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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 9:14:14 PM

Alumbrado

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Anyone incapable of grasping the simple fact that I'm no Democrat isn't competent to carry their end of this discussion...

And if you did know that and chose to lie, then you haven't the intellectual honesty to be worth my time.

Either way...

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 9:19:27 PM

Sanity

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What are you talking about, I said Democrats in Congress have outlawed new drilling. You're spouting their talking points, claiming it's the fault of the people who are working the hardest to bring more oil to market.

I don't know why it would embarrass you to be linked to them anyway, why you protest so loudly at the mere mention of the name...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Anyone incapable of grasping the simple fact that I'm no Democrat isn't competent to carry their end of this discussion...

And if you did know that and chose to lie, then you haven't the intellectual honesty to be worth my time.

Either way...

< Message edited by Sanity -- 5/28/2008 9:30:50 PM >

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:07:10 PM

Termyn8or

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Now now, settle.

Anyway if the premise is that four bucks a gallon is good it would follow that forty bucks a gallon would be better.I can arrainge for a radical nut like me to analyse the situation.

If gas were forty bucks a gallon people would starve. They can barely afford gas now, alot of them, to find a way to cut the cost by 90% is not a reasonable expectation. Some would survive, and through attrition the weak perish. It would amount to a form of natural selection, beyond Darwinism. If we allowed that to happen it would be the best thing that ever happened to us, as a race, and in this case I mean the human race.

At first the minions of big money will seem to prevail, but that will fall apart. The suffering has to last long enough to reach those who cause(d) it. Later as they are corrupted, because their money is no good anymore, and we will win. This can be done without a shot fired almost, because once people realize where the true wealth lies, they are not going to put up with alot more shit.

Let every garage mechanic figure out how to make a car get 100 MPG. Every Tom, Dick and Harry. Some of these people know things, and the ones without all the letters after their names are frequently the inventors.

Alot of people know alot of things. I'd bet a deisel would run on linoleum if you got it hot enough before it reached the injectors.

Oh, and by the way, I have to go do a new post, while it is fresh in my mind. But I will be baaaaaaack.

T

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:15:17 PM

TheHeretic

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          FR

         I swear, some people will whine if you hang them with a new rope. This is how people are motivated to change. And change, for those who never really 'got it,' is painful and difficult.

           Did anybody think a heaping spoonful of tree-hugging guilt trip was going to make a difference? With gas at $1.49 a gallon, you can drown that out by revving the engine. With gas at $4.00+, the shift is happening right in front of our eyes. The best-selling SUV is the Honda CRV, at about 1000 lbs less than the old #1 Explorer.

       Figure out who said it was going to be easy, and don't listen to that idiot again. This is how it works in a market-driven economy.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:22:25 PM

Leatherist

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I'm actually enjoying this, because it is going to GUT the gas guzzler industry. Changes that detriot has been resisting for decades are now going to become mandatory-or they are going to go bankrupt. They have been losing market share to foreign competition that has stressed fuel econonomy and reliability for years now. And the suv's are going to sit on dealer lots rusting.

No one is going to be able to afford to run them.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:35:00 PM

DesertRat

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Leatherist
I'm actually enjoying this, because it is going to GUT the gas guzzler industry. Changes that detriot has been resisting for decades are now going to become mandatory-or they are going to go bankrupt. They have been losing market share to foreign competition that has stressed fuel econonomy and reliability for years now. And the suv's are going to sit on dealer lots rusting.

No one is going to be able to afford to run them.

I'm enjoying it, too. I can afford it and I get a perverse tingle watching people wince as they fill their bloated hogs. I live in the west, where men are men (and cows are glad they're not sheep), so we have lots of mondo-huge trucks and SUVs driven by people who could barely afford them in the first place. Maybe we could ship them to Australia and they could use them to build some new reefs? Starting to see a lot more Priuses here, and that's a good sign.

Bob

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:45:26 PM

slaveboyforyou

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Yeah it is enjoyable to see the gas guzzlers on there way out. Once again, American car companies are losing business to the Japanese. Of course thanks to American car companies, the Japanese introduced full-size trucks and SUVs and got rid of many of their compact models.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:48:33 PM

UtopianRanger

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Level

quote:

Imagine for a minute, just a minute, that someone running for president was able to actually tell the truth, the real truth, to the American people about what would be the best — I mean really the best — energy policy for the long-term economic health and security of our country. I realize this is a fantasy, but play along with me for a minute. What would this mythical, totally imaginary, truth-telling candidate say?

Cynical ideas, like the McCain-Clinton summertime gas-tax holiday, would only make the problem worse, and reckless initiatives like the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep offer to subsidize gasoline for three years for people who buy its gas guzzlers are the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers.

I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”

No, our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/opinion/28friedman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

What would you tell such a candidate?

This type of rhetoric is why a guy like Friedman was justfully ''pied'' when he commenced to deliver one of his pathetic monologues at Brown University the other day.

He's an unfettered, ''devil take the hindmost'' free-market piece of shit.....And as one poster already mentioned : The crisis is a contrived one from many different angles; as well as the whole industry which is/has engaged in massive collusion.

Dick Morris said Slick Willie messed around with Monica solely because he could; The price of gasoline is as high as it is because they can.

Simple as that......

- R

< Message edited by UtopianRanger -- 5/28/2008 11:12:14 PM >

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 10:48:57 PM

Leatherist

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DesertRat

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leatherist
I'm actually enjoying this, because it is going to GUT the gas guzzler industry. Changes that detriot has been resisting for decades are now going to become mandatory-or they are going to go bankrupt. They have been losing market share to foreign competition that has stressed fuel econonomy and reliability for years now. And the suv's are going to sit on dealer lots rusting.

No one is going to be able to afford to run them.

I'm enjoying it, too. I can afford it and I get a perverse tingle watching people wince as they fill their bloated hogs. I live in the west, where men are men (and cows are glad they're not sheep), so we have lots of mondo-huge trucks and SUVs driven by people who could barely afford them in the first place. Maybe we could ship them to Australia and they could use them to build some new reefs? Starting to see a lot more Priuses here, and that's a good sign.

Bob

I ride my bike to work, and these assholes in thier huge trucks have always smirked at me as we pass in the parking lot. A few "macho men" have even laughed and suggested that my ride was pretty pathetic. They lost that smirk when I said "It's not costing me my left nut to run THIS thing-how about you buddy?"

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 11:08:58 PM

Alumbrado

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Leatherist

I'm actually enjoying this, because it is going to GUT the gas guzzler industry. Changes that detriot has been resisting for decades are now going to become mandatory-or they are going to go bankrupt. They have been losing market share to foreign competition that has stressed fuel econonomy and reliability for years now. And the suv's are going to sit on dealer lots rusting.

No one is going to be able to afford to run them.

And after that? When gas keeps going up and up, along with food prices? Who are you going to blame then?

Sooner or later the only person to blame is the crook jacking up the prices.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 11:16:49 PM

Leatherist

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leatherist

I'm actually enjoying this, because it is going to GUT the gas guzzler industry. Changes that detriot has been resisting for decades are now going to become mandatory-or they are going to go bankrupt. They have been losing market share to foreign competition that has stressed fuel econonomy and reliability for years now. And the suv's are going to sit on dealer lots rusting.

No one is going to be able to afford to run them.

And after that? When gas keeps going up and up, along with food prices? Who are you going to blame then?

Sooner or later the only person to blame is the crook jacking up the prices.

But it's not just ONE crook doing it-which ones will you go after?

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/28/2008 11:20:53 PM

Alumbrado

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As I said, I'm not holding my breath. I am looking around for my passport.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 4:37:21 AM

farglebargle

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Irishknight

So we shoot all the speculators and gas prices go down?

No. You need to restore value to the US Dollar. It's not that oil is expensive, it's that the dollar is worthless.

Gasoline is just the only product with a scoreboard on every corner.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 4:50:34 AM

Irishknight

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Its amazing that people still poinyt the blame at the trucks and SUVs. They are things incapable of being guilty. They were made because some people need them. The fact that many are sold to people who don't need them still doesn't make them guilty. Gas prices are high because Exxon wants another record profit year at the expense of all of us. If we were all driving a prius, they would raise the price to 10 dollars a gallon to try to achieve the same end.
I drive a full size truck and will keep doing so. Of course, I've never made fun of a bike rider because I wish my circumstances would allow me the time to ride a bike to where I was going. Of course, I need a bike that doesn't fall apart in a year because its made in a chinesae junk factory.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:20:22 AM

celticlord2112

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quote:

And after that? When gas keeps going up and up, along with food prices? Who are you going to blame then?

Sooner or later the only person to blame is the crook jacking up the prices.

Why does there need to be someone to blame?

Prices go up when demand outstrips supply, and fall when supply outstrips demand--Economics 101. Any business, even oil companies, are going to seek to make the largest profits they can, and to do that will push prices as high as they can. Any consumer will act to push prices as low as they can.

The price of gas is beyond annoying, but it is a natural reflection of market forces. Suppliers are selling all they want to, and consumers are buying all they can; yes, suppliers could sell more, but it that doesn't maximize their profits why should they? Consumers could reduce their gas purchases, but if that is how they choose to spend their dollars, why should they?

There is no "blame" to be had here. If we don't want to pay $4 a gallon for gas, we need to come up with an alternative and make it happen. There are alternative fuels and alternative technologies that would move vehicles from point A to point B--we don't need to research them, we need to mass produce them. (Biodiesel is my personal favorite, but there are others as well)

If there is blame to be had, it is that everyone, both consumer and oil company, proceed from the implicit assumption that there are no viable options to oil, that the only solution to high oil prices is greater oil supply. That assumption is refuted both by the already extant options such as biodiesel as well as the number of conservation techniques (e.g., carpooling, riding bicycles, mass transit) in existence to reduce demand.

As consumers our power in the market is the power of buying or not buying. If we don't buy any more gas than we absolutely require, and reduce demand to where it is outpaced by supply, the prices will fall as Exxon-Mobil will act to encourage people to buy more.

In economics as in every other aspect of life, the "blame game" is for losers, whiners, and suckers. It resolves nothing.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:25:31 AM

Alumbrado

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Ahhh yes... those scary 'market forces'.... Never mind the fact that the supply is being artificially restricted by the suppliers, let's just blame it on 'market forces'...

< Message edited by Alumbrado -- 5/29/2008 5:27:13 AM >

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:30:50 AM

Irishknight

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Celticlord, the only problem I have with what you say is that the oil companies have a stranglehold on fuel distribution as well. It is not actually a free enterprise because if a station wants to sell gas, they have to kiss ass to one of these monsters. If these companies say, you can't sell biodiesel at your station and sell our product too, the stations have to comply or go out of business. Its not true supply and demand when you can use extortion. I am willing to bet that if you were to look into it, the oil companies are keeping strict control on how many stations they allow tosell bio fuels.
Who do you think fights the hardest when the subject of ethanol is brought to a vote in many states? Exxon and their competitors. They tried releasing studies saying that ethanol was more expensive to make and numerous other lies to damage the industry. Now, they just sell the gas portion of the product at a higher rate to ensure that the prices won't beat the nonethanol by more than a few cents.
Its not natural market forces. Its greed and dirty dealing.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:38:34 AM

celticlord2112

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quote:

Ahhh yes... those scary 'market forces'.... Never mind the fact that the supply is being artificially restricted by the suppliers, let's just blame it on 'market forces'... and we all know who controls those behind the scenes, right?

The "market force" is not hard to understand. Supply is not being "artificially" restricted. I would argue it is not being "restricted" at all: Suppliers are offering all the oil they wish to sell. Unless you are prepared to support an argument that suppliers are choosing to make less money, to earn less than optimal profits, and that they could increase their profits by selling more at a lower price per gallon, there is no artificial restriction taking place.

Suppliers choose to sell. Consumers choose to buy. How much each chooses to transact is a key function of the marketplace.

Consumers influence suppliers by buying at low prices and by not buying at high prices. Want the price of gas to fall? Don't buy any! To put it more realistically, buy as little as possible. Lower demand past what suppliers speculate to be the result of the current price increases and you reduce their profits--and their own greed will force them to alter the pricing model, and lower prices.

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:44:07 AM

Sanity

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It's amazing that we get gasoline as cheaply as we do when you consider the fact that a gallon of crude on the world market is almost $2.50, state and federal taxes on that gallon (once refined) are around $1.00, and truckers make a decent living delivering our fuel.

Congress simply needs to get out of the way, they've locked up all our oil fields... as I've pointed out before, Britain isn't sitting idly by as its population struggles. OPEC is even beginning to move to help market forces bring costs down.

What are Americans doing?

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RE: Thomas Friedman: $4 a gallon is good for us - 5/29/2008 5:50:14 AM

Sanity

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No, biofuels are causing the world's poorest to starve. It's irresponsible for Ted Kennedy and Al Gore and Barack Obama and all the other elites to fill up with ethanol when we could be pumping our fuel right out of the ground.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Irishknight

Celticlord, the only problem I have with what you say is that the oil companies have a stranglehold on fuel distribution as well. It is not actually a free enterprise because if a station wants to sell gas, they have to kiss ass to one of these monsters. If these companies say, you can't sell biodiesel at your station and sell our product too, the stations have to comply or go out of business. Its not true supply and demand when you can use extortion. I am willing to bet that if you were to look into it, the oil companies are keeping strict control on how many stations they allow tosell bio fuels.
Who do you think fights the hardest when the subject of ethanol is brought to a vote in many states? Exxon and their competitors. They tried releasing studies saying that ethanol was more expensive to make and numerous other lies to damage the industry. Now, they just sell the gas portion of the product at a higher rate to ensure that the prices won't beat the nonethanol by more than a few cents.
Its not natural market forces. Its greed and dirty dealing.

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