yeah- the thread title has nothing to do with the content.. well, almost nothing..

I'm about tired of the BS shenanigans and going-ons up on that 'hill'..

I really don't like it, but 'drill baby drill' is coming back.. our president is saying it now.. huh.. meanwhile, Saudi has stopped pumping oil out- guess what? There is a HUGE surplus in the market.. prices are riding artificially high on crude due to the futures speculators (a.k.a. thieves).. OPEC is not blinking.. they could care less what happens..

there is an alternative..

"Drill Baby Drill"... Gawd, it causes me physical pain to say that- not because of the actual impact on environment and all the BS the tree huggers want you to believe, but fo other reasons..

so, why am I all up in a fuss about this and speaking in some weird non-directional manner?

read this:

when I was a kid.. I saw with my own two eyes gas selling for 59 cents a gallon.. when it bumped up to near $1, people freaked.. then it stayed about that for YEARS... There is NO reason it couldn't be there again- except for several politicians who blame all of OPEC who blame a handful of futures speculators (aka thieves, aka stock market traders who artificially drive the price of oil so they can make ungodly sums of cash).. Of course, the speculators use information surrounding politics, and opec to drive the market- which is in effect blaming the two major groups blaming them..

this is absolutely nuts what is happening.. we could easily produce our own and supply our country for excess of a hundred years.. but we don't.. because of tree frogs and such.. and speculators who blame banshees attacking Nigerian pipelines on the other side of the world spilling maybe 10k barrels but apparently the MOST expensive/premium 10k barrels of the whole pipeline of something like 10M barrels a week (those Nigerians are smart like that).. who is to blame?

we are..

I don't know how to get out of it.. I ain't no wizard.. I just want to see gas $1 a gallon again.. and it's possible.. THAT is what kills me..


/rant

 

Our economy relies on the price of oil. We need to do everything we can to keep oil prices down. It goes much further than just regular citizens fueling their cars. Most of the goods that we consume are transported over the road. Every time there is a big gas price hike, the price of food and goods go up. Our "recovery" will come to a screeching halt if gas prices continue to rise.

 

I definitely feel you man... but I'm a far cry from a politician (something I'm pretty proud of) and thus, can't be part of the solution.

'Tis a very good question: what can we, the general public/Joe working man/middle class citizens, do about the power elite's voracious appetite for profit gained through any means necessary?

The answer, I'm sad to say: very little to nothing.

Sure, we can write a congressman/president/insert political representative... Hell, we could even organize and protest.... But to what gain?

Money talks, and the oil barons have billions of words/political influence in that respect.

I remember when folks were "boycotting" gas stations when prices hit around 2.50.... That didn't work out too well. Fact of the matter is that our society is driven by the ancient fermented fluids of dinosaurs and fish (or whatever the hell that black gold is made of). Without good ole' crude's lubrication to the gears of commerce not a whole lot gets done.

One of the saddest facts is that the fearmongers propagating world oils depletion aren't even speaking of our reserves completely running dry... they are postulating that we will have used HALF of the planet's oil by 2030-2050 depending on whom you speak with. I realize that once half is gone, it will spark a worldwide clusterf[]ck to grab all of the precious liquid possible, but, jesus... why harp on the issue until gas prices reach 4.00 a gallon? Oh... oh wait, I know: Johnny fearmonger is accepting under-the-table checks from Big Oil... that rat bastard....

I too remember the public clamor when gas prices hit a dollar, though I was very young... It appears that we will never see prices like that again. Good memory though.

 

When gas prices hit a buck a gallon in 1979 I lived right down the road from a crude oil tank farm, and worked (in a gas station) on the road the tankers used to get to it. There was a good-sized dip in the intersection, and I watched every day as the trailers rode smoothly going to the tank farm, and bounced on the way out again -- they were filling the tanks, not draining them.

Long story short, there was no shortage in 1979, not of crude, and not of refining capacity. When the majors got caught creating an artificial shortage, Congress forced them to lower their prices to something like $0.56/gallon (for a pump price just over $0.60) to "pay back the public" -- then jacked up the federal motor fuel tax to keep the price at the pump near a dollar. Almost no one bitched.

Today, if it weren't for speculators in the commodities market, gasoline would be right around $2.50/gallon. There's more oil purchased in the 90 day market than can be stored when those deliveries come due, and the bubble is still growing. We're being screwed, again, by Wall Street. They're not going to stop until they've got the last dollars out of our pockets, the roofs from over our heads, and the clothes off our backs.

Drill baby drill? Oh hell no! Regulate, baby, regulate! There's already too much crude "in the pipeline", so it's not a supply problem. It's the richies poking their woodies right up into our backsides again.

 

Perhaps I'm remembering the climb to $2/gallon then... That, or I have some sort of implanted memory of it hitting $1/gal when i was 4 y.o (1992).... Time to grab my tinfoil hat and rocket launcher.

 

It went above a buck for the first time in 1979, then fell below that in about 1986 (IIRC) for a few months. I recall a couple of brief dips below a dollar a in the late 80s -- if it went below a dollar at any point in the 1990s it wasn't anywhere near where I was living!

 

by my recollections, gas hovered around $1 a gallon for near 15 years- starting in or around '80, to mid nineties..

The Drill Baby, Drill- from my perspective, is to take the world out of the equation and rely on our own supplies..

as far as I'm concerned, the biggest thieves in this world are the futures speculators.. it's estimated they are pulling $395M A DAY.. that is a fairly small group of people.. Like, well under 20k..

Something is very wrong with that.. Badly wrong.. every time you top off, you are giving those guys a good healthy double figure percentage of the price you pay for that gallon of gas- I know it's not that simple, but then it isn't that complicated either- the bottom lie is those guys are robbing the hell out of every driver, every transport service, and every single service provider who relies on gas- and which increases the cost of living exponentially for us.

 

I was just listening to the radio and several of our leaders are quoting 'unrest in the middle east' and 'short supply'... There is always unrest in the corner of the world and there is a HUGE surplus of crude right now. There are tankers floating right now with nowhere to dock. It's all crap.

Yes Unregistered.. they're not even picking our pockets. They are looking us dead in the eye, laughing, and taking it without hesitation. It's sickening. There isn't a thing we can do.

 

What's REALLY funny is, we don't get ANY of our oil from the countries that are experiencing "unrest". We get most of our from Canada, Brazil, and Venezuela. (yeah, you know, that country that is always ever so paranoid that we are 'about to invade'.....)

Want gas prices to stabilize, and come back down to a reasonable level? Ban petroleum products from Wall Street. Take the futures/commodities traders OUT of the equation. Watch prices drop like a rock.

But, that's not gonna happen. Why? Because too many people make huge sums of money from it, including the oil companies, and they can afford to make sure that congress doesn't upset their apple cart. Wanna alter THAT situation? Get rid of paid lobbyists. Make it illegal. After all, look at who a bunch of those lobbyists are, former congressmen/senators.... Influence peddling at its best.

It's all about the golden rule. He that has the most gold, makes the rules......

 

Adjusted for inflation, gas in 1983 was about $3.80/gal (we ran the numbers in Macroeconomics a couple of years ago). The problem is wages have stagnated, taxes are too, too high, and people are being pinched every which way.

I urge everyone to read up on the Fair Tax --> http://www.fairtax.org