this winter. I have not paid that much since moving out of Alaska. Pork & chicken is still reasonable. While eggs have skyrocketed. I guess the corn prices had an immediate affect on eggs. Eat more pork and chicken. Better for you than beef anyway.
You've touched on the root of the global warming scam. Each of us, with or without a Gulfstream II, has about nil impact on the environment. But the enviro-pushers demand that each of us act as a collective in order to stop global warming.
Meanwhile, THEY live like rock stars, burning as much energy as their lifestyles of the rich and famous demand. Either they think we're too dumb to notice, or we're dumb enough to fall for the "carbon credits" b.s.
When they say, "We need to conserve," they don't mean themselves. "They" aren't part of "we." That's the scam.
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The backup plan as you call it is the use of other fuels. The backup plan is triggered by economics. As petroleum gets more and more expensive, then other fuels will be used, and technologies developed and implemented. There is plenty of coal and oil-shale which become economical to convert or use directly in electrical plants, and there's other energy sources.
Yes this would take years, but there are still many years of petroleum available, during which an orderly change can take place.
Heck, once all the coal, oil, and natural gas are mainly used up, and if we still didn't have a new nuclear energy technology, then I guess about 50 years before those fuels run out we literally start covering the entire state of AZ and other sunny spots with solar panels. And we get to like the skyline view of windmills.
The plan will be hundreds of years long. It would be foolish to sit here and try and guess what course that would take, and expect someone to want to implement it now.
I'm waiting for the Singularity to decide the best course.
Somebody has been watching the new Terminator series on TV. I have and I like it.
A computer program or system can only be as perfect as it's creators.
Some people act like the Saudis are going to hold a press conference tomorrow that goes like this:
Saudi sheik: "Well this has been a good run for all of us, but we are just plain out of oil. Sorry. It was flowing really well yesterday, but today all the wells are dry. Look, no need to panic. We all knew this wouldn't last, right? What do you mean? You have no backup plan!? Are you stupid!? I must now go back to my 28 wives. Have a nice day."
Saudi sheik: "Well this has been a good run for all of us, but we are just plain out of oil. Sorry. It was flowing really well yesterday, but today all the wells are dry.
No one's suggesting that we'll one day wake up to find out there is no more oil. It will become prohibitively expensive long before it is all used up. If the price of oil rose in an orderly manner I'd see no problem with letting the market decide when it was time to transition to another source. With the narrow gap between global demand and global production capacity I don't see this happening. Oil prices will become more volatile with the overall trend being an exponential rise. So the two choices are to plan in advance or react to a crisis. Generally speaking advance planning tends to be the more prudent approach even if it involves sacrifice in the present. That sacrifice needs to be weighed against the sacrifice resulting from not planning. Kind of why people save for retirement, go to college, carry life insurance, etc..
I also don't think we have until 2025 to deal with our dependence on oil. By that time global consumption will have risen by 50% to 120+ million barrels per day. I haven't seen any credible sources that are confident that demand can be satisfied. So long before 2025 a bidding war will have started for the available supply. Certainly good news for the oil producers but the rest of us will have concluded that oil is not the future.
I think we can all safely agree, right now, that oil is not the long-term future for transportation. It is a question of when not if.
But it is orderly. The daily demand for oil is pretty constant, and the year-to-year % increase is fairly steady. Also the amount being produced is fairly steady, + or - a couple of percent per day. What isn't steady is the psychology. The price of oil can change based on a political event or even the LIKELIHOOD of a political event, or the likelihood of a lot of hurricanes. But that haven't been any great and abrupt changes like the 30-year old OPEC Boycott.
with the overall trend being an exponential rise.
No this is fairly impossible, as people don't have an infinite amount of money to throw at oil. What I mean is those who are making $5,000/yr in the developing world would drop-out of the "demand" fairly early as the price went up. Therefore demand would go down, and a slowly rising price would occur. It is therefore important for you and the rest of the country to maintain a high income relative to others in the future. Everytime you see news that our $ is devaluing relative to other currencies you can = that to losing the ability to buy oil to others in the world.
There certainly is competition but there will not and can not be some extreme permanent increases, as those increases will put many global consumers out of the demand equation. That therefore allows an orderly transition to other fossil fuels which can make H2, LNG, oil from coal, or electricity from coal. As oil declines OVER YEARS, the other fuels can be brought on-line. You can find many such projects already beginning.
I agree that the increase in demand is fairly steady. The increase in production capacity has not matched this demand increase for quite some time. This is obviously unsustainable. In the mid-90's the difference between what the producers could produce and the consumers could consume was about a 10 million barrel per day surplus. That's enough to ride out isoloated disruptions with minimal impact to the market. My understanding is that this surplus is now around 4 million barrels per day. The same level of disruption will have a much greater impact on the market now. In the coming years this buffer will continue to get smaller, leading to greater volatility and upward pressure on the price.
No countries wouldn't drop out. Individuals in the countries do though. Those individuals who are either poor, or of moderate income who either can't or no-longer wish to, purchase oil.
In our economy the demand for gasoline is not all that elastic since we've adopted lifestyles that make using our vehicles a necessity.
Somewhat true, though I can't see why each person can't gradually change their lifestyle. I used to own a house 30 miles from work and have a V-8 Firebird, 2 years ago. I now live In the coming years this buffer will continue to get smaller, leading to greater volatility and upward pressure on the price.
I agree. The long-term tilt will be gradual, and yes there could be spikes upwards due to "events". But you're missing the point that there are other fossil fuels which can be used, and as oil would increase and become scarcer, the effort put into using the other fossil fuels would increase. There is too much $$$ to be made not to! If oil is selling for $100/barrel, and I know it's going to stay there, if I'm any sort of businessman, I'm going to be converting oil-shale or coal to oil. There are new technologies that are working fairly well.
You are also missing the point that what is politically impossible today, isn't in the future. Places that are off-limits today like ANWR, won't be when the price of gas gets higher. There will be a tipping point where enough people say "To heck with a few birds or bears, I want to continue to drive", that the people will vote for politicians who will make these decisions. Unless we get nuclear fusion or similar, these areas will be drilled and tapped. It's just a matter of when (at what price level).
I also think that people here in the U.S. do have quite a bit of $ left to pay for higher gasoline costs. Most people have cable-TV, and cell-phones which aren't as necessary as gasoline. So that would free up about $100/month. Then people who smoke could quit their $40/week (carton) habit. And then people might stay a little more instead of clogging up the roads on weekend trips. So there is a lot people could do to get more $ for fuel.
As I said some posts back too - I was just looking at townhouses that were being built. Everyone was getting oil heat, and the garages were even heated.
So how can we as a society be looking to conserve oil when we don't even have a policy of not installing oil heating systems, which here in NH, use at least 500gal. per year per household. Around here oil use for gasoline is secondary to use for heating oil.
The economy looks like it's going into the tank and the federal government has indicated a willingness to inject $150 billion dollars to prevent this from happening. High gas prices might be one of the factors contributing to this weakness in our economy. Why is it better to invest $150 billion to treat symptoms than it is to spend a fraction of this amount to treat the cause? Certainly both cases represent a manipulation of the market.
The high oil prices are a small factor in the slowdown but the real problem is, once again, game-playing and tricky securities in the financial markets. The over extending of credit to people not credit-worthy for a home loan were given home loans. If the lenders weren't giving them loans you have a group second guessing them because everyone knows it's the American right to own a home even though you are a single parent and worked at Wendy's for 4 months along with your job at the Pizza place. If they refuse credit someone found a way to criticize that it was racial or class discrimination or ... something.
So all these loans are being increased in interest rates and some people couldn't afford the prior rate. Many people have lost their jobs for various reasons in the economy. But I heard one guru in the know mention the securities in the corners of the market. I suspect once again there has been funny trading going on in securities that really aren't worth. Some houses (financial) are involved and he mentioned a name in danger of collapsing because of what they owe. That's the real threat to the markets. Traders keep coming up with faux things to trade in funny ways. Then they don't work and there's money to be lost by someone.
The slowdown worldwide will help oil prices. The slowdown worldwide will help the US financial markets. Because the talking heads and their writers are trying so hard to cause a recession with all their talk, it probably can't happen. They want to hang a recession on Bush. They want to manipulate the politics as well as the fiancial markets.
But remember that the markets climb a wall of worry. The oil prices are possibly a big sign of manipulation different than what I mentioned above. But two or three down bumps over a period of a few weeks and it's going to be time to start careful purchases. While the talking heads have discovered the down market, the up market will already have started.
I believe we had talked before about a slowdown in the economies worldwide would help the oil pricing. I think that's here.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If you are still actively losing faith, I think you are about 4 -6 years behind the rest of us.
Throwing money at the populace is only going to work for a while. Spending control is needed and less socialistic talk behind smooth promises (yes, they'll still love us in the morning).
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Guardian Unlimited
The banks will still have to heat all those foreclosed homes, so that part of the economic downturn may not help gas prices fall much. If you don't have a job, will it matter too much whether gas is $2 or $4?
Maybe even more. Ask Rocky how many miles he put on his car looking for a job.
It's not just what price, but how long? If you look today I believe oil is below <$90, and has been falling for a few weeks. It usually takes a few months to give the go-ahead to the billion $ facilities that would be needed, and a few years to build, and then you have the wildcard of how long the environment studies take. So 5-10 years best case, unless the government says "no-red tape, flank speed ahead, and damn the torpedos".
Certainly high gas prices, and heating costs have pushed some people who have these sub-prime loans over the edge. That is a problem caused by the banks/lenders, and the people who accepted those loans and don't understand how to manage money - spending every cent they earn.
We all know that OPEC and the oil companies have an incestuous relationship with the futures traders. Corruption in prices is old news.
However, oil has legitimate new demands from China and India. Those countries are seeing huge economic expansions, and they have a combined population of 2.4 billion. Compare that to the U.S. pop. of 300 million, and you can easily see the supply/demand pressure on petroleum.
When even a fraction of 2 billion people who never owned cars before suddenly start buying them, they're gonna burn a lot of gas.
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If someone told us seven years ago that oil prices would be $90/bbl. within a decade, we would have laughed.
Some folks would have called him a doomsday conspiracy theorist. Others would have riduculed him on an effect basis; that if oil went to $90, the entire U.S. economy would collapse, therefore it simply couldn't happen.
Yet here we sit today, oil at $90, and the world keeps turning. So oil going to $150 isn't that far fetched. After all, a 60% price increase is nothing compared to the 200% increase we've already seen.
Combine that with the proposed 40 cent gas tax increase and you get $5/gal. gasoline.
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Out of curiousity, of the Presidential candidates, which one most closely subscribes to this point of view?
And there's one 800 mile long pipeline from there to Valdez, not two of them (there's lots and lots of collector pipes of various diameters on the slope though). I saw the Japanese made pipe sitting in Valdez on my first trip north in 1973.
Shale oil was going to be the next big money maker in about 1978. Big bucks were spent in Colorado and elsewhere. When prices stabilized and started down those companies and towns went bust. I think they will be a bit more careful this time. Canada is producing lots of shale oil I assume they are making money.
Shale oil Bust
"It's been 25 years and we're still here. "
Only a couple of dozen people still living in Rifle can make the claim they survived "Black Sunday," the day Exxon pulled out of the oil shale business on May 2, 1982.
I am one of them.
Leslie Robinson :: An Oil Shale Bust Survivor's Story
Before that fateful day, it was the best of times from the growth of the oil shale industry. Jobs, money and a boom of economic activity overflowed into Rifle from 1978 to the spring of 1982. So many retail business sprung up that Rifle was able to support two newspapers, even though its population was still around 5,000. As the advertising sales manager of the Rifle Tribune, some of my biggest customers were real estate agencies. Full page ads were the norm. Exxon, Unocal and other major oil company big-wigs, in addition to high ranking government officials, would drop into the paper as if we were the center of the universe.
http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1971
Their relationship is that OPEC, the producer, doesn't let the free market of consumers determine the price of its product. Instead it allows a third party, the futures traders, to do that.
That's not a free market, because the traders neither produce nor consume. They simply siphon off profits for themselves. And the number of traders is so small relative to the size of the market they control, that collusion and corruption are inevitable.
As an analogy, hundreds of years ago in Europe, small groups of people used to build blockades along rivers. They would charge a toll to every boat that was transporting goods from one city to another. These people neither produced any product, nor bought any for consumption. They simply inserted themselves between producers and consumers in order to siphon off a profit for themselves.
Just like today's oil futures traders, these people provided no benefit to any market. They simply took what wasn't theirs because they could get away with it.
Of course, today's traders couldn't get away with it if OPEC would set up its own exchange. That would cut out all the middlemen. It would restore the basic laws of supply and demand to the oil market, as opposed to the imaginary circumstances that drive prices now; e.g., "predictions" of an active hurricane season, the "threat" of violence in Nigeria, "uncertainty" about the U.S. presidential race, etc.
But OPEC remains content to let its product filter through traders' hands, at the direct expense of consumers. That may not be a "relationship" according to Dr. Phil, but I sure feel like the whole family's against me every time I fill my gas tank.
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“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.”
George Bernard Shaw
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This is no different than other commodity markets. Wheat, pork, copper, natural gas ... all are traded on commodities markets.
Read the "Who uses the KCBT" section.
http://www.kcbt.com/kcbt_faq.html
It would be rather difficult if I had to call Saudi Arabia every week and order my 15 gal.
These people neither produced any product, nor bought any for consumption. They simply inserted themselves between producers and consumers in order to siphon off a profit for themselves.
That defines an insurance company fairly well, too. Or if you just watched the Barrett Jackson auto auction, you might consider whether the 10% they collect on each sale was excessive.
But OPEC remains content to let its product filter through traders' hands, at the direct expense of consumers.
Every country does that, not just Saudi Arabia and OPEC. And every farmer with the exception of the road-side stands, sells their products on commodities markets.
Here are just a few examples of what we notice. The bulk of our food is bought at WalMart, prpberly like thousand of others. The bread we buy was $ 1.25 one year ago, now it's $2.27. Instant coffee was $5.87 now $7.14. All Campbells soups are up more tha 30%. Milk was $2.89 now $3.90 more or less. Any thing with wheat or corn has increased more than 20%. Oli changes at my dealer, the oil was $2.15 a quart now last Friday it was $3.10 a quart!
Well you know how long the list could be, and you had the point before I added to it. However those of us on Social Security got a 2.3% raise, and so did my Navy retirement. 2.3 % is a joke!
However, we are fortunate to live in the USA because in some other copuntries the selection of food is limited and not near as healthy, we are blessed. We do have fuel that is high by our standards, but most of the world spends a lot more than we do.
It's election year, but no matter who gets elected their power to change is limited, it takes a huge amount of effort to make even a very modest change in the tax code, or anything else. So all the noise about change is like spitting in the wind.
By the way Chrysker announced that they are in a "NEW DAY" and all their vehicles are being renew with better inside material, as DCX has made some serious cheap cuts to save money which is not what they feel the public wants. Heck our Jeep Compass was overpriced and had cheap looking poor fitting crapie plastic inside from one end to the other. We hated it and traded in after 4 months and 10,000 miles. I wrote Chrysler and told them this was in a YUGO catagory type of car, and it was not a jeep, but only had the Jeep brand name.
well that's my dollars worth ( prices have gone up, use to be 2 cents worth)
farout
That is an interesting take on the commodity marketeers. They really are not a productive part of our society. Maybe leech is too strong of a word to use. I have had friends that dabbled in the commodities and most lost money. Are these traders controlled by SEC laws? Maybe that should be the goal of the next President to put a lid on commodity trading.
The OPEC basket price always seems to be under the trader's price.