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Reading this forum, one is quickly reminded of how whiny and self-centered most Americans are today. We don't care about our nation, our neighbors, our freedoms and, in some cases, our families. What happened to the United States where people got tough when things were difficult? When did we become a society that cries and complains and demands that government do "something"? Inteliigent people know that government does nothing efficiently and that government produces nothing. Every dime the government spends on you comes out of your neighbor's pockets.
Yes, gas prices are high. Is that any reason to give up even more control of our lives? I am affected by high prices. My girlfriend and I have to commute to work and we don't make a lot of money. We spend upwards of $140 per week, right now, on gas, in addition to her $100 per month parking lease. Now, I know that New York residents will say these are not big numbers but, they truly are when you don't earn that much. However, I am not looking for Big Brother to tell me what to do. I will cut back on other expenses, make sure our vehicles are as efficient as they can be, combine or eliminate trips, and take advantage of discounts, even 3 cents per gallon. This is what adults do.
Do you people, and you know who you are, need someone to point the finger at? Look in the mirror. You have demanded, and now earned, a society in which personal responsibility and honesty are unheard of. We are the blameless society. Every problem we have can be blamed on others. Every minor inconvenience can be handled by a slimy lawyer on speed dial. Grow up. When you want to blame someone for high prices, blame yourself. You use a lot of fuel, you do not understand basic supply and demand and you let your politicians off the hook.
Disclaimer: I am a working class Republican but I am disgusted with the party. I expect high taxes and less freedom from the Democrats. They stand for Socialism and have not altered their stance one iota. The Republicans are supposed to be the party of tax cuts, spending restraint, national security and personal responsibility. They have dropped the ball. Most of Congress, at least 99%, should be kicked out. Let me explain why your gas prices are so high:
1. Supply and Demand. India and China are expanding their economies at 10% or more each year. They are using more and more fuel to do this. (Copper, Gold, Steel and certain food items have also hit record highs in recent weeks). Supply and Demand simply means that higher Demand brings higher prices, because buyers want a product so much, they bid up the price. On the other end, less Demand for a product increases Supply, which brings down prices. Both increased and decreased Demand eventually level out at what is called a price equilibrium, the optimal price at which both Supply and Demand happily co-exist.
2. Politicians, mostly DEMOCRATS, have not permitted any new oil refineries to be built in the US in 30 +years due to environmental concerns. In case you don't understand, we could find 100 trillion barrels of oil tomorrow but we would still have high gas prices due to our inability to refine the oil, which leads me to.....
3. The government taxes each gallon of gas at a rate that adds anywhere from 50 to 90 cents for each gallon you put in your tank. Government also...
4. Requires the oil companies to switch from fall to spring gas blends and then from spring to fall blends to satisfy environmentalists. This increases costs exponentially. Instead of selling one type of gas year round, which would be much cheaper, government requires oil companies to reverese course twice each year, adding huge costs, which are nothing next to.....
5. The government's requirement that the oil companies produce 22 different blends of gasoline to be sold throughout the country. Instead of selling the same product, year round, in all 50 states, government mandates require this ridiculous and costly production method. Which leads to.....
6. More refineries won't bring down prices if we don't have the oil to refine. We want to drill offshore and in ANWR. If we don't drill offshore, the Chinese and Russians will take the oil and we will have to buy it back from them. The area of ANWR where we want to drill is slightly larger than your average NFL stadium complex. But the environmentalists, who also claimed that caribou could not co-exist with the Trans-Alaskan pipeline (the caribou LOVE it!), have said that drilling in ANWR will destroy the ecosystem. Uh Huh.
7. We have spent upwards of $1 trillion freeing the Iraqi people and we have absorbed close to 30 million illegals from Mexico. Time to demand payment from both countries. Pay up or we will take your oil from you by force.
8. Finally, there are the speculators. Government needs to crack down on people who trade paper money and nearly wreck our economy so that these traders can reap massive profits at our expense. I am a huge free market fan but speculation produces nothing. It makes no products. It invents no new idea or concept or medicine or method. It is legal manipulation of the free market and it would have been outlawed in saner times.
Do you want cheaper gas? Read the above and take action.
Right on man!!
I was saying yhe other day though...........just to play devils advocate, and in noway do I support the Dem's stance on no new drilling, which of course is just party politics and corruption. So anyways I was saying that....in a world of finite oil which there is obviously a limited amount, but lets just say less than 100 years for the sake of this argument. If there is a finite amount, wouldn't is be somewhat prudent to save our own resources. So that when the world starts falling apart we would be the one of the last places to have it. Just a thought??
but I really do not believe that is the case. I think there is well over 200 years left of this stuff and by then who knows what technology will bring.
P.S. I just read where Sen. mccain wants to build 47 new Nuclear power plants and obama is against the idea citing enviromental reasons.
Could you imagine a world with out oil???????? roads, tires, plastic, MEDICINE, Lubricants, diapers, ............and the list goes on and on and on.
I do not like putting $50 into my car every week any more than anyone else..........but why is it every time people think their life is getting a little hard......that government intervention can somehow save them........Our standard of living here is one of the highest in the world.........for all this talk about health care reform.......we have pretty darn good health care.......and its already free......anyone of you can walk into CMMC here in Lewiston and they cannot refuse treatment. A close friend of mine has had 2 bypass surgeries.....is on medication.....and has no job..and no disability.
Sorry about being off topic. We can debate about our quality of life here in Maine compared with other states. But can we really compare life here in the United States overall to countries overseas. What ever the inner workings of a mass plan to control OIL are......bringing down the costs of oil will only force increase consumption and further our dependency. $3 $4 for a price of gas.............has any one filled up their car in Canada or Europe in the last 5 years.......it was over $4 years ago and is now. Other than OIL producing countries......I cannot think of anywhere where gas is cheaper then here.
I've said it before..........are we so liberal now that we have such a disdain for business and a free economy........want to end the oil dilemma and global warming catastrophe....want to end pollution.....tell our children to stop majoring in LAW, stop depending on a good government job or aspiring to work for a non profit and get a education in science......engineering.......electronics....ect. go out and invent.......lets cultivate scientists and inventors.......free thinkers. INDA...CHINA.....Japan...are all producing a highly educated and technical workforce while we produce lawyers
Sorry I offended anyone......but that’s my rant for the day
I agree educate and foster free thinking and our kids will come up with the solutions. Like several have already stated, I believe that more govermental regulation is NEVER the answer. As we reduce our dependence on oil in the ways brought up in previous posts, it will simply cease to matter as much. We may lose our suburban sprawl/ bedroom communities. BTW, that's perfectly OK with me!
We have such a long history of pioneerism and self-reliance, though this current crunch has hit us all fairly hard, maybe this is what we need as a country for the spirit to be reborn!
I agree educate and foster free thinking and our kids will come up with the solutions. Like several have already stated, I believe that more govermental regulation is NEVER the answer. As we reduce our dependence on oil in the ways brought up in previous posts, it will simply cease to matter as much. We may lose our suburban sprawl/ bedroom communities. BTW, that's perfectly OK with me!
We have such a long history of pioneerism and self-reliance, though this current crunch has hit us all fairly hard, maybe this is what we need as a country for the spirit to be reborn!
These are great posts. It's time for people to put up or shut up. Stop the whining and moaning and look in the mirror. Shut your pie-hole and pick up an ounce or two of fortitude, tighten your belt, and get back to basics.
My gal and I realize the life we want here in Maine isn't going to be 'easy street'. We'll have to work hard, learn to be more self-sufficient, and most likely be paying ultra-premiums IF we were to choose to lead a consumptive lifestyle that is dependent on burning liquid fuels. It's a choice we make knowing there is a price to pay.
As a country, until we collectively stop whining like spoiled brats, I don't think we deserve more energy until we can show that we know how to use what we have more efficiently. Cleaning house at the top would be a good start...we need some new visionaries in government who 'get it' and can get people excited about simpler living, conservation, solar, driving less, etc.
Oh my. I hardly know where to begin. Not sure what the Maine connection is in your rant (and you accuse us of whining?), but I'll try to keep it local.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick538
Reading this forum, one is quickly reminded of how whiny and self-centered most Americans are today. We don't care about our nation, our neighbors, our freedoms and, in some cases, our families. What happened to the United States where people got tough when things were difficult? When did we become a society that cries and complains and demands that government do "something"? Inteliigent people know that government does nothing efficiently and that government produces nothing. Every dime the government spends on you comes out of your neighbor's pockets.
We lost that ability when we allowed government to do everything for us, instead of doing for ourselves. People discovered they could vote themselves bread and circuses, and they did. Look at the various attempts in Maine to reduce government spending, and how badly those efforts have lost at the polls w2hen people have been given the chance to vote on them directly.
Quote:
Yes, gas prices are high. Is that any reason to give up even more control of our lives? I am affected by high prices. My girlfriend and I have to commute to work and we don't make a lot of money. We spend upwards of $140 per week, right now, on gas, in addition to her $100 per month parking lease. Now, I know that New York residents will say these are not big numbers but, they truly are when you don't earn that much. However, I am not looking for Big Brother to tell me what to do. I will cut back on other expenses, make sure our vehicles are as efficient as they can be, combine or eliminate trips, and take advantage of discounts, even 3 cents per gallon. This is what adults do.
Do you people, and you know who you are, need someone to point the finger at? Look in the mirror. You have demanded, and now earned, a society in which personal responsibility and honesty are unheard of. We are the blameless society. Every problem we have can be blamed on others. Every minor inconvenience can be handled by a slimy lawyer on speed dial. Grow up. When you want to blame someone for high prices, blame yourself. You use a lot of fuel, you do not understand basic supply and demand and you let your politicians off the hook.
A good grasp of the obvious. Well said, if said before.
Quote:
Disclaimer: I am a working class Republican but I am disgusted with the party. I expect high taxes and less freedom from the Democrats. They stand for Socialism and have not altered their stance one iota. The Republicans are supposed to be the party of tax cuts, spending restraint, national security and personal responsibility. They have dropped the ball. Most of Congress, at least 99%, should be kicked out. Let me explain why your gas prices are so high:
1. Supply and Demand. India and China are expanding their economies at 10% or more each year. They are using more and more fuel to do this. (Copper, Gold, Steel and certain food items have also hit record highs in recent weeks). Supply and Demand simply means that higher Demand brings higher prices, because buyers want a product so much, they bid up the price. On the other end, less Demand for a product increases Supply, which brings down prices. Both increased and decreased Demand eventually level out at what is called a price equilibrium, the optimal price at which both Supply and Demand happily co-exist.
Again, a good grasp of the obvious.
Quote:
2. Politicians, mostly DEMOCRATS, have not permitted any new oil refineries to be built in the US in 30 +years due to environmental concerns. In case you don't understand, we could find 100 trillion barrels of oil tomorrow but we would still have high gas prices due to our inability to refine the oil, which leads me to.....
Refiners have built the equivalent of ten new refineries in the last thirty years through upgrading and expanding existing facilities. To say that Democrats have stopped construction of new refineries is just plain wrong. NIMBY opposition is far and away the main reason for no new refinery construction. It's the same reason Maine doesn't have an LNG terminal -- and most of the opponents to the terminal in Harpswell BTW were Republicans.
Quote:
3. The government taxes each gallon of gas at a rate that adds anywhere from 50 to 90 cents for each gallon you put in your tank.
The national average, as of January 07, of state and federal gasoline taxes combined is 42.3 cents per gallon, from a low of 26.4 in Alaska to a high of 62.9 in New York. In Maine it is 45.8 cents per gallon. U.S. Gasoline Taxes by State
The vast majority of that money goes to support construction and ongoing maintenance of the highways we all need for the vehicles that burn that gasoline. In Maine and many other states, the gas tax also supports other transportation needs, such as ports and railroads. While the argument can and should be made that the Maine DOT is a bloated bureaucracy in need of dramatic downsizing among its managers and paper pushers, the gas tax is perhaps the best current example of a tax that does what it should do.
Quote:
Government also...
4. Requires the oil companies to switch from fall to spring gas blends and then from spring to fall blends to satisfy environmentalists. This increases costs exponentially. Instead of selling one type of gas year round, which would be much cheaper, government requires oil companies to reverese course twice each year, adding huge costs, which are nothing next to.....
5. The government's requirement that the oil companies produce 22 different blends of gasoline to be sold throughout the country. Instead of selling the same product, year round, in all 50 states, government mandates require this ridiculous and costly production method. Which leads to.....
I always love this argument, because it shows the lack of historical context in the speaker. You obviously don't remember WHY we have those different blends and seasonal formulations. Do you think they're just whimsical regulations designed to annoy us and increase prices? There was a time only a couple of decades ago when the air was brown in most cities and the surrounding countryside, when children had to stay inside because the pollution caused asthma attacks, when we were told not to graze animals along the roadsides because of the lead in the grass from the exhaust of passing cars. The ozone alert days we have now in Maine are only a faint shadow of the acid rain, industrial pollution, and smog that used to drift into the state from cities to our west and south.
Quote:
6. More refineries won't bring down prices if we don't have the oil to refine. We want to drill offshore and in ANWR. If we don't drill offshore, the Chinese and Russians will take the oil and we will have to buy it back from them. The area of ANWR where we want to drill is slightly larger than your average NFL stadium complex. But the environmentalists, who also claimed that caribou could not co-exist with the Trans-Alaskan pipeline (the caribou LOVE it!), have said that drilling in ANWR will destroy the ecosystem. Uh Huh.
All the oil in ANWR would supply the US for less than ten months, and the people who urge us to drill drill drill would rather we exhaust our own resources for another cheap fill-up in the F-250 dualie than save it for when we really need it in the future. And even if we could bring ANWR and offshore on line tomorrow, it wouldn't be enough to offset the decline in our other sources, both inside and outside the US. The only justification for drilling now, IMO, would be if that oil was dedicated to fueling our transition to new energy sources, such as nuclear, wind, and tidal.
Quote:
7. We have spent upwards of $1 trillion freeing the Iraqi people and we have absorbed close to 30 million illegals from Mexico. Time to demand payment from both countries. Pay up or we will take your oil from you by force.
Wow, that method has worked really well in Iraq so far, hasn't it? As for Mexico, they'd probably welcome our taking it, since their major oilfield is declining by 15 percent a year right now.
Quote:
8. Finally, there are the speculators. Government needs to crack down on people who trade paper money and nearly wreck our economy so that these traders can reap massive profits at our expense. I am a huge free market fan but speculation produces nothing. It makes no products. It invents no new idea or concept or medicine or method. It is legal manipulation of the free market and it would have been outlawed in saner times.
Do you want cheaper gas? Read the above and take action.
Speculation is a wonderful boogie man, but it adds 10-15 percent max to the current price of oil. OPEC loves to blame speculators, without adding that speculation would end if they just pumped more oil like that claim they can. Speculation is a function of scarcity.
I don't want to give the impression that Nick is wrong on the larger issues. While he may be a little vague on the details, he has some good things to say about who to blame (ourselves) and the national will we need to get through this crisis and come out the other side better than we were. Speaking personally, I don't see any chance that we will develop the required toughness and willingness to sacrifice at the national level.
I do think we can do it in Maine. I think we'll be forced to do it by circumstances, and I think we'll embrace it by our nature. But that won't happen if we spend all our energy pointing fingers at one special-interest group or another. We need to push aside the party partisans who rely on the politics of divisiveness and entitlement to maintain their power and stand together (NOT behind) with leaders who show a preference for common sense and pragmatism. I think that's part of what Nick is saying (and if I'm wrong, Nick, please correct me), and it certainly makes far more sense than most of what I'm hearing these days as the energy hysteria mounts.
So Coaster, what do you think a solution could be? I agree with a lot of what you say but your comments on the multiple gas blends and how bad pollution was had me questioning your thoughts "in a good way"
I love clean air, and clean water, and so on......but I think the pollution thing and global warming thing get a little blown out of proportion. The end of civilization through global warming is not any more catastrophic then the end of civilization we would see if we stopped producing fossil fuel.....think mass famine, death, disease, and wars.
This is going to take several hundred years to work itself out.......and we will still be here.
I just saw on the news last night about the activists from the 60’s and 70’s that fought against nuclear power. Well he’s much older now and has realized he made a mistake…..sorry... I am so tired of people complaining with out giving real world solutions.
Not that I group you in with those people Coaster but it just made me think about it.
So Coaster, what do you think a solution could be? I agree with a lot of what you say but your comments on the multiple gas blends and how bad pollution was had me questioning your thoughts "in a good way"
I love clean air, and clean water, and so on......but I think the pollution thing and global warming thing get a little blown out of proportion.
The solution?
Expand and electrify the rail system while building the new pebble-bed nuclear power plants to provide the electricity. Use our remaining oil reserves to build new sources of power. That would be a start.
Not sure what the link with global warming is, since it has nothing to do with the various gasoline blends. As for "the pollution thing ... blown out of proportion," well, I guess you had to be there. I remember how acid rain was killing our forests and the blankets of smog that covered the cities. It's like folks today forgetting how truly, gut-wrenching awful the pollution in our rivers was compared to today. I remember the Penobscot River changing color depending on what chemicals and filth the paper companies and textile mills were dumping into it upstream. I remember the stench from the Kennebec River so bad that legislators in Augusta had to close the windows in the State House while they listened to lobbyists joke about how it was the "smell of money." I remember reading about the two teenagers who tried to canoe the Royal River in the late 1960s -- they had to quit because the smell was so bad they couldn't stop vomiting. I remember the shore of Belfast harbor coated with chicken guts and blood from the processing plants that straight-piped their offal into the harbor.
It's really really easy for people with short or no memories to rail against "environmentalists" when it's environmentalists who guaranteed the clean air and clean water that we enjoy today. And yes, that includes the various gasoline blends, formulated to meet the various standards and climates of each region.
Sorry about the vehemence here, FlyCessna, but the constant neocon drumbeat to blame all our troubles on the "environmentalists" really frosts me sometimes.
The bottom line is that we do not have enough of a vital resource to provide for our needs and never will.
We can either accept that and prepare for the future - ideally with some guidance and support from our elected officials - or we we look to blame the democrats, environmentalists or little green men for a more fundamental problem of geography, geo-politics and geology. At the moment we're exporting $500 billion a year
just to pay for oil. This needs to stop.
All the drilling in the world, all the differing fuel blends just buy us a little time - yes we will probably have to drill as we've been too busy pursuing a single-strand energy policy - it's time to develop the other strands (conservationand developing alternatives) and to dedicate all out time effort and resources to them.
We need a moon-shot and a Manhattan project combined effort to find alternatives and to reduce current energy use. That requires leadership, and frankly, on energy it's been lacking. Yes we did invade Iraq for oil, but given that our leaders could see how vital it is, why the hell weren't we trying just as hard to develop alternatives.
On the positive side of the coin. I see this leading to a societal change. More localized economies, more sustainable communities - a return to manufacturing in America. Here's hoping the changes happen sooner rather than later.
The solution?
Expand and electrify the rail system while building the new pebble-bed nuclear power plants to provide the electricity. Use our remaining oil reserves to build new sources of power. That would be a start.
Good points! I personaly would love to see more "government" spending on infrustructure and transportation. One of the few areas I like to see more government involvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coaster
Not sure what the link with global warming is, since it has nothing to do with the various gasoline blends.
I think the link is just fossil fuel and carbon connection with the heating of the earth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coaster
It's really really easy for people with short or no memories to rail against "environmentalists" when it's environmentalists who guaranteed the clean air and clean water that we enjoy today. And yes, that includes the various gasoline blends, formulated to meet the various standards and climates of each region
Sorry about the vehemence here, FlyCessna, but the constant neocon drumbeat to blame all our troubles on the "environmentalists" really frosts me sometimes.
No apologies necessary, I just wanted to understand your stance. IMO I have never really seen a libral enviromentalists solve a problem. Maybe I am too young.
I do see them rallying against nuclear energy and citing "3 mile island as a melt down"(but in reality was nothing of the sorts), rallying agianst windpower off our shores, rallying agianst dam's for hurting fish, rallying against drilling for new sources of oil, as Forest said...shooting down new business and sustainable energy resource in our bogs here in Maine. Ive been to the earth day rallies and watched volumes of peace loving enviromentalists smoke dope and throwing their cigarettes on the ground ect.
I am not a fan of the term Neocon. Either sides of the fence like to attack the other. I do not blame any one group of people for all of our energy woes. I just like complaints to be backed up with real world solutions.
You made several good points, and I will balance that with that I believe it was the enviromentalists that hampered and basically stopped the progress of nuclear power in the 70's. I can only imagine where we would be today if we had continued with a robust nuclear power program.
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