When the hell is something going to be done about insane gas prices!!

Not sure about everyone else, but these prices are putting the crunch on me, bigtime. And now prices are going up on pretty much everything else. This is getting insane!

All you have to do is look at the earth shattering profits of the oil companies to know without a doubt ... they are robbing us blind!

And with this latest jump, their profits are going to skyrocket even more.

Congress should call hearings and charge the oil companies with criminal price gouging. Tax the illegal profits and put the criminal oil executives in prison.

I cant take this much longer... they are going to keep raising gas prices as long as we let them get away with it.

Something has to be done!

Sorry.

and Diesel fuel is already at 4.50 in some places right now.

I wish the government would immediately start a public works project to build extensive light rail infrastructure.

When Saddam Hussein said that Iraq would stop accepting dollars for oil,
the US launched its war against them.

Other oil countries are similarly dropping the dollar.

As our economy goes further and further down the drain (even Wachovia has a billion$ loss)
then the dollar is worth less and less.

That means more dollars to buy oil.

I wanted to live in Europe...looks like we're going to become Europe only without the already in place public transportation system...uh...oh. I think we forgot about something.

I would like some Amtrak stock please. Oh nuts the Federal government owns all of the Amtrak stock.

and probably will be:(

...and they told him to get lost...they did leave some money on the dresser, however.

...the prices will magically drop!!

The testimony under oath part?

Who, please enlighten me, is going to call them on the carpet? THIS Congress? Our next president, whomever that might be?

Sorry if I sound bitter, but it ain't gonna happen.

Now, if those oil execs were taking steroids...well, then we might have a shot.

The very second Jeffords swithed to Independent and gave Democrats the Majority in the Senate the "Crisis" was over. How did that happen? Did all those refineries Cheney said were necessary get magically built? Democrats have already said they will put a windfall profits tax on the oil industry and we know how much they hate to pay taxes so I suspect prices will drop almost immediately...Never ever going to see prices as they were when Bush* first took office $1.35 per gallon but maybe back below three dollars.

And then the price went right back up several months after the election.

I agree to have them testify under oath. But you have to follow through... put the execs in jail, take back the money they stole from us.

If the execs who replace them do it again...

Nationalize the entire US oil industry. And use any profits from that to build light rail and mass transit.

".......Nationalize the entire US oil industry. And use any profits from that to build light rail and mass transit....."

:rofl: :silly:

Even if it goes to $10/gal people will still pay.

World oil demand is surging as supplies approach their limits.

June 2008
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/world-oil/roberts-text

Yet even oil optimists concede that physical limits are beginning to loom. Consider the issue of discovery rates. Oil can't be pumped from the ground until it has been found, and yet the volume discovered each year has steadily fallen since the early 1960s despite dazzling technological advances, including computer-assisted seismic imaging that allows companies to "see" oil deep below the Earth's surface. One reason for the decline is simple mathematics: Most of the big, easily located fields—the so-called "elephants"—were discovered decades ago, and the remaining fields tend to be small. Not only are they harder to find than big fields, but they must also be found in greater numbers to produce as much oil. Last November, for example, oil executives were ecstatic over the discovery off the Brazilian coast of a field called Tupi, thought to be the biggest find in seven years. And yet with as much as eight billion barrels, Tupi is about a fifteenth the size of Saudi Arabia's legendary Ghawar, which held about 120 billion barrels at its discovery in 1948.

said the commodities market was de-regulated back in 2000, the final year Bill Clinton was in office. So, the obscene high prices of gas and food has nothing to do with demand. It comes from the greedy rat bastards.

Nor do I belittle the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush administration, which has collapsed the value of the dollar and this devaluation is responsible for more than 60% of the rise in price to American consumers, however let me quote Paul Krugman on why we might want to be more respectful of the idea of Peak Oil:

“The Oil Bubble: Set to Burst?” That was the headline of an October 2004 article in National Review, which argued that oil prices, then $50 a barrel, would soon collapse.

-snip-

The only way speculation can have a persistent effect on oil prices, then, is if it leads to physical hoarding — an increase in private inventories of black gunk. This actually happened in the late 1970s, when the effects of disrupted Iranian supply were amplified by widespread panic stockpiling.

But it hasn’t happened this time: all through the period of the alleged bubble, inventories have remained at more or less normal levels. This tells us that the rise in oil prices isn’t the result of runaway speculation; it’s the result of fundamental factors, mainly the growing difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. The rise in oil prices these past few years had to happen to keep demand growth from exceeding supply growth.

Saying that high-priced oil isn’t a bubble doesn’t mean that oil prices will never decline. I wouldn’t be shocked if a pullback in demand, driven by delayed effects of high prices, sends the price of crude back below $100 for a while. But it does mean that speculators aren’t at the heart of the story.

-- Paul Krugman, The Oil Nonbubble, May 12 2008.

So the "obscene" price of oil may indeed have something to do with rising demand and physical limits. Note, however, Paul goes on to say: "The consequences of that scarcity probably won’t be apocalyptic: France consumes only half as much oil per capita as America, yet the last time I looked, Paris wasn’t a howling wasteland." He adds that this may result in many Americans, "gasp", taking public transportation to work!

between 30 to 50 percent of the current price of oil.

It is hard to pin down exactly (as the 20 point spread suggests) but still it is not an insignificant factor.

Palast said we invaded Iraq to control the flow of oil, not to get the oil flowing.

energy sources more. Germany, for instance, gets 12% of their electricity from wind turbines. The U.S. could do that and more utilizing also solar, geothermal and tidal. If the U.S.were to draw 15%of their energy from alternate sources,the price of oil would drop by at least a third. The monopoly would have been broken.

How can this happen? Americans have got to wrest control of our energy policy from the fossil fuel and nuclear energy purveyors. Not an easy task but possible and imperative.

I've been drinking all sorts of crazy shit I find outside of toxic waste dumps in hopes I will get the ability to fly, or at the very least, look awesome in brightly coloured spandex...

:yourock:

and it will happen practically overnight, not this sneaking them up a nickel here, a dime there.

Don't expect a significant or long lasting drop until this administration is out of office, probably long out of office, although there will be a token drop before the next election.

Brace yourself for higher prices. Middle East is getting even with us for Bush's non-existence foreign policy.

You'd better start figuring out your plan B. Move closer to your job, see if you could telecommute a couple of days a week, find a carpool, look into public transport, bike, or buy a hybrid or one of those new electric cars. A combination of all of the above might work for you.

We are all having to give up cheap oil.

isn't going to cut it anymore.

Oh, yea, nevermind. boosh went to the home of the 9/11 hijackers to get us more oil.

Peak Oil over.

Followed by a swift upkick in price again right after election

read the peak oil forum here on DU. Its all there is black and white.

I've bought 10 gallons of gas so far this year. I wouldn't have bought that much except that shopping for certain things requires a trip to a mall, and only one of the malls around here is reachable by a road that's even relatively safe for cycling.

like the massive state-wide proposals being studied in California.

http://www.americantrails.org/resources/railtrails/CArail.html

Since bicycling is not always feasible and not for everyone, the American people need to dedicate themselves to purchasing and operating vehicles that get much better gas mileage. If we could cut fuel consumption in half by the motoring public it could make a big difference. Unfortunately, I think it requires strong reinforcement in the public's mind by a true leader in office, something we sadly lack at present.

I have to think conversion is a scheme sponsored by the oil and paving (also oil) companies, since it's so obviously good for cars/trucks and bad for rail transport.

What I'd like to see is streets and (especially) highways being partitioned to include dedicated paths for HPVs and the wheeled analog of ultralight aircraft.

although there are now so many people in cars in places like California that I don't see any significant portion of the roadways that could be segregated for bicycle use, other than the bike lanes. Gridlock here is just unbelievable and I think the problem is that we have just too many people. That's a curse that affects and degrades virtually every aspect of modern life and it will just get worse as the population continues to grow. I don't really think that the oil companies are sponsoring the conversion of old railroad tunnels and abandoned railroad tracks to bicycle freeways, since that type of development would encourage people to use less oil and gas. I would hope that the so-called bicycle freeways could be developed in an intelligent way that allows them to share space with the trains, where possible, and that those abandoned tracks could be brought back to good use for commuter trains. Most railroad rights-of-way are sufficiently wide enough to allow that. The proposition in California also includes the study of freeway rights-of-way on the space beyond the shoulder, which currently go unused, walled off from the cars of course.

they don't really go anywhere. They're okay for recreational cycling, but useless for actual travel. For example, if I wanted to ride over to Boston, or Albany, or NYC, the converted railway lines are of no use. They're in disconnected sections, branch lines to old mills and similar.

It'd be wonderful for cycling if they offered converted, flat-grade HPV roadways the way they used to offer inter-urban trolley lines. I could sell my car, buy a faired tadpole, and be able to get over to Boston or down to NYC in less than a day.

Personally, I think I'd prefer a two-wheeler with a full fairing maybe built around a low long-wheelbase recumbent with a comfortable seat and a small bit of trunk space above the rear wheel. I think a two-wheeler is just a slight bit lighter, more maneuverable, and better at hill climbing (one with landing gear would be ideal). But a tadpole would be great, too, like this Cab-Bike from Germany. And with the new relatively inexpensive flexible thin film solar panel technology that has just gone on the market, it might be possible to make one with solar-power assist.

I posted this a few days ago:

Excellent peak oil video on the Documentary Channel now.
And now I think I at least partially understand the high price of oil.

All the cheap, easy to get oil is gone.
There's still oil to be gotten, but it's much, MUCH harder to get at, and thus exponentially more expensive.

In offshore drilling, 1000' used to be considered 'deep'.
Now rigs are capable of 9000'. But that comes at a huge increase in price of the rig and more roughnecks and technicians to operate it.
And to get that oil to refiners and markets is much more costly because...it takes ever more expensive oil (gasoline, diesel, etc.) to get it there. A vicious circle.

There's a lot of recoverable oil locked up in oil shale and oil sands.
But again, the extraction methods are much more expensive in time, equipment, labor, transportation and processing.

So there's no more hauling a relatively cheap rig out to somewhere in West Texas, poking a hole in the ground, and bringing in a gusher.

Yes, the oil companies are making a huge profit. And I think we're being ripped off, at least to a degree.
But that's not the whole problem by a long shot.

OK, I'm ready for your critiques.
:-)

I have no expectation that the Magic Gas Fairy is going to drop prices back down.

I do, however, expect our elected government to work overtime improving mass transit and America's energy independence.

I think they should, but I don't believe they will until all the oil-well pumps sound like people trying to get the last drops out of their ice-cream sodas.

Doing something yourself to minimize the impact of gas prices?

What planet are you from?

But in case you missed it in kindergarten, there's this thing called supply-and-demand.

AKA, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. I choose to be part of the solution. I guess that makes me "crazy".

BTW, what are YOU doing about the problem? Let me guess - you're driving MORE.

I've had directed at me in a long time.

Then I could afford all the gas I wanted.

Yes, my post was sarcastic. I thought that was obvious.

Here's a non-sarcastic question:

At what point did you realize that excessive automobile usage was a problem that needed to be solved?

For me, it was when I was in college which just happened to coincide with Gulf War I back in 1990.

When I graduated I chose to live in a convenient place so I wouldn't need to rely on a car. When my old VW died I didn't bother replacing it. Partially due to principle, partially due to poverty.

The older I get, the less militant I get about it, so actually I am driving more. I used to use my bicycle for all my grocery shopping. That came to an end when carrying heavy loads on my bike led to scapular misidentity syndrome, which was the most painful medical condition I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

My wife and I share a car that stays in our driveway most of the time. We do that for environmental reasons and because walking / biking to work makes both of us healthier and happier. We're not delusional enough to think that our actions have much influence on the price of oil. If they do, that's just an accidental side effect.

"this is a test"..to see if people would accept it..We griped & complained, but they just kept going up.. My idea is, that as they went well OVER $2 (the original Fury-Level), after a time, people would be GLAD to see it DROP to $2 a gallon.. $2 was the "new" low price to be longed for..

That went "well" for the oil greed-mongers, so why stop there?..Now they have set $3 as the new longed-for "low-price, and people are still buying the stuff and now we are up over $4 a gallon.. Their greed sees no limit.

The sad thing is that people who can afford it, still buy all they need, and people who cannot afford it, have to cut back in other areas of their lives...just to be able to get to work, so they can make enough to afford the gas to get back and forth to work so they can make enough to afford the the gas so they can get back and forth to work..rinse & repeat.

Speculative trading on oil should be ILLEGAL.. A guy on Money Matters a few weeks ago said that it accounts for about $75 a barrel .. This is the next scam being perpetrated on the public..

So I hope they keep going up. Let the economy go to shit. I'd rather suffer a great depression than a great apocalypse.

Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got a job working from home. Sorry this hurts many out there. I'm in sales so it really hurts my pocketbook as well. But there are things more important than money. Lets build some freakin trains already.

Windfall tax - Build Trains.

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worldwide annual production is only going to keep goiing down from here on out- and demand is still rising.

oops.

nation wide to cover the cost of living rise the last decade.

Blast at Bush
Blast at his pals
Fuck them all to Hell

Rub their FACE in it

i remember back in 80 the local right wing radio clowns yammering about gore gas.
8 years after do we hear anything about Bush Gas

no
we are pathetic