tex2670

If gas prices are 2x what they were less than 5 years ago, are we using twice as much gas? Sales of SUVs may have jumped, cars may have much more hp than they used to, but that's an enormous price jump. I can't believe its all supply/demand. If gas use doubled in 5 years, how would production keep up without shortages?

19psi

i'im about to trade my jeep for a dodge cummins turbo diesel. it will tow better than my jeep and i can run vegetable oil as fuel. no damn prius or other tiny junk for me, i'll be commuting in a 3/4 ton truck with almost free fuel that gets 20mpg. screw the hybrids and all that crap, it's just a way to keep taking our money. wvo conversion's are the way to go. no more dependence on foreign oil for me except when i want ot drive on weekends.

cliffud

iTrader: (3)

Yep, this is what i'm thinking too. diesel truck = my friend.

I have a few friends who own small restaurants and enough spare time to make the fuel but it seems like a pretty serious investment to buy all the materials needed to make the fuel and i'd hate to pay $4 a gallon for diesel if I can't refill at my house.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

The news is negative even when things are great. To channels like NBC the sky is always falling.

I don't know what riots you're talking about. As for crime - I don't know what stats you're looking at, but violent crime for example has declined dramatically in the past 15 years.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm

If you're just judging by news stories, that's meaningless. The 24x7 media must have stories to fill the time and there's plenty of police blotters to find gruesome stores making people think everything has gotten so much worse (when it hasn't). And the police are getting BETTER at their jobs. Studies have shown that so much crime went unreported or not handled in the past compared to today. Part of this progress is increased empowerment of women, a wonderful thing.

OK, but that's not the $7 you said is a 'certainty in a few months'. I grant you it's possible or even likely at some point but I highly doubt it in '08, especially since it's an election year.

I guess so! I think I saw something about riots for tortilla prices in Mexico... big deal. And this whole panic on rice is stupid, there is NO shortage. Yes I shop for food, and yes, I know prices have gone up quite a bit this year. The media will continue to scare the crap out of people, which will cause hoarding, which will make prices rise, which will...

The world has always faced problems and all has NEVER been rosy so this is news? It's news because the newsmakers make it news.

As I said before, we have an alignment of a burst housing bubble (to quote Greenspan, irrational exuberance!), increased global oil demand with no credible U.S. energy policy, and massive govt overspending and taxing - ALL CAUSED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. And guys like Obama and Clinton want to make it WORSE by MORE regulation and MORE overspending and taxation. "We're the govt and we're here to help..."

These are causing real hardships for many, I realize. People putting off buying new rims for their Lexus though does not qualify.

I agree! Can we find examples of people REALLY HURTING right now? Sure! But we could also do so at any time during the so-called boom times of the 'dot com' Clinton years. Remember welfare reform and all the bleeding hearts saying how awful it would be? Best thing that happened under Clinton. Working beats complaining...

We do? I work with builders and the 2 big problems are over supply in SOME PARTS of the country due to massive speculation in the past few years (building homes no real customers asked to have built) and now a credit squeeze due to mortgage rules being tighter now. This doesn't mean people don't want houses, it just means builders will hurt until the inventory goes down and maybe the lenders relax a BIT (not to the depraved levels a year or two ago). In California there's additional problems of unrealistic home prices combined with heavy taxation but since the taxation isn't likely to change that just means home sellers are going to get shafted selling.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Oh and Lee I forgot to comment on some of those quotes you added...

The UN comments about riots and food shortages, well I guess we can thank Al Gore and his pals for that trying to stop growth, encouraging using food for energy and other irrational screeds.

About wheat shortages... your quote says this was due to bad harvests but it says production fell from 624 to 600 - gee that's a 3.8% drop - hardly a catastrophe??? Again, newsmakers saying the sky is falling.

But ah, the real reason:

Al Gore, being the bloated carnivorous tick that he is, would do so much better trying to convince the world to eat less meat than yammering about cars and light bulbs.

Regardless, this problem isn't the fault of the U.S.! Much of the rest of the world is actually becoming more prosperous and wants to eat/live like the West which increases demands on all kinds of things. This is ultimately GOOD for trade, but of course can cause temporary shortages. But again, of course, newsmakers can only report the bad, and the UN predictably uses it as a reason to demand more money...

Just as 'global warming' was changed to 'climate change' so the media and interested parties could scream every time ANYTHING happens with the weather, we could call the current period "economic change" and its 'disastrous' effects.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

It's a GLOBAL market for oil/gasoline so increase in U.S. demand is only a small part of the picture. China's increase in oil/gasoline demand each year is vast.

As for supply, OPEC has regulated supply in their own interests. They COULD easily supply more oil than they do which would ease prices, but they don't. They have the world held for ransom.

Tekknikal

...well thats not how it works, despite what a lot of people say it's not a supply/demand market. in your example the price is just reset. the futures market can do what it wants but the futures market does not determine the price of oil over any major term

linh811

when i was a broke college kid gas was 0.55. geez i'm old

Pearlpower

iTrader: (2)

Paul

Housing issues were only slightly caused by over speculation, most were were caused by Greenspans policies or lack of . Not Clinton, not Bush, but the runaway banking system which wiggled a lollipop in front of every American in offering them a $500,000 loan with no docs.

Point is as you pick apart every single line of my posts, it that there is nothing wrong with people getting prepared for a long recession which many already believe we are in whether you want to believe anyone else other than yourself is irrelevant. If you choose to ignore all of signs because your source for the news counters every economic indicator (would you like examples of that too?) is of course your choice. Do you really believe the economy is fine?

Bringing up links to old crime statistics means little to this discussion as many of the increased issues we now face have reared itself just in the last few days because we have an administration that is completely out of touch with the American people and continues it's arrogant policies of ignoring the needs of the people to pursue it's own agenda-mainly Iraq.

A nation cannot spend a trillion dollars on a war and not expect there to be some economic consequence to the people of that nation and yet at the same time blame a person (Gore ) on the state of not only this country but for others when he was never even elected. Sound like a scapegoat excuse to me.

Did it ever cross your mind that perhaps there are other intelligent people in this world that believe equally in their opinions on how we reached this point? If Americans and other nations want to believe in Gore then that is certainly their choice to do and if a great many people choose this course then perhaps a nation would wake up and understand the needs of the people instead of blaming the media for everything.

Putting people to work as you put it is much more complicated than that, and living off of $8.00 an hour in California is simply going to take the economy far. I would think that it applies to Florida as well where housing is just as bad as it is in California.

19psi

i don't want to stray too far off topic, but one could actually run the vegetable oil straight into the fuel tank, as well as used (filtered) ATf, and motor oil. of course, the wvo could only be used in hot summer months straight into th tank or it would gel in teh lines and injectors. a seperate fuel system for the wvo could be installed using solenoids and lines to be able to start the truck on diesel, then switch to wvo after it's warmed by the system, and then run on that until the destination is reached, at that point, you switch to diesel, run for a few seconds, and shut off the engine.

boom, no more dependence on foreign oil, no more being held ransom by stock traders and oil companies, no more being worried about having to drive a pos little pod to work every day. i'll be cruisng to work in a 3/4 ton dodge, burning wvo and still getting 20 mpg!