Thread: Gas $9 a gallon

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just so you all know as of today Exxon-Mobile announced that due to lack of profits and increased taxation, they are no longer able to compete selling gas in the US and withdrawing all interest in selling of gas in the US for the time being.... speculation alone could bring gas to $8/gallon by Monday i reccomend we all sign this if you have not yet, http://www.americansolutions.com/act...b-346a1e096659 Drill Here Drill Now, even without increasing production instantly, it will cause i threat to foreign markets and hopefully use speculation to cause prices to drop a little bit...... if not, well.... start rationing your gas..... only drive for utter importance..... or i guess as Jimmy Carter and his africanized clone Barak Obama would say... "its time for america to tighten their belts"

As intriguing an idea as that is (an Atlas Shrugged moment would perhaps shock some sense into the public which would then, hopefully, reach the politicians), they're actually just selling the 2200 retail units they own, they'll be strictly a wholesale supplier for that part of the company.

[QUOTE=Bob Parmenter]As intriguing an idea as that is (an Atlas Shrugged moment would perhaps shock some sense into the public which would then, hopefully, reach the politicians),QUOTE]


Kind of doubt it would make a bit of difference Uncle Bob.... As with anything else, the democrats would blame the republicans, the republicans would blame the democrats, and the majority of the population would just sit on their thumbs and wait for the government to fix it.... DDSS

Just a correction, the tax on gas in the UK is not allocated to healthcare, it is just added to the piggy bank for our government to waste, sorry spend, healthis one but it is not specific.
We also pay an average of $400 in road tax per year to be on the road in the first place, before you push the gas peddle.
Over and out on this one.

Originally Posted by marco

pizzi-man is right 71 cents on every dollar is for health care in europe on the averge. DO THE math. 9-dollar gas x71cents=6.39 . 9.00 -639 =2.61 per gallon.OH buy the way it takes two weeks to see a DR .WHAT aDEAL!

If you lost your job and health insurance with it then it is a deal.
If gas had kept up with the price of houses then gas would be $7.50 per gallon based on the price of gas and homes from the early 70's.

Originally Posted by marco

pizzi-man is right 71 cents on every dollar is for health care in europe on the averge. DO THE math. 9-dollar gas x71cents=6.39 . 9.00 -639 =2.61 per gallon.OH buy the way it takes two weeks to see a DR .WHAT aDEAL!

I have to make my appointments at least 3 weeks out with the VA...and I'm in the 2nd highest catagory as far as appointment priorities go.... It's not the best system in the world, but it's the system I have to use.... Don't think I could buy health insurance at any price...

Health care is just another issue that has to be resolved...but other then a lot of finger pointing and blame casting, nothing will be done about it either....

I didn’t read the article but my wife said Exxon, is selling their stations too their people who run the stations now. I guess if they couldn’t afford too buy them, they would be sold too the next person in line. I will try too find the article.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...158.html#Intro

They pretty much say the same thing; it’s how they head line the story!

One will get the reader’s attention quicker.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,366287,00.html



Richard

I have tried to do other things for a few days and try and cool off since we were warned not to post blatant political statements on the Forum, BUT (!) this is the heart of the whole idea of hot rodding as the availability of fuel. I congratulate Bob for providing rational arguments from the Wall Street Journal. I am so mad about this ban on off-shore drilling that it endangers my high blood pressure situation. There were reports that Speaker Pelosi was very active in applying all kinds of pressure to the present Democrat majority in the U.S. House of Rep. to NOT vote for off-shore drilling! It is clear to me that Environmentalists simply want to stop burning fossil fuels! This will help the polar bear population at least on the U.S./Canadian side of the North pole but maybe not on the Siberian side. One estimate is that at the required fifty mile limit for off-shore drilling rigs they won't even be visible from the shore due to the curvature of the Earth! Meanwhile Cuban wells drill off-shore! I was also interested in other links to the Bakkan fields in North Dakota, but the idea that U.S. oil would be sold in the U.S. is probably not true under present market laws, any further oil would simply go on the world market and could only lower U.S. oil prices by increasing the world supply. I just watched the Niel Cavuto show and I agree that several resources should be developed. DRILL (!) for more oil, especially off-shore, build more nuclear power plants for electricity and develop more hybrids like the Aptera as well as invoke Solar and Wind power for the power grid but all of this sensible development can be and IS being blocked by partisan politics and spin that disguises the raw political motives of folks who were elected supposedly to represent the People! Come on folks, why should we reelect folks who deliberately sabotage the economy and then use Environmental ideas to disguise their obstructionist views? It is obvious to me that the Democratic majority in Congress is simply doing everything it can to make the economy look bad until the election but since Bill Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWAR, a new Democratic-Environmental Congress will be even worse. OK, so why am I so mad? I have about $25K in parts so far on my roadster and wonder if I can plan to ever run it to more than local meets? I would like to buy an Aptrera but I now have my play money tied up in a roadster that I hope will get slightly over 20 mpg with big rear tires, stock cam, R700 OD and "flying brick" aerodynamics. The worst case are these enlightened Environmentalists who live in city town houses who think the population can simply stop using fossil fuels and then also vote against nuclear power plants for alternative electric power. Hey it's time for another time out for me!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I am to the point where I don't believe anyone in government is going to help us. I don't believe that the oil companys are spending 80 billion a year on R&D. I don't believe any media because they are driven by corperate America. I have written my congressmen and now I sure don't feel they are on my side so I will pay for the gas for my hotrod until I can't afford it anymore and like all of us I will regretfully park her.

I never thought in my lifetime that the freedom to drive a car would be taken away.

Just my thoughts, nothing to back it up.

I think in back of our mines we all knew that they could come up with something other then gasoline to run our cars. We had steam ships, trains, and motors turning machinery to produce electricity. It was just too profitable to keep us at the pumps.

Japan, as much as I have disliked them bringing their cars over here and not letting us send ours to they’re Country. They have a car that runs on water, if we could send a man too the moon why didn’t they perfect this water car before now if it doesn’t have too do with politics’

Anything that man makes, man can make it run faster, so we could have been at the drag strip taking a sip of water and put the rest in the “whatcha ma call” it do a burn out and let her rip!!

Richard

Originally Posted by ford2custom

Just my thoughts, nothing to back it up.

I think in back of our mines we all knew that they could come up with something other then gasoline to run our cars. We had steam ships, trains, and motors turning machinery to produce electricity. It was just too profitable to keep us at the pumps.

Richard

Not picking on you here Richard, it's just that you've put up the "money quote" to stimulate another facit of discussion. You've repeated something that a lot (perhaps a majority?) of people believe. The fact that a lot of people believe it doesn't make it true however. There was a time when a majority of people believed the world was flat.

The other day Dave S. invoked a paraphrase of George Santayana's adage; "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
A hundred years ago the newly emerging technology of the automobile was embroiled in stiff competition over what form of power would be used. Steam, electricity, and gasoline were on relatively equal footing. At one point the Baker electric was one of the best selling cars on the market. It's advantages were it was quiet and clean. Major disadvantage was limited service period and not easy to "refuel". Steam had the advantage of being the best known and longest serving (at the time) of motive power. It used readily available materials for fuel, and produced considerable torque and horsepower relative to it's size, and it too was relatively quiet. Disadvantages were the danger of explosion by less sophisticated operators, and the need for frequent refueling. Gasoline used in internal combustion engines was a touch and go situation. It was noisy, not well known technology, and because of that there weren't a lot of places to get the fuel readily. There was no "big oil" then, all the petroleum companies were relatively small industrial elements. Their biggest market to that point was providing fuel for illumination. Of course the growth of electriciyt distribution was occuring at the same time which was displacing petroleum from that market. Through ingenuity (and no preferential selection by government entities) and private investment it was deduced that gasoline would be a useful fuel for the internal combustion engine. Visionary people could see where it made economic sense to invest in refining and distribution networks to provide this fuel, and took a big financial risk to develope those processes. They had no guarantee of success, but in the end, gasoline provided the most stored energy (available BTU's), in the safest form, with the easiest of distribution, storage, and user friendliness that ultimately gasoline prevailed. It wasn't by hook, crook, or government mandate.......it was that the "best" technology won in the free marketplace. And it still is (despite the demagoguery)the most cost effective source of stored energy for mobile use.

Today we live in a massive smokescreen of wishful thinking and delusion. I find the BP commercials that pretend to be "man on the street" interviews most annoying. If these are real people expressing what they actually believe, then it's depressing to see such ignorance...............albeit fueled by honest wishes for something better. They spout all manner of delusions that some form of alterntive energy is just the stroke of a magical pen away...........if only we could get those evil, greedy oil companies to allow it to happen!!! Ah the fruits of propaganda!

We've had thousands of bright minds, over a CENTURY of dedicated effort, and probably bazillions of dollars (okay, maybe only hundreds of billions, but who's counting) spent trying to invent the better battery. And we've made considerable progress in that 100+ years, most of it in the past 40 or so, but we still don't have a battery system that offers a complete offset to the low cost relative energy of gasoline. If we've only come that far in a hundred or so years, what makes people think we'll have some dramatic increase in some undetermined short time?

It's a similar scenario for just about all the other "technologies" that people seem to want to hang their hat on. Biofuels? Been there, done that. Only limited success, and look what it's helped do to our food prices. Now, the flooding in Iowa will really put a crimp on the corn market on top of everything else that's distorted that group. Hang on!!

Over the past 30 or so years our government has spent over $40 BILLION dollars subsidizing alternative fuel/energy pipe dreams. Some private equity has also been invested, probably in excess of that number. Funding isn't the problem, it's the practical limits (given today's known technology) on developement. Wind? It's old technology, anyones who's lived in farm country knows that (only big city elites find it "new"). Solar? Both old and new depending on your perspective. Passive solar is as old as recorded history, active solar is relatively modern. Yet it too has developed slowly. Both these have "enjoyed" considerable funding as noted above, they have been the annointed technologies of the political and elite classes. But their progress has been slow. If any of you remember the Newman/Redford movie "The Sting", it was a good example of how con men work. They show just enough goodies to hook the mark, release a little more to keep the mark on the string, and then pump him for as much as they can get. That's the game with these subsidized "technologies". They're always promising that they're "just 7-10 more years for being viable". When that time passes, they show some little promise and tell us "give us some more funding and we'll be there for you in just 7-10 more years". In the meanwhile we ignore the most dependable, proven "technology" at hand. Crude resources on our own lands. And it won't get better this year because a segment of our governing group want the ultimate power which can't be gained until the November elections. They'll hold us all hostage at least til then.............and just over half of us will let them get away with it!

Do you really believe that these selected potential alternatives will be viable in "just 7-10 years"? That's part of the belief in the often heard comment by the obstructionists who argue against opening up ANWR or coastal regions for crude drilling. They say there's no use in drilling, it will take 7-10 years to get to market, their latest mantra is "We can't drill ourselves out of this problem!" Really? "Why not" is the question that should be thrown at them, make them back up the comment instead of giving them a free pass on such a ridiculous comment. Here's a thought suggested by author Chris Horner, who often writes debunking human caused global warming. Let's have a race. You pick whatever you think is the best alternative energy source, especially one heavily subsidized with our tax dollars, and then let's also drill in ANWR. Whichever gets to market first wins!!! Where would you put your money?

Look, someday there will be something that will realistically displace gasoline as the prime motor fuel. It's inevitable if we're allowed to pursue it in a free market, absent of government interference. It's very likely to be some technology we don't even conceive of today. It may result from nano technology (my guess), or perhaps plasma technology, I don't presume to know, only guess. In the meantime we'll have small "experiments" that will offer false hope. Ethanol might work in Iowa or S.D, but not much outside of a local area because of inherent inefficiencies (which government subsidies disguise). Biodiesel suffers from some of the same limitations, the silliest of which is the french fry oil gambit. Some of the other "ideas" will continue the con. Have you noticed that every time we have a fuel cost spike all these "miracle" devices and processes pop up; cow magnets, whirlygig devices to mount under your carb or in front of your throttle body, magic coils of unobtanium to convert fly specks to nueclear power and so on.....
Where do these ideas go when gasoline prices drop again? Why don't those fervent believers keep using those things once the price drops? Beats me!

Bob, you’re a very intelligent man, and I enjoy reading your post as they have a lot of substance. When I was in high School I wasn’t interested plain and simple. Today I enjoy learning new things and reading about the early days of our history as well as watching documentaries on public TV. In my own mine I wonder what people from the early 1900’s would think if they looked to the sky and could see what we see every day. The planes have gotten bigger, and bigger. I can remember seeing my first 747 flying over coming from O’Hara Field Airport while I was connecting steel on a building we were building in the early 70’s. I was amazed but not anymore because we see them all the time.

I’m just thinking that we would not have come this far if people didn’t have dreams and make them work. I love the small, and big block Chevy’s if gas could be at a reasonable price where we could fill up and drive cross country like I have in the past it would be great but if not then we need too try something else. Thanks for replying, and keep posting I need the knowledge. A restful mine is a wasted mine right?

Richard

This could get kewl..... The US has a ban on drilling for oil off the Florida keys til 2012... and now Cuba and China are going to develop the field while the US oil industry sits on their thumbs and watch... Thanks to our genius government!!!! Huge oil field in the Gulf, and we by our oil from the Mid East!!!! What's wrong with this picture???????

HelloEveryone on this forumn:

Got a question! Has anyone used acetone in their gas to boost miles per gallon? I have read on the internet that 2 to 3 oz per 14 gallons of gas will boost the mpg by 10 to 20%. Has anyone tried this?
Let me know
thanks
leonard

Bob , you wrote " Biofuels? Been there, done that. Only limited success, and look what it's helped do to our food prices. Now, the flooding in Iowa will really put a crimp on the corn market on top of everything else that's distorted that group. Hang on!! "
But , you didn't mention that Brazil Imports NO oil anymore . This is because they started developing bio fuel from sugarcane in the early 80s . Now 95% of cars in Brazil are hybrid ( gas/e80 ) or completely e 80 . There is a VERY CLEAN VERY EASY VERY CHEAP process for making e 80 . It is a process which a small US company holds a patent for and has proven and continues today to prove at there Arizona plant , that it's ready to go . This process uses grey water to grow super fast growing alge , and it processes into e 80 cleaner then any other bio product . Before you start in on the feasability of the alge bassed e80 you should know that 3 countries have studied the process and all have started to set up huge facilities . Those 3 countries are Germany , Italy , and Spain . Meanwhile back here in the states the company that invented the process has been fighting unsucessfully for 7 years to get any $$$ from the feds to set up commercial production . Instead the feds went with that Virgin ceo piece of phony shit and put all the bio fuel $$$ into corn , a crop they KNEW was at almost max production already !!! and one of the crops MOST at RISK from drought and plague and pests . This was 5 days after Cheney had a " PRIVATE " meeting with the 6 top US gas companies . This was ( I believe ) done in the same bu11shit manner as the $$$ blown on Hydrogen transportation systems , their way of looking like they are trying but still giving to the oil/gas bastards !!!! By the way everybody , it is VERY EASY TO ADAPT hotrods to e80 , and e80 burns much cleaner then gas and has LESS greenhouse emissions .