SUV drivers should be charged with TREASON!!!! (rental, brake, towing)

[58robbo]

Originally Posted by Greatday

You might want to do some studying up on the subject -

See - if we go after our reserves - we can totally eliminate our total dependence on ME oil.

please send over some of your material

[Drover]

Originally Posted by k350

And?

And what? Is this supposed to be a meaningful refrain?

Originally Posted by k350

How do you figure ANWR has even close to the amount of oil we need at our current consumption rate?

I don't usually respond to demands that I substantiate arguments I never made. But in this case, I'll make an exception: ANWR is one piece of the puzzle. Your same response is given about every potential drilling project in this nation that has been stifled. Well gosh, put them all together and maybe we can actually get somewhere.

Originally Posted by k350

Also, why do you think anyone would want to spend billions to pump oil to drive prices down and make less of a profit? Everyone is making record or near record levels, why would they care to stop doing that? Oil companies are for profit organizations, shareholders demand that they maximize profit, not invest in driving it down.

Because profit margins isn't the driving factor in large-scale business. Revenue growth is. Let me ask you this: would you rather make a 7% profit margin or a 20% profit margin? Now, allow me to re-frame the question: would you rather make a 7% margin on revenues of $100,000,000 or a 20% margin on revenues of $100,000?

Do the math. You grow a business by increasing your revenues, not by chasing a profit margin. You increase your revenues by increasing the supply of your product. If businesses were only interested in protecting static profit margins, nobody would ever bother reinvesting in the growth of a business. If restricting supply as a means of boosting margins were the end game of the oil industry, no oil company would have ever increased supply, and oil certainly wouldn't be the cyclical industry that it is.

Originally Posted by k350

Biofuels are a joke, what biofuels are we importing? considering no new diesels can even run anything over b5 without voiding the facotry warranty makes it null and void. We through a huge tarriff on ethanol imports for protectionism reasons.

First, let me state, yet again, that I never said anything about importing ethanol. So please, stop trying to deflect an argument I didn't even make, because it wastes both my time and yours. 'Kay? Thanks.

Second, you strike me as a pretty intelligent person, so please don't try to play ignorant with me. I suspect you know damn well that an infinitesimal amount of diesel consumed in this country is done so by passenger vehicles restricted to B5 and that most diesel machines in use here can operate on much higher blends than B5. I'll grant that very little diesel consumed here is biodiesel. But some is. And we import palm-oil-based biodiesel from South America to meet much of that demand. That's a fact. Get comfortable with it, because the policies you advocate will strengthen the demand for it and there's a hell of a lot of diesel machinery out there that can burn it, even though it appears that consumption/production of biofuels is a policy you do not advocate.

But at least we can agree on one thing: Biofuels, for the most part, are a joke. I just wish you'd stop advocating policies that make biofuels more attractive to idiot populists and the idiots they enchant.

Originally Posted by k350

Yes, the tech to drill does make a small foot print, but the foot print made by everything else is huge, I have been on a few projects for BP in Azerbijian, I have seen the "small footprint" made by exploration.

Ah yes, Azerbijian [sic], that well-known steward of sound environmental policy. You've been there and therefore you know how exploration will be conducted in coastal Alaska.

The fact remains that drilling versus preserving ANWR is nothing close to the either/or proposition that so many envirotards make it out to be. We can preserve 99% of the Alaskan wilderness and drill for oil there. Like I said... balance.

Originally Posted by k350

And again, us drilling oil is not going to drive prices down, the only way prices will get driven down is if there is an excess world supply, which i bet the oil companies, both private and national, will do there best to prevent.

I don't know what "excess world supply" even means, because it's an economically meaningless term. There has never been an "excess world supply" of oil because the world has always consumed or intends to consume every drop of oil that has ever been produced. Otherwise nobody would have ever bothered to increase supply.

And yeah, oil companies are doing their best to prevent the creation of "excess world supply" which is why they're begging to be allowed to drill in places like, say, ANWR, the Gulf coast, and coastal California.

Originally Posted by k350

If we pump out 5%, then someone is going to reduce by 5%, thus keeping world supply levels the same.

This analysis ignores the fact that the oil industry has been volatile and cyclical more or less since its inception. If the industry had any idea how to keep prices high by keeping supply levels the same (presumably, artificially low), they would have done so.

Originally Posted by k350

The ANWR argument would come into play if there was a physical shortage, but there isn't, it is an artificial one with a combination fo other effects like the dollar and specualtion which is driving prices up.

Tell me, how else do you alleviate a so-called "artificial" shortage but to put more of the real thing on the market, or at least credibly threaten to do so?

And as for oil speculators, what the hell do you think they base their judgments on? A crystal ball? No. They research supply and demand signals, lest you think they're willing to lose their fortunes for sport. And lets face it: have they generally been wrong over the last, oh, say, 50 years?

Originally Posted by k350

Plus, there is always the danger of countries doing something drastic, could you imagine investing billions ine xploration then having OPEC flood the market in return? Oil companies would lose billions in the process.

Wait a minute -- didn't you just tell me a few sentences ago that bringing more production online here would be met by a reduction in production elsewhere? Make up your mind, dude. Will increased investment in production increase or decrease production from other sources? And tell me, don't we want OPEC to flood the market and bring some relief?

At any rate, oil companies already know how to hedge themselves against this contingency. It's called retained earnings -- the same thing Dick (aptly named) Durbin recently pilloried oil companies for doing in recent kangaroo hearings in the Senate.

Originally Posted by k350

We can not be oil indepednent with our current consumption, it is impossible to do.

No, but as the third-largest oil-producing nation in the world with the capacity to produce even more if Washington would allow us, we certainly do have the ability to affect oil prices.

Originally Posted by k350

Oil companies are not going to pump oil here and magically give it to us at a reduced rate, if that was the case then Alaska should have the cheapest fuel around. Point is all oil, even ours, is sold at global prices, it was only up till 2000 or so that we stopped, by gov order, from exporting oil to Japan from Alaska.

Yes, the oil we produce is sold on a global market at the global rate. I'm not one of those rubes who believes we will ever return to oil independence. So long as the world is an oil economy and ours is an energy-intensive economy, we will be net oil importers. So be it.

Nonetheless, we do have the ability to affect oil prices by increasing our output of oil. And as the world's third-largest producer of oil with an abundance of proven reserves, we should impress upon our elected officials to do so now.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by Drover

Great. So instead of drilling in a rock-strewn wasteland where virtually nothing lives, we'll encourage further exploration in nations that don't give a crap about environmental standards. Maybe while we're at it we can increase the demand for biofuels that has been leveling rainforests in South America to make way for the increased demand on biofuel-bound crops.

Very well stated, there.

[ArizonaBear]

Funny; no one replied, pro or con, to my comment about strip mining and coal gassification.

[JFRRACING]

OMG all this came from SUV'S ? THIS THREAD HAS GOTTEN SO REDICULOUS.:confused ::confused :

[wankel7]

Originally Posted by 58robbo

I have read several posts whingeing about high gas prices. it's big oils fault for profiteering! it's the governements fault for overtaxing! it's the feds fault for devaluing the dollar! it's opecs fault for being greedy! it's environmentalists fault for protesting against wildlife preserve exploration! it's speculators fault for creating false demand! the Chinese and Indians are to blame for giving up their bicycles to buy cars! it's george bush's fault! blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda

whenever i'm in the states i seem to come across a large number of grossly oversized vehicles. a large number of these have US flags brandished across them in some shape or form. a large percentage of their owners sport flags outside their homes. to me this is all a big con. those people aren't patriots, they're traitors!

Guilty of bankrupting the US and financing Al Qaeda, they should be flying saudi flags instead!

Our SUVs are only a small part of the picture.

I am happy for the oil companies. They invested big and are getting paid big. What is it around a 10 percent profit? Sounds about right to me. You know who I am mad at? Myself. Myself for not investing in oil. And if you are bitchn about gas prices. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask your self why didn't I invest? Well I didn't have the money. Like it would really take that much to have offset the prices we pay now.

Your mentality is this. Punish success and reward stupidity. This mentality makes me sick and it hurts America.

True excessive gas consumption is not helping our crude dependency. But American ignorance towards more efficient options before this crunch was bad two. Oh the diesel engine is dirty. Who cares it is much more efficient than petrol engines.

Oh and maybe you should be mad at the growing population in the US also. Because all of these extra people mean more stuff needs to be delivered to support them. And those dirty diesel trucks only get 5 mpg. So maybe the truck drivers need to be charged with treason too.

[nitokenshi]

Originally Posted by JFRRACING

OMG all this came from SUV'S ? THIS THREAD HAS GOTTEN SO REDICULOUS.:confused ::confused :

well suvs do suck

[JFRRACING]

i agree that suv's use alot of gas. but the conversation is getting way off topic. if you want to talk about world politics go to that thread, that's all i'm saying.

[nitokenshi]

People are whining in this country like crazy as if this gas crisis happened last week. If people cared so much more would have jumped on the burn the SUVs bandwagon back in the 90s. I say they get taxed like they do over in the UK. Then we will see how much they "need" their SUVs.

[Bydand]

Originally Posted by nitokenshi

People are whining in this country like crazy as if this gas crisis happened last week. If people cared so much more would have jumped on the burn the SUVs bandwagon back in the 90s. I say they get taxed like they do over in the UK. Then we will see how much they "need" their SUVs.

Go ahead, tax my SUV's. I need them, will still drive them, and just pass the cost of the tax along to the people who want me to do work for them. I use them for work and if you want to up my hourly rate, go ahead and push a SUV/truck tax through. That is what is known as a pass-through expense in the trades. I pay more, then so does everybody else, same as every other contractor and tradesperson will do.

Soccer mom will just buy something else that gets rotten mileage and continue on to the mall, no harm no foul.