$3.35 a gallon

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

It is funny, though, how the media and the left constantly called Bush and Cheney "oil men" raising gas prices to line their pockets.

That's not all that was said then.

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

Now, that Obama is in office, all we see are reports about how great rising gas prices are. Hmmm.

And this certainly isn't all that is said now.

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

First of all, I didn't bother to read your ridiculously long, though I am sure informative, post.

Then you bothered to respond to it, umm, why?

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

Yet, when there are real facts on the table (to be certain, the GOP has some "interesting" facts from time to time), a typical leftist politician, potential politician, or internet poster commenting on politics will simply dismiss the evidence if it does not fit his or her agenda.

FTFY.

What it comes down to is that while politics is always going to be somewhat intertwined with the oil industry, the larger truth is that virtually all political leaders and wannabe leaders don't have the foggiest clue about how the industry actually works, how the economics of it function, are even foggier still on how to affect those economics in a way that would be politically beneficial for them or their constituents. It's not a right/left thing, it's a "use whatever ammo you can make up, regardless of how silly it makes a politician sound, as nobody understands the facts anyway" to attack those whose power you want to obtain.

I think some good background reading on all of this was linked in Trixter's post above,

”Rising Gasoline Prices 2012,” Congressional Research Service (R42382), March 1, 2012, by Neelesh Nerurkar and Robert Pirog <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42382.pdf>

which does a reasonable job at laying out the situation, and letting the reader come to their own conclusions on what they would want to push their representatives for.

But to stoke the right vs. left vs. everybody else fires just a wee bit, it is comical to watch the clips of the Fox talking heads describing in detail why the president of the US and/or just about any politician is not responsible for and has little control over oil and gas pricing. It's just that you have to go back to 2008 for them. (if one doesn't have 5+ minutes, just watch from 4:45 onwards, it sums it up just fine)

Link to original page on YouTube.

[ajcadoo]

I think all political parties can agree: gas prices are too high.

[Xoulrath]

Originally Posted by Alex

That's not all that was said then.

And this certainly isn't all that is said now.

Agreed, but I still find the same media that helped push Obama into the spotlight is doing their damnedest to put a positive spin on an issue that is severely causing problems for a large number of Americans.

Originally Posted by Alex

Then you bothered to respond to it, umm, why?

Well, I suppose I should have stated that I skimmed his post as opposed to a thorough read in that opening sentence. Though I did mention it towards the end of my post. Now who isn't reading what they respond to?

Originally Posted by Alex

FTFY.

I'm not sure that it needed fixing, being that I already pointed out in that very sentence that the right was in no way not guilty of doing the same, but thanks just the same. I may not have been clear enough in the fact that, IMO, the left seems even worse than the right about accepting responsibility for erroneous claims that are proven false.

Originally Posted by Alex

What it comes down to is that while politics is always going to be somewhat intertwined with the oil industry, the larger truth is that virtually all political leaders and wannabe leaders don't have the foggiest clue about how the industry actually works, how the economics of it function, are even foggier still on how to affect those economics in a way that would be politically beneficial for them or their constituents. It's not a right/left thing, it's a "use whatever ammo you can make up, regardless of how silly it makes a politician sound, as nobody understands the facts anyway" to attack those whose power you want to obtain.

I fully agree with this statement.

Originally Posted by Alex

But to stoke the right vs. left vs. everybody else fires just a wee bit, it is comical to watch the clips of the Fox talking heads describing in detail why the president of the US and/or just about any politician is not responsible for and has little control over oil and gas pricing. It's just that you have to go back to 2008 for them. (if one doesn't have 5+ minutes, just watch from 4:45 onwards, it sums it up just fine)

I don't trust any of the news outlets. I believe they all have the partial truth reported to pander to their respective audiences. Fox at least for their part, does report on everything, even if it isn't 100% factual information. They don't lie, they just omit, which to me is certainly the lesser of two evils. CNN seems less biased one way or the other, but I have noticed they simply don't report on some things at all.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

IMO, the left seems even worse than the right about accepting responsibility for erroneous claims that are proven false.

IMO - it's even easier to find examples on the right. But in general, politicians of all stripes are gifted in blaming the other guy, whoever that other guy is, of any "misstatements" that they then get called on afterwards. Heck, if you want to find erroneous claims that the right won't admit to making, just use the keyword "science".

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

Fox at least for their part, does report on everything, even if it isn't 100% factual information. They don't lie, they just omit, which to me is certainly the lesser of two evils.

You're giving them *way* too much credit. For uncountable examples of easily documented lies, google is your friend. Foxlies.net is as good a place as any to ignore if you want to continue to believe they aren't lying every hour of every day. Here's a particular entertaining exchange.

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

First of all, I didn't bother to read your ridiculously long, though I am sure informative, post. .

That's ok, I didn't bother to read yours, either. Though, I wonder at what qualifications you have to define my post as "ridiculously long". And, more important, what does that definition mean, anyway? Is there an "American Post Length Council" that I'm not aware of? LOL.

I've found that the folks that have problems reading more than a few sentences at a time aren't really worth reading anyway.

[Xoulrath]

Originally Posted by Alex

IMO - it's even easier to find examples on the right. But in general, politicians of all stripes are gifted in blaming the other guy, whoever that other guy is, of any "misstatements" that they then get called on afterwards. Heck, if you want to find erroneous claims that the right won't admit to making, just use the keyword "science".



You're giving them *way* too much credit. For uncountable examples of easily documented lies, google is your friend. Foxlies.net is as good a place as any to ignore if you want to continue to believe they aren't lying every hour of every day. Here's a particular entertaining exchange.

I personally think all politicians need to be replaced, pay needs to be lowered, terms need to be implemented, and lifetime benefits need to be severely restricted or done away with all together. It is supposed to be a position of service and this career politician scene we have now has gotten terribly out of control. I am in full agreement with you.

With regards to Fox, I don't care, simply because as I already stated, I don't trust any of the major news outlets, as they are all out to make a profit and pander to their respective target audiences. And as I already pointed out, I generally go to cnn.com first if I am specifically looking for news information at any given moment. I have already said Fox supports the right, just as MSNBC is obviously liberal. I don't really have a problem with either, as I have also already stated, they are entertainment with viewpoints built in to make the core audience happy. CSPAN is the best for straight forward information, assuming one can understand it.

Originally Posted by FrugalNinja250

That's ok, I didn't bother to read yours, either. Though, I wonder at what qualifications you have to define my post as "ridiculously long". And, more important, what does that definition mean, anyway? Is there an "American Post Length Council" that I'm not aware of? LOL.

I've found that the folks that have problems reading more than a few sentences at a time aren't really worth reading anyway.

I already pointed out that I should have noted in that first sentence that though I did not carefully read your post, I did skim it and I got the jist of it. That was my mistake and I do apologize for it.

My greatest irritation was simply that you quoted me specifically when my only intention was to point out that I was still somewhat lucky since premium is just now at an even $4 a gallon here.

I then made a quick comment specifically regarding gas prices and the media, nothing more and nothing less. When Bush was in office it was a federal case; yet gas prices are getting worse by the day, the world economy is uncertain, our economy is barely picking up steam, and high gas prices could destroy the recovery we are experiencing. Yet the Obama Administration has no plans in place to help alleviate the burden to lower class Americans that these gas prices are responsible for. The administration has said they are fine with the price and wouldn't mind it going higher.

Again, I was merely pointing out hypocrisy in the media. The right does it all the time too, just so we are clear on that.

Thank you for your information on nuclear reactors that use thorium as fuel. I was unaware of the technology. I have long been a fan of nuclear as a power source, and thorium seems to make it an even better choice than I already though it was, with none of the potential long-term drawbacks.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

With regards to Fox, I don't care, simply because as I already stated, I don't trust any of the major news outlets, as they are all out to make a profit and pander to their respective target audiences.

Sorry, but you didn't just state that. You stated that Fox lies less, and that seemed less evil to you. That is a factually incorrect statement, that is easily verified. Their goal of separating the necessity of truth from the news, which has been monumentally successful, has been caustic. Chasing viewers at the expense of anything to do with what journalism used to be isn't unique to them, but they've turned it into an art form, and with cubic dollars have made it seem appropriate, if not acceptable, to an unfortunately lesser-informed public. Who paradoxically, feels better-informed.

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

Yet the Obama Administration has no plans in place to help alleviate the burden to lower class Americans that these gas prices are responsible for. The administration has said they are fine with the price and wouldn't mind it going higher.

Obama isn't particular gleeful of high gas prices at the moment, for obvious reasons:

Link to original page on YouTube.

But back to the topic at hand - what concrete steps would you want the federal government to do right now to lower gas prices in the short to medium term? Price caps? Tariffs?

[Alex]

Sure, they could, but how likely would even the most diligent constitutional scholar believe that in an election season in 2012, the Federal Highway System of 1956 would suddenly be determined to be unconstitutional, and therefore taxes related to it would be as well?

I don't see how a rational person believes this to be a reasonable possibility, regardless of any logic in the text. If a temporary gas tax holiday were ever to come to pass, it wouldn't be on constitutional grounds.

But more to the point, even wiping that gas tax off the top for a period of time wouldn't directly translate into an equivalent price cut at the pump. The pricing would again, and always be driven by demand and the price per barrel, and would quickly revert to a balance point to take into account the lower taxes. The transfer of dollars wouldn't be to consumers, it would be to oil companies, while putting more of a strain on the already inadequate infrastructure funds.

[leed]

~3.70 in Raleigh, NC.

[Xoulrath]

Originally Posted by Alex

Sorry, but you didn't just state that. You stated that Fox lies less, and that seemed less evil to you. That is a factually incorrect statement, that is easily verified. Their goal of separating the necessity of truth from the news, which has been monumentally successful, has been caustic. Chasing viewers at the expense of anything to do with what journalism used to be isn't unique to them, but they've turned it into an art form, and with cubic dollars have made it seem appropriate, if not acceptable, to an unfortunately lesser-informed public. Who paradoxically, feels better-informed.

I did state that I didn't trust news media and look at them all as for-profit businesses catering to a specific group. Check my last reply in post #329.

As far as Fox goes, if there is evidence proving they are outright lying about some (or even the majority) of their reporting, then I was unaware because I, again, don't actually watch Fox news. I have barely gone to their website. I will not argue with evidence that shows they are lying, I was never trying to and I thought I made it very clear with the "IMO" that based solely on what little I have been exposed to Fox as a news outlight, that my experience was that they often omitted a lot of data, but I personally never saw any stories based on outright lies.

Originally Posted by Alex

But back to the topic at hand - what concrete steps would you want the federal government to do right now to lower gas prices in the short to medium term? Price caps? Tariffs?

While I think alternate energy is the best bet for our long-term future, even the experts don't necessarily agree what is the best technology to invest in, and this creates obvious problems. I have seen great results regarding sugar cane ethanol in South America, but I don't know that we have the crops necessary to make this viable.

Corn ethanol is a damn nightmare and needs to be executed.

Algae diesel is promising tech, as is pretty much any form of bio-diesel. I think the general public still has remnants of the horrible diesels of years ago and aren't ready to warm up to diesel at the mainstream level.

Electric, as battery tech improves, is certainly worth watching. I'll admit, I prefer my engines IC and in different shapes, sizes, and sounds. However, being able to rock the hell out of a sportbike without worrying about noise pollution would be amazing; dirtbikes could make a serious comeback because one of the largest complaints against them in areas where would be tracks or trails are or could be is the noise pollution. Tesla has proven performance can be built into a vehicle. To a lesser extent, Zero and MotoCzysz have proven some nice performance as well. Buy-in expense of the tech simply continues to be too great to allow the gas savings to offset the cost at the moment.

With regards to short-term economic stability, I don't have a problem with export tariffs to artificially inflate supply to reduce demand. It doesn't solve all problems, and we certainly won't be seeing $2/gallon gas again, but it should keep the economy from grinding to a halt.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

I did state that I didn't trust news media and look at them all as for-profit businesses catering to a specific group.

And that - is the Fox legacy.

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

but I personally never saw any stories based on outright lies.

Now you have. We can move on, agreed?

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

While I think alternate energy is the best bet for our long-term future....

Agree with pretty much all of your thoughts. The problem is always on how to scale up. I think the public would be plenty accepting of diesel, but the problem is bio-diesel no longer works economically at the scale we'd need, and traditional diesel will never be a large part of the passenger car fuel mix in the US without tens to hundreds of billions of dollars of refinery upgrades. Even bumping it a few percent of the finished products is a huge undertaking for the refining industry in this country, and those changes already are why diesel is often more expensive than gasoline even now.

Originally Posted by Xoulrath

With regards to short-term economic stability, I don't have a problem with export tariffs to artificially inflate supply to reduce demand. It doesn't solve all problems, and we certainly won't be seeing $2/gallon gas again, but it should keep the economy from grinding to a halt.

I don't have a philosophical problem with this either, I just am not confident it would be even marginally effective, and instead it could have significant negative consequences.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by FrugalNinja250

Those options include my current favorite of thorium nuclear, which we invented. We have over 400 years of thorium reserves in this country, A small amount of uranium is needed to kick off a thorium reactor, but once it's going no more uranium, and the reserves we do have of uranium are more than enough to keep us going for centuries if used for that. Safety of thorium is unparalleled and waste is oh so much less dangerous than uranium fission. Terrorists can't make meaningful dirty bombs from thorium waste, whereas our uranium fission waste is a terrorist's wet dream, millions of pounds of which will need to be guarded around the clock for longer than recorded human civilization has existed on this planet. More importantly, thorium makes a good bridge technology to fusion, which I believe is the absolute key to human civilization in the long term, at least beyond basic subsistence levels. If we want to maintain world populations in the billions for any length of time (past a century) we will need fusion. ITER http://www.iter.org/ is the first fusion reactor being built to produce more power than it consumes. It is a prototype and won't be selling its power, but the value it will produce in knowledge and engineering experience is far beyond its costs. Once the engineering is validated with ITER a production reactor called DEMO will be built. Much as the first items of any new technology are not practical for the masses, fusion won't seem to make sense in the short term, but we've got to stop thinking short term.

A Thorium talk at TED showed up on reddit today:

Link to original page on YouTube.

[kyrider]

Just proves that the main stream media is biased and is their anyone out there really that does not believe that?


I miss Andrew Breitbart!

[jonthechron]

Woah, I wish gas was as cheap as 3-4 dollars a gallon here in Canada, I can't remember when the last time price gas was less than USD $5.00 a gallon here..

I fueled up the other day, I think it was $5.60 a gallon?

[expat]

Don't complain, I was talking to my dad in the UK yesterday, gas is equivalent to $8 / gallon there!!

[road_rascal]

Yeah, and I'm whining about the $3.75 that just posted at a local station....

[FrugalNinja250]

Most people in Somalia can't afford .50 /gallon gas. Percentage cost of income compared to other "mandatory" costs such as food, housing, and healthcare is more meaningful. Also, as the only large industrialized nation withou a meaningful public transportation infrastructure gasoline purchase is for all intents and purposes a mandatory expenditure here.

[Mocha Man]

Dang, it's about $3.85 where I live currently. That's the cheapest I can find, at least. It's up to $4.00 at some places though

[Jatan]

Regular $4.20
Premium $4.40-$4.50

[shiroganeshinobi]

Originally Posted by kyrider

Just proves that the main stream media is biased and is their anyone out there really that does not believe that?

Sorry that had to be said. Moving on, as I love to see a liquid fluoride thorium reactor made in states, it just wont happen unless some entrepreneurs is willing to prove it today. Yes, the US did make a working example but old dogs on the NRC dont think that way. Here are some much more detailed videos about the subject compared to the TED talk. You have to click the internal hyperlink to go to the full hour talk.

Link to original page on YouTube.

FrugalNinja250 nailed a chunk of the speculation argument but I think it's not the whole reason. I still believe in some fundamental issues mixed into the fray is causing higher gas prices.

[FrugalNinja250]

Watched the video, cements my affinity for thorium as a power source even more. Sadly, as has been stated in the video, the entrenched uranium fission industry has no interest for many reasons, including a loss of profitability since thorium is so, so, so much less expensive.

[NikkitaNinja]

Currently approx. $4.07/gal. here in WI

[FrugalNinja250]

Originally Posted by trixter

Thorium however will not lower global demand for refined gasoline.

It doesn't have to reduce global demand for gasoline. The more butt-miles that are moved in this country using energy other than imported fossil fuels the less effect it has on this country when the phuckistans go after each other over who's tent is bigger...

[massacremasses]

we will be stuck using gas until oil companies figure out a way to profit massively from something else...

[massacremasses]

oil is big business, they wont let anyone touch their bottom line.

Call me crazy, but thats just what I think.

[FrugalNinja250]

Article from NASDAQ:

http://community.nasdaq.com/News/201...storyid=128168

Keystone XL is a pipeline intended for export only. In several presentations made to their investors, Gulf Coast refineries disclosed that they intend to refine the crude oil from Canada into diesel and other oil products, and then export these products to Europe and Latin America. Why? Because proceeds from these exports are earned tax-free. This crude oil was never going to be USA domestic.

The real culprits in oil price manipulation are crude oil futures speculators. Speculators drive prices higher than what supply and demand demands. Want someone to blame? How about the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

With trading futures, it is a question of taking delivery. When a bread manufacturer buys wheat futures contracts, he settles in wheat, which means he takes delivery in wheat from farmers. Meat packers settle in cattle from ranchers. But oil speculators buy up crude oil contracts without taking delivery of barrels of crude. They purchase large quantities of crude futures contracts at prices higher than the current market price knowing this will cause oil producers to stock pile the oil fully expecting to be able to sell later at an even higher future price. Now add European sanctions with Iran, with oil shipments falling as much as 800,000 barrels a day, and both current and future prices skyrocket.

In October 2011, when the Dodd-Frank bill was passed after the financial meltdown in 2008, the CFTC voted to adopt rules that would limit the number of futures and swap contracts that commodity speculators may hold. But even though the rules passed, the CFTC has yet to enforce those rules.

Want to see proof of speculator influence in the Market? Take a look at this daily chart of light sweet crude oil (CL) that is traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) as it tracks the announcement that President Obama and Great Britain Prime Minister David Cameron struck a deal for a joint release of emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR).

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/201...#ixzz1pgHuXuJp

[Heed]

just read in the paper yesterday that Illinois topped it's record as of this week ><

our kids will be driving electric cars.

the way I see it, Chevy just went balls out and made an electric car with a gas reserve, which ended up costing over 40 grand before tax cuts. Why can't GM just build a car like the Leaf and sell it for roughly $5k less than the Volt?

edit: totally forgot about the Spark which comes out this summer. not too sure about it. I think Ford's Focus Electric looks really well but it costs 40K?!

[kyrider]

I just paid $3.32 this afternoon. It has come down almost 30 cents in the last few weeks. Does anyone think it will get to where it was during the election in 2008?

[xSean13]

3.08 here for e10 (87), ethanol-free is 3.20

[parox91]

3.89, **** Connecticut.