Give me a car that seats four comfortably and gets about 60 miles range out of the battery and is less than 25k-and I will buy it.
BTS
It's coming and big oil knows it too.
Oil Execs Defend Huge Profits Before Senate
by momzcrazy 143 Replies latest social current
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5go
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Indo_Dude
Highlander: I don't understand why people have an inability to be accountable for their own actions and accept their equal ownership in the problem. Instead they look to blame everyone else. Big oil companies, mid east countries, government, etc.
Because it's easier to blame everyone else rather than accept that someone's own poor choice has come back to bite them.
Highlander: I do hope you are wrong that oil comes down to 3 dollars per gallon. In my opinion that is not enough incentive to make long term changes in this country. Ultimately I'm not all that interested in what is causing high fuel prices. I only wish that people would understand that high prices are a necessary evil. Only when you affect someone's pocketbook, will you get them off their asses to do the right thing. If prices are too cheap, there is zero incentive to seek out alternatives.
That's why I said I hope gas goes to $5 or $6 a gallon. High gas prices have done far more for conservation, new vehicle technology, and boost mass transit ridership numbers than any government program. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the never ending sprawl of North American suburbs was flat out unsustainable. Unfortunately, people haven't paid the true cost of their lifestyle for a three decades or more. Gasoline taxes don't even cover 50% of the costs of building and maintaining roads. Keeping a military presence in the middle east to keep a steady flow of oil also hasn't been priced into the cost of gasoline.
Big Tex wrote: Arlington, Texas is the largest city in America without any mass transit system. But then it's those idiots' fault for moving to Arlington right? What morons for not investigating the carbon impact Arlington has on the planet. Burn 'em for their stupidity.
Your sentiment seems to be a common refrain amongst low tax / low services members. Much of mass transit is funded at the local and state level. When you move to a low tax state, you get low services. You get what you pay for. I live in one of those colder, older, higher tax states. Many fled this area to move to the sunbelt where taxes were less. Guess what? You get less. You can't vote against every bonding and funding bill, demand low/no state taxes, and then scream when the government doesn't do anything.
Big Tex wrote: My big dream, foolish I know, is to find a way to get off the grid and be energy self-sufficient.
I'm not sure it's foolish. My professor and his husband/partner just finished building their home made from all green technology. They put in geothermal heating / cooling as well as solar. They wanted to maximize the energy output vs. tax rebates the federal government and most states have in place. They built their new 1,980 sq. ft. home with both solar and geothermal. The added cost for doing both was $32,400. The government, and power companies paid for over half of the green investments. My professor's out of pocket cost (which he rolled into the mortgage) was $14,000 total. His added mortgage cost was $ 88 a month. His energy savings so far (10 months of data so far) has cut his power and heat bills by 60%. His total utility bill now for both heat and electric is under $95 a month, when previously he had been paying about $250. He has done a spreadsheet with kilowattage use and he saves $148 a month in utilities, add in the extra mortgage amount of $95 a month, and he's still saving $53 a month in energy. The realtor also, has said that his house would sell for $20,000 to $25,000 more because of the solar/geothermal investment. Talk about win/win. His house is worth more than what he actually paid for it. His total bill per month is now lower. And he's using renewable / green energy.
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sammielee24
Germany in call for ban on oil speculation
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 12:53am BST 27/05/2008German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds.
It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities.
George Soros: rocketing oil price is a bubble
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
Last Updated: 12:53am BST 27/05/2008Speculators are largely responsible for driving crude prices to their peaks in recent weeks and the record oil price now looks like a bubble, George Soros has warned.
The billionaire investor's comments came only days after the oil price soared to a record high of $135 a barrel amid speculation that crude could soon be catapulted towards the $200 mark.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Soros said that although the weak dollar, ebbing Middle Eastern supply and record Chinese demand could explain some of the increase in energy prices, the crude oil market had been significantly affected by speculation.
Mr Soros predicts that the USA and Britain will suffer a long and major recession - the market will eventually self correct however, in the interim for those that hope the price keeps rising, be prepared to shell out a lot more in taxes to help feed those affected. In the end you might get your wish on the backs of a lot of innocent people as they lose jobs and remain unable to even afford gas for their small efficient car to look for a job. swife.
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5go
It isn't a bubble, cheap oil is over for good. The refinery I am at is expanding to refine tar sands from Canada. Which wasn't a profitable source of oil up until recently. That is how desperate it is getting to find more viable oil reserves. Areas that were known to have oil but were consider not profitable to exploit before are now being looked at as profitable.
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Indo_Dude
Big Tex: Telling me I have to walk a mile each way from the grocery store is NOT a real solution.
LOL Only an American would utter that. Yes it is a REAL solution. Again, you CHOSE to move where you live. The average adult human walks at 3 to 3.5 mph. A 'walk' to the grocery store would take you 18 minutes. Riding a bike? About 6 minutes. About the same time as it would take to drive there. Then again, even at $10 a gallon driving a car 1 mile to the store isn't going to cost much. It's the needless trips clear across town that add up.
You CHOSE to move to the suburbs, while you CHOSE to keep your downtown job, and CHOSE to keep commuting in the car you CHOSE to drive, buy, and finance. If you bought a car that got 45 mpg like the Prius would you really care about gas prices? Even if you drive 20,000 miles in a year, at 45 mpg a Prius only needs 37 gallons per month. What about a diesel VW Jetta? Or a SmartCar? My neighbor has one of those and gets 40 to 45 mpg and costs $13,000. A Honda Fit gets 35 mpg on the highway and costs $13,500 after dealer discounts. Same price for a nicely equipped Nissan Versa that gets 32 mpg.
Seriously think about it. Why does anyone feel entitled that they should work in a downtown of a big city, yet commute 35 miles or more one way into work, in a household with 2 or more vehicles, possibly SUVs or full sized, while living in the suburbs on a 1/2 acre lot, with no rush hour traffic, no crime, pay low taxes, and also don't want to pay anything for gasoline? If you want to live 35 miles or 50 miles away from your job, fine, that's your choice. But don't get upset that you can't drive an SUV that gets 11 mpg, for $2 worth of gas per day to get there. Something has to give. If you want that lifestyle, then buy a commuter car. No one owes you anything. You didn't want to 'deal with living in the city' so why should you think poeple and your govt. now should care about your 'deal with living in the suburbs'? I don't get it.
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BurnTheShips
You CHOSE to move to the suburbs, while you CHOSE to keep your downtown job, and CHOSE to keep commuting in the car you CHOSE to drive, buy, and finance.
These are choices that are greatly influenced by prevailing social demographic standards over the last 60 years. What would you have had him do, move to the crime ridden inner cities as the middle classes moved out over the last several decades? I would rather have chanced peak oil in the suburbs than the daily risk of a mugging.
Don't beat him up.
BTS
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shamus100
Exactly, 5go.
That's why they're drilling like mad now. It wasn't profitable until recently.
It isn't Bush's fault. How was Bush going to force private companies to drill for oil when we live in a free-market economy? This is the end result of a free-market economy - prices set by supply and demand. And supply IS going down, and going down drastically at the moment - weather you believe it or not.
It isn't even Halliburton's fault. Cheney had nothing to do with it. Halliburton does a lot of things, more in the servicing industry - in laymans terms, the oil companies call them for completion work on wells, among other wellsite services.
There is far more speculation going on in this thread than anywhere in the oil and gas industry.
The world's economy does not revolve around the United States. There are far bigger problems here than a few senators trying to get rich. There are far bigger issues than some idiot driving around in an SUV. Having to pay a little more in fuel is better than most have - they cannot afford to eat.
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Indo_Dude
BTS:
These are choices that are greatly influenced by prevailing social demographic standards over the last 60 years. What would you have had him do, move to the crime ridden inner cities as the middle classes moved out over the last several decades? I would rather have chanced peak oil in the suburbs than the daily risk of a mugging.
Don't beat him up.
I'm not beating him up. I'm just pointing out how now, for possibly the first time ever, suburbanites are having to pay for their choices. They've clogged the highways with commuters living 20, 30, 50, and even 80 miles away from their jobs, vote predominately Republican and against any funding / taxing / bonding bill, wash their hands of any problems of the central city, and now expect sympathy because they can't drive a vehicle that gets 10, or 15 mpg out to Bumfartin, Texas without paying a few bucks?
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Big Tex
Your sentiment seems to be a common refrain amongst low tax / low services members. Much of mass transit is funded at the local and state level. When you move to a low tax state, you get low services. You get what you pay for. I live in one of those colder, older, higher tax states. Many fled this area to move to the sunbelt where taxes were less. Guess what? You get less. You can't vote against every bonding and funding bill, demand low/no state taxes, and then scream when the government doesn't do anything.
I'm going to assume you mean the universal "you" rather than the specific. In that sense I will agree with you. Still I maintain, as I have throughout this thread, and those previous, that leadership on a local, state and national level have failed the consumer. I have said previously voters could have demanded different policy, but seriously do you really think Mondale, or Dukakis, or Bush, Sr. (second term) or Dole would have made one iota of difference on this subject? I held my nose voting for Kerry. He would have been a poor President, but Bush, as we have seen, has been disastrous. And the choices at the congressional, state and local levels are not much better.
As I've said, yes the voter/consumer has made the mistake of believing what they want to hear. Polticians, and not just on this subject, have told the public only what they want to hear, not what is best for the country. Until that changes, it is as if we are living on the Titanic and I am truly afraid of what happens when the collision occurs.
Only an American would utter that. Yes it is a REAL solution. Again, you CHOSE to move where you live. The average adult human walks at 3 to 3.5 mph. A 'walk' to the grocery store would take you 18 minutes. Riding a bike? About 6 minutes. About the same time as it would take to drive there.
Would you please read what I wrote? Yes, I could do that. I could walk to the grocery store. And how much oil would that save this country? Don't give me the cold BS about where I chose to live. I am not speaking for myself. Yes, I spend more on gas now than I did this time last year. It pinches, I don't like it, but it's the price of doing business. I can afford it. But a lot of people can't. I think most people object when they read of the tens of billions of dollars of profit per quarter the oil companies are raking in. When those same oil companies are not injecting those profits into new exploration, but instead send out that money to shareholders it rankles on most people's sense of right and wrong. No one likes to feel they're being ripped off.
>sigh<
Look, you seem to be more interested in some sort of antagonistic dialogue or pointless, progressively personal argument. I'm not. I've read threads where people go at each other back and forth getting more and more personal. Not interested. Never have been. Nor am I interested in poking at someone else just for the fun of it. If you've got something to add to the dialogue, I would be genuinely interested in hearing it. You don't seem to read, but as I've posted previously I drive a Honda. I've never owned a "big" car, nor would I. On a personal level, I've tried to economize where I could.
I will not be so smug as to wag my finger at someone for making a choice that didn't work out. I once belonged to a cult that encouraged that kind of behavior and I would be either be a fool or a true idiot not to have learned from that experience. Hell I've made some poor choices in my life, many times I feel the quantity of my poor choices far outweighs the good ones. But that's another subject.
I'm sorry but I still maintain if real, legitimate choices (and I'm speaking of alternative energy sources) were offered to the average consumer, it would have been embraced. Not by everyone at first, but enough to keep the capital going into the manufacturers who could have then improved the model until the price became low enough to be affordable for the average person. A similar business model to that which Henry Ford used with the Model T 80+ years ago.
It's been done before and it could have been done now. It still can. That's all I'm saying. I still maintain that, even though it will take decades to integrate new technology, new energy into our infrastructure, it can be done. But the longer we wait to work on solving those technologies, the longer and more expensive it will be, for the average consumer.
Chris
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BurnTheShips
I'm not beating him up. I'm just pointing out how now, for possibly the first time ever, suburbanites are having to pay for their choices.
You make it sound like a question of sin! Suburbanites have always paid for their choices. The fact is that the cost of their choices is changing. But it makes you feel better to be sanctimonious doesn't it?
They've clogged the highways with commuters living 20, 30, 50, and even 80 miles away from their jobs, vote predominately Republican and against any funding / taxing / bonding bill, wash their hands of any problems of the central city, and now expect sympathy because they can't drive a vehicle that gets 10, or 15 mpg out to Bumfartin, Texas without paying a few bucks?
"Clogged highways." --and the alternative for the average suburbanite Joe has been? To date, the opportunity cost of that lifestyle has been far lower than the alternatives. As for funding bills, why would anyone want to fund an alternative that at the time was more expensive, less affordable, and less flexible? Ceteris paribus, individual vehicular transportation has tremendous advantages. Affluent and middle class people used to live in the inner city, and they voted with their feet for a better lifestyle. On the current course, that lifestyle is becoming somewhat untenable, as unsympathetic as you are. A solution is needed and not your sanctimonious asshatery. Not all of us live in DwarfFelcher, California.
BTS