 
     |
| PETROLPHOBIA (Page 32/66) |
|
maryjane
|
FEB 23, 09:26 AM
|
|
| quote | Originally posted by maryjane:
You are looking at India the wrong way. They have something very important that we not only want--we desperately need far more than any product they could make and send us-----consumers for our own exports. They are the 3rd fastet growning economy in the world. We not only cannot grow without them--we cannot survive without them. |
|
| quote | Originally posted by carnut122:
That's what they said about Mexico before NAFTA and about China before making them a "most favored nation." The problem is the factories move to these markets and then get to export back to the US without tariffs. Funny how that as worked out. |
|
That's why I said they have something "we desperately need", instead of trying to claim "they are one of our biggest consumers". India has been one of the most successful in implementing their own versions of Buy America First--(striking America and inserting India of course). Still, with a population that is projected to reach 1 billion in a couple of decades, and an economy that is showing every indication of increased consumerism, we can't ignore that large of a market share without pause.
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
FEB 23, 03:32 PM
|
|
Some experts are saying that gas prices could reach up to $6 a gallon this Summer. We have a couple of gas stations here in Florida, near the airport, that are selling it for that price now.  The cheapest gas near me is now $3.61 a gallon.[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 02-23-2012).]
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
FEB 25, 03:20 PM
|
|
I received an email from Bill Nelson, one of my representatives, about his ideas to help reduce gas prices.
| quote | Dear Friends,
Gas prices most places are pushing $4 a gallon - again. And news reports say it could be $5 or more by summertime. That’s outrageous – and unjustified.
Whether it’s the continuing threat of unrest in the Middle East or the lure of quick profit, the price of oil is driven in big part by traders, speculators and, of course, fear.
There’s been unrest in the Middle East for thousands of years, as we’re seeing right now with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Every time we’re faced with this international uncertainty, especially in the Middle East, we’re reminded why we must get off of foreign oil. Nothing’s going to eliminate the volatility in oil prices like becoming less dependent on foreign energy sources.
But we’ve also got to stop a new brand of oil trader who has emerged in the last decade, a middle man of sorts, who’s also driving up the price we pay at the pump.
Many experts agree we should not allow these traders to bid up the price of oil and flip futures contracts like condos. Yet in the last ten years the share of the oil market controlled by investors and speculators has more than doubled.
During the same time, American drivers have seen the price of gas at the pump go from about $1.56 per gallon to around $3.61 per gallon or more. By bidding up oil futures, speculators also increase costs for our airlines, industrial energy users and other businesses. And these higher costs are passed on to consumers like you and me.
Fact is, the level of speculation in today’s energy markets greatly exceeds the historic norm. If you want to know the truth, it’s partly the fault of broken-down policies from a Congress dominated by partisanship and extremism. Congress deregulated oil traders in December 2000. And it hasn’t tackled a comprehensive alternative energy policy since Nixon and Carter first talked about one in the 1970s.
Anyone can push for gas-tax holidays and the Keystone Pipeline. In fact, I support the pipeline as long as it’s in an area where it’s not as much of a threat to the entire Midwest water supply and we require that the oil stay here at home and not be sold to foreign countries.
We’ve already given the oil companies more than eight million more prime acres in which to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now we should curb the activities of speculators. And, in the long term, we must develop alternatives to gasoline.
I think Congress should pass legislation that aims to drastically limit the ability of speculators to artificially drive up energy prices. If this bill passes, there would be the first-ever limits on how much of the oil market speculators can control. The chief cosponsor of my bill is Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).
Plain and simple: the legislation says no single investor could hold more than 5 percent of the oil futures market, thereby greatly reducing speculators ability to manipulate prices.
Does this sound like an idea you could support? Please let me know. Also, let me know what else you think we could do to bring down gas prices.
Sincerely,
Bill Nelson |
|
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 02-25-2012).]
|
|
|
USFiero
|
MAR 05, 07:49 AM
|
|
| quote | Originally posted by fierobear:
So what's your point? Demand is up all over the world (rising demand, supply NOT rising), and the price of gas *still* hasn't caught up with inflation.
|
|
...and still hasn't apparently. I'd argue that the cost of a single commodity does not an economic indicator make, but obviously consumer spending has been down over the last eight years overall.
EDIT: CHECK THAT. Looks like we have hit parity.
The uncertainty of the the Israel/Iran conflict, has already influenced oil prices, the Saudis couldn't be happier - at least (not as if I care) it seems to have tempered gold prices that have been climbing and making old economies like Italy and Greece teeter on disaster. Although they are going to be on the tipping point for a while.
Prices have climbed here pretty steadily over the last month and are around 3.61/gal. About 25 cents more they were last year at this time, but not as high as May last year.[This message has been edited by USFiero (edited 03-05-2012).]
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
MAR 05, 11:39 AM
|
|
Cheap gas here is now $3.66 a gallon. One of the real problems we have is the lack of refining capabiltiy. Our refinatries are running at peak production and the NIMBYs and others do not want any more built. Oil speculators and war worries all help to destabilize and drive prices up.
How does oil speculation raise gas prices? http://money.howstuffworks....-raise-gas-price.htm
Refinery Utilization and Capacity http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet...np_unc_dcu_nus_m.htm[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 03-05-2012).]
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
APR 06, 12:38 PM
|
|
The Cost of Higher Fuel Economy
http://www.nytimes.com/inte...src=tp&smid=fb-share
| quote | | Electric cars, hybrids and high-mileage versions of some vehicles are more efficient but also more expensive than similar offerings from the same brand. Even given high gas prices, it may take years to earn back the additional cost |
|
Click on the link above to see the chart.
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
APR 10, 10:37 PM
|
|
MRC: High gas prices don't fit the media's agenda
http://www.onenewsnow.com/C...ault.aspx?id=1574726
| quote | New research by a media watchdog group reveals that the rising cost of gas is a story that many in the media are ignoring -- especially when compared to the media coverage four years ago.
The Media Research Center's Business and Media Institute analyzed broadcast network news stories reporting $4/gallon gas in the 144-day period of rising prices leading up to such highs in 2008 and then again in 2011/2012. Assistant editor Julia Seymour tells OneNewsNow the results of that investigation.
"There were nearly three times as many stories about $4 gasoline in 2008 as there were in the more recent time period," she summarizes.
Seymour says it is a disservice to the public that the story of high gas prices is not being covered objectively.
"Gas prices are an economic story -- and they're an economic story that really everyone can relate to," she maintains. "We all see gas price signs every single day; we know what we pay and when they're going up every time we go stop at a gas station.
"So that's an economic story that's very personal to people," she adds, "and it's something that gets people very upset."
The MRC spokeswoman points out that the media used gas prices to beat up the Bush administration four years ago. But during this election year, she says, there is apparently a double-standard with President Obama -- even though high gas prices clearly are hurting the public.
In February, during an appearance on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, MRC president Brent Bozell was blunt regarding the media's handling of the issue.
"[Gas] prices are going to continue to escalate, and the media are going to continue to downplay it," he said. "This is the kind of story they don't want to cover. It goes against the narrative of the 2012 election, and they're going to do everything they can to get this guy elected. Period." |
|
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
APR 11, 10:19 AM
|
|
|
|
|
avengador1
|
APR 11, 11:03 AM
|
|
Obama’s Green Ponzi Scheme
http://personalliberty.com/...-ponzi-scheme/?eiid=
| quote | Mitt Romney has a chance at beating President Barack Obama in the November election. Much depends on whether America will swallow Obama’s Green platform.
Obama’s renewable energy plans are as much a flight of fancy as GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s idea to build moon bases. The difference is that Gingrich got caught up in a daydream. Obama’s plans are for nothing less than control over America’s future.
Last month, Obama went on a two-day, four-State energy tour, proclaiming the benefits of clean energy and the evils of petroleum. He said that the Republican candidates in the GOP primary are either misguided or simply ignorant Luddites.
Obama joked: “Lately we’ve heard a lot of politicians, a lot of folks who are running for a certain office — they shall go unnamed — they dismiss wind power. They dismiss solar power.”
While the President argues that investments in green energy will ease the pain at the pump and even rebuild America, there just isn’t any evidence to support his view.
Consider this from Robert Bryce’s 2010 book Power Hungry: The Myths Of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels Of the Future:
Oil is not a perfect fuel. There is no such thing. But oil is — in nearly every case — greener than any of the alternative energy forms that might replace it. No matter whether the replacement is ethanol from corn, biomass — such as wood, straw, or dung — or biofuels made from palm oil or other feedstocks, the conclusion is apparent: Oil (and if you can get it, natural gas) simply has no peers. Oil provides consumers with both high energy density and high power density. It burns cleanly. It’s easily handled at atmospheric temperature and pressure, and the number of uses for it are [sic] essentially limitless.
The crude truth from experts doesn’t deter Obama. On March 22, at the end of his energy tour, Obama said:
The point is, there will always be cynics and naysayers who just want to keep on doing the same things the same way that we’ve always done them. We’ve got a choice. … We can keep developing new energy and new technology that uses less oil, or we can listen to these folks who actually believe that the only thing we can do is drill our way out of this problem.
Obama’s latest directive seems more about getting power for himself than it does about generating power for the Nation.
Recently, syndicated columnist and noted economist Lawrence Kudlow pointed out the flaws in Obama’s mantra on energy:
As Ronald Reagan famously said, “There you go again.”
Of course, Reagan was blaming Jimmy Carter for launching false attacks during a debate. And that line was so effective, it not only helped Reagan win the debate, but a presidential election that would change American history.
But “there you go again” can apply equally to President Obama. Once again this week, the president was out on the campaign trail bashing and oil and gas companies. And he continued to spread major falsehoods about this industry, which I guess is the polite way to put it.
Obama is obsessed with oil and gas. He is a prisoner of the left-wing environmental groups. And really, he’s extending his leftist class-warfare attack from rich people to successful oil and gas producers.
What seems to have Obama especially steamed is the fact that the conventional-energy companies are profitable… So he wants to tax them. He then wants to redistribute their income to his favorite green-energy firms.
Obama’s Con Game
I trust that most Americans know the difference between a pipeline and a pipe dream. We tend to recognize con artists, regardless of the magic in the elixir they are selling. Well, most — but not all — of us do.
That’s good news for Obama, who seems more like Bernie Madoff than like Reagan.
Remember Madoff? He ran a giant Ponzi scheme that cost his investors $18 billion. His fraud was perpetrated on thousands of people, including his closest friends. They all believed the money mogul could deliver double-digit returns regardless of recessions and bear markets.
Why did such intelligent people trust Madoff? Because they desperately wanted to believe it to be true.
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme tanked only after he couldn’t get enough new investors to throw their money in to finance his hustle.
Madoff was a greedy crook who used his friends and associates. That’s prima facie. What was shocking is that so many ignored the adage: “If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Four years after Madoff’s sentencing, a much bigger con is being perpetrated. It garners more support each passing month, and it comes from the man most Americans are taught to trust: their President.
Unlike Madoff, Obama is not interested in scamming a few thousand Americans out of a few billion dollars. He has far bigger ambitions. He wants another four years in office to change America into what he has always envisioned: a liberal society that will march lockstep to the orders dictated by Washington.
Obama has a few problems to overcome before he can begin his second term, most notably high unemployment and high energy prices.
Yet Obama has come up with a way for one stone to kill three birds. He promises that investing in clean, renewable energy will create millions of jobs and make America energy independent. The icing on the cake is that it will even save the planet.
Even for men like Obama, miracles don’t come cheaply; so expect the price tag on clean, yet un-proven, energy to reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
There’s just one problem: Affordable green energy is at least a couple of decades into our future. Perhaps our President thinks this is a small price to keep him in the Oval Office.
What loyal Democrats don’t understand is that the Greens are making fake promises that could impose a dark future on a Nation that is rich in fossil fuels.
America has real problems, but energy isn’t near the top of the list. Or at least it wouldn’t be if America’s leaders would agree to set wildcatters free off our coastal shores and in Alaska and let them tap into the bonanza of petroleum that can be discovered, pumped and transported throughout the United States.
Yet for some reason — personal, religious or political — Obama is doing everything he can to arrest a renaissance in petroleum. If anything, his plans will make America more dependent on Islamic oil.
Already, European nations are scaling back spending on renewable energy projects. But not Obama.
In a March 26 post on news.gather.com, Renee Nal wrote:
The Obama administration has already spent billions on “green energy” companies, with most of them resulting in bankruptcy and massive layoffs. His Green Agenda is not working and he wants even more. For Obama’s 2013 budget proposal, “Programs for advanced research along with energy efficiency and renewable energy account for the biggest percentage increase in spending.”
Don’t Shoot The Messenger
I write at the request of Bob Livingston. Sometimes, commenters claim I am a mouthpiece for Big Oil. My education and background is in petroleum and journalism. Yet I have never received so much as a dime from any oil company, big or small. At the moment, I don’t even own petroleum stocks. I started off as a cub reporter more than three decades ago, and I have had the good fortune to have publishers like Livingston who let me write the truth as I see it.
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report |
|
|
|
|
USFiero
|
APR 11, 08:23 PM
|
|
|
Pretty much $3.90+ avg here now.
|
|
|
|