VRT MBasile

iTrader: (17)

Bush, oil companies, and SUV/H2 drivers

BlingBlingBlue

Who's to blame? What a silly question. We've known for many decades that oil is a finite commodity, yet consumption has gone up, and efficiency has gone down. Paul is correct.

dub2w

Huh? How do you figure efficiency has gone down? If you look at consumption models between the US and developing countries (China and India specifically), you will see that we get far more out of the oil we use due to our superior technology.

And yes, we are all accountable. But what about the govt? What about special interests? Should we not look deeper into this rabbit hole? Saying it is solely the consumer's fault is the cop-out answer that is empty WH rhetoric.

SilverScoober02

Get ready because the oil companies are going to be reporting record profits this first quarter while we continue to pay record prices. The posturing that is going on in DC is sickening. Now everyone wants to investigate why the oil companies are making so much money, while middle class americans struggle. Suprise!!! It's an election year!

This type of shyte makes me f*ing sick......Does anyone else feel like the government is totally and utterly inept in almost every single ****ing way?!?!?!? I mean really, can they do anything that goes against big business at all? It is really just a puppet government in Washington with ****ing Texaco pulling the strings..

Mr. Furley

you my friend, are a complete moron.

the reason gas is so effing high is because the environmentalists in this country decided that somehow having 50 different blends of gasoline was going to save the environment so now cali has to have much more EXPENSIVE gas specially made for us....

also im not a big fan of SUV's but i bet i use as much gas in my WRX as someone in an SUV would

heres an interesting read on gas prices: http://thetruthaboutcars.com/content...8241518084276/

BlingBlingBlue

Not taking responsibility for one's actions is the cop out.

dub2w

gas in CA is barely higher than in the south. next?

dub2w

If only this were indeed the case. We do not live in bubble with only our own actions to account for. There is, after all, a government, special interests, capitalists, etc...

Mr. Furley

Ever heard of a hurricane?? whether you know it or not those werent pop-up buildings that got destroyed, they actually have to rebuild everything.... i cant even believe you tried to use that as an example & thought it would sneak by..... check gas prices in the midwest compared to ours.... even though the gas comes through OUR PORTS TRAVELS ALL THE WAY TO THE MIDWEST and its still cheaper, explain that to me. And you think if we had a nationwide gas formulation it wouldnt be cheaper?

MVWRX

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, lets bash the environmentalists for not ignoring the fact that lead, sulfur, and particulates kill everything around them including people...damn them for cleaning up the LA smog problem...damn them for making it so the coastal and sierra ranges aren't totally ruined because of CA cars. Damn the environmentalists...we don't need nature anyway...what did 'nature' ever do for US!?!?!

psoper

The definitive list of people to blame for three dollar gas

(from Republicansareidiots.com)

1. The Department of Energy.

To be perfectly fair, this goes back long before George W. Bush even thought of runnign for President. As you recall, from about 1992 to 2000, gas was so cheap it was almost free. I remember taking a trip to Louisville, Kentucky in the late 90's where they were selling gas in Erie, Pennsylvania, for 67 cents a gallon. Is it any wonder that the nation's interstate highways were choked with gigantic SUVs, some pulling ridiculously large watercraft and RVs bigger than some people's houses all summer long?

Surely someone at the Department of Energy was born earlier than, say, 1970, and could remember what happened in 1973 and again in 1979 with exploding demand for petroleum products and dwindling supply. Did they not give a ****, or were their memories simply short that U.S. history started with Ronald Reagan became President? Isn't it their job to ensure CAFE compliance? Why then, were SUV's not immediately classified as cars, not trucks, once it was discovered (you could hardly not notice it) that suburban people were buying them for the same purposes as that for which they used to buy cars? Why didn't anybody in the federal government say anything until the price of gas started to go up and it was becoming evident that the people from whom we were buying most of our oil were supporting people like Osama bin Laden with the proceeds?

2. The 50 million-plus people who voted for George W. Bush in 2000.

In 2000, we had a choice. Not really a choice, really. One candidate had written a book on global warming, energy, and the general degradation of the environment, which included sound suggestions as to what we could do about it, and saw what was coming in the 21st century back in 1992, and a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who couldn't find oil in Texas, had run several perfectly good businesses into the ground, couldn't find Afghanistan on a map, and whose prior claim to fame was that (1) he oversaw more executions in his tenure as Governor of Texas than took place in the entire United States in the previous century, and (2) Houston overtook Los Angeles as the most polluted city in America. Guess which one became President.

Now we have a President who shrugs his shoulders and says idiotic **** like, "stuff that happens in the Middle East affects gas prices in the USA," as if he had had some grand epiphany or something. This man is the most clueless President I have known in my lifetime, and I remember the Ford administration. God help us.

3. The U.S. automobile industry.

OK, so it's 1997 and gas is dirt cheap. Yay! We can build big cars again! Uh, except there's this annoying little trifle called CAFE* that says they can't, unless they want to pay really big fines to the federal government for the privilege. Oh, whatever shall we do? Lobby Congress for a repeal of CAFE? Sure, that might work, but President Clinton would have vetoed it faster than his secretary could put the bill on his desk. Hey, I know! We can build more trucks instead!

Oh, but trucks are ugly, and uncool, and unweildy. People will never buy them. Not to worry, though, we'll make 'em cool. Have country music stars do commercials driving 'em. Have Arnold Schwarzenegger drive up to the premiere of his next action movie in the biggest, baddest monster SUV we make - something as big as his ego - to drive home the point that gas mileage is out, conspicuous consumption is in.

The best part of this scheme is, you can build an SUV with minimal imput from the engineering department. Not only are the CAFE mileage requirements relaxed (or nonexistent) for trucks, but so are the emissions requirements. That means you can build 'em like you did in 1957, as big as you please. Now, you'll have to spruce 'em up on the inside with nicer seats, cupholders, a nice stereo, soundproofing, etc., but that's small potatoes. You can tell Ms. Jane Hausfrau-Soccermom they're safer than cars because they're bigger and heavier, and she'll demand one to protect her precious little bundles of joy because continuing to ferry them around in that 1992 Dodge Caravan deathtrap on wheels (that got 26 MPG vs. 11 for the Tahoe she drives now) would make her a really, really bad mom.

So fast forward to 2006. George W. Bush's little war of caprice in Iraq and the endless sabre-rattling re. Iran has driven the price of gas to three bucks, and it now costs a Franklin to fill up the Tahoe. Betcha wish you still had that '92 minivan, don'tcha? Well, too bad. Now you're spending little Johnny's college fund at the corner Exxon station, and you have 23 more payments on Mom's Bus. You're screwed, and I'm laughing my *** off at you in my Scion xA that gets 35 MPG no matter how hard I beat on it.

4. The American Consumer.

The United States of America is supposed to be the bestest, most enlightened country on the face of the Earth. Why, then, is is populated with so many morons who fall for the bull**** foisted upon it by the automobile industry. "It's not more than you need; just more than you're used to," says General Motors, hoping to sell you a GMC Denali SUV that gets 11 MPG*. Don't worry about gas; it's dirt cheap at a buck and a quarter a gallon**.

People, big ugly grotesque behemoths are NOT cool. They're even less cool than the fake wood-sided station wagons you wouldn't let your friends see you riding in when you were teenagers. They're just ugly. They waste gas and thereby support Middle East terrorism, people laugh at you when you stop at Hess for the third time in a week where you drop a C-note to keep the thing going for another couple of days. You can't parallel-park it, or change one of its tires, so you have no business driving it.

The damn things aren't even safe. That's another line of pure bull**** fed to you by the auto industry that you ate with a spoon and asked for more. They're far more prone to rollovers than cars, aren't anywhere near as maneuverable, and since they were built to the more lax safety standards applicable to light trucks, you and your little munchkins will rattle around the thing like pinballs in a pachinko machine in a serious accident, that is, if the roof of the thing doesn't collapse under the vehicle's excessive weight.

Every winter I see the same thing. Lake effect snow falling at two inches an hour, and one $40,000 SUV after another on its side on the median, or on its back on other side of the road, two more on the shoulder having collided with each other, the driver of one explaining how he could have not seen the guy in the Honda Civic he ran over like it was a speed bump. People, SUV's do not make you invincible. They do a somewhat better job of keeping you out of the ditch when the weather turns to ****, but only when you drive them moderately. Somehow, people tend to lose whatever shred of common sense they had when they buy these things, and think they can still drive 70 when it's snowing so mother****ing hard they can't see, and not only do they buy the farm, they take innocent people with them who just want to get home so they don't have to drive in the goddamned snow anymore, clutching their steering wheels with white knuckles and saying Hail Marys as they go. I ****ing hate idiot SUV drivers.

Oh, and did I mention that you look like a redneck driving it? Sure, in the somewhat less likely event you'd flip over in a convertible, at least you'd look cool when you broke your stupid neck. But when they pry your lifeless carcass out of that ****-you mobile after you crash and burn therein, people will remember you as a really stupid redneck. Isn't that lovely?

5. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

I was going to expand this section to include the Joint Chiefs, the FBI, the CIA, and anyone else whose job it was to advise the President that starting a war in Iraq was a collossally stupid idea, but George wasn't going to listen to any of these people, no matter how long they've won the uniform, no matter how strong their contrary evidence was. Secretary Powell, on the other hand, had a reputation for integrity that went back decades. When he got up to talk, people listened. All he had to do is say, "look, Mr. President, I am not going along with this. This is bull**** and you know it, and I am not about to stand up in front of the United Nations and tell these bald-faced lies."

What would have happened next? Bush fires Powell, sends Condi to New York City to tell the lies in his place, and since Condi on her best day isn't as good a liar as Powell was, Congress would have been far less likely to sign off on the Iraq War Resolution. Hans Blix would have reported maybe a month later that there never were any WMD, and the whole thing would have went away. No war, no three dollar gas, and probably no more Bush after '04.

6. Certain Senate Democrats of the 107th Congress, especially Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but were the Democrats not still in control of the United States Senate on October 10, 2002 when the Iraq War Resolution came up for a vote? Why, then, did they ***** out and give Bush authority to go to war? Yeah, sure, you can ask Sen. Kerry or any of the other Democrats in the Senate at that time who voted for this piece of ****, and they'll tell you they were giving the President the authority to go to war after all diplomatic means of resolution have been exhausted. Who determines that? President Bush, that's who, so you might as well call it a declaration of war because once the bill passed, there was no stopping Bush from going ahead with the invasion. Nobody in the Bush administration even knows what diplomacy means, and anyone close enough to this President to hear him demanding ridiculous **** from you on a nearly daily basis should already know it.

Tom Daschle could have stopped it. He could have stood behind his bully pulpit as Majority Leader and come out against it, declaring that Bush should be deeply ashamed of himself for even bringing the subject up in the first place, but he didn't. Out of 51 members of the caucus, surely 40 of them could have mounted a filibuster that would have gotten the nation's attention. That didn't happen.

This incident alone proved in many people's minds that the Democrats were incapable of leading, and they and the rest of the nation paid dearly for their cowardice. Now there are 55 Republicans in the Senate, with the remaining 44 Democrats too fragmented to put up much of a fight no matter what godawful thing the Republicans might bring to the floor. I hope against hope that they've somehow learned something from this about the dangerous folly of "trusting" the President, regardless of which party to which he (or she) might belong. Acts of Congress used to be constructed with this concept in mind, but no more, and three dollar gas is but one symptom of a larger and more virulent disease afflicting this once-great nation, and we have the Democrats of the 107th Congress to thank.

That's pretty much it. If anybody has somebody else I should be blaming for three dollar gas, don't hesitate to drop me a line, or add a comment. Oh, and ideas for more "blame lists" are also appreciated. Peace.

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* I think the hand-made model they provided the EPA for testing actually got 13 MPG on the Thruway going about 58 miles per hour with the cruise control engaged, the windows up, and a 30 MPH tail wind helping it out, but you can't buy that one at any GMC dealer, nor does anyone drive it the way the EPA does for its testing. It’s time to repost this. For the benefit of the newbies, this will help put current events in their proper perspective.
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jvick125

iTrader: (2)

It's already been stated that you're wrong, so I'll leave it at that.

First quarter ended already, so it will be second quarter; and it should be Exxon Mobile instead of Texaco. But you're still wrong either way. (at least I'd like to think)

Gas is cheaper in the mid west becuase they are implementing more Ethanol into their gas.

On FNC yesterday they had two guys talking about how environmentalists are hindering gas prices from staying down by preventing drilling in the U.S. One of the guys was John Passacantando, the leader of the GreenPeace USA. It was a good debate. I'll continue to look for the transcript.

Bush mentioned yesterday as well in his speech that he wants to prevent some oil going to the permanent reserve to increase the available supply in hopes that it will help lower the price some.
side note: during his speech oil and oil related stocks went down 1-3% and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) went up to 7%. Thought that was interesting.

SilverScoober02

So you don't take any issue with big oil making the MOST money they have ever made right now? You don't think that is a funny little coincidence? Wouldn't you think if the supply was getting so limited that big oil would start to feel the crunch a little bit? No one takes isssue with the fact that our economy, like it or not is struggling a bit now and yet there is one set of companies that is really proffiting from our struggle?

It's BS, all of it. The politicians are going to get all "PISSED" and start inquiries and have congressional hearings but nothing will ever happen because big oil has most of Washington on the payroll.

Doesn't matter to me though because when I get my diesel truck I am buying the a nice big 300 gallon bio-diesel making system....

70 cents a gallon here I come!