I had to go to town to a friends house to get help fixing my lawn mower. You would have never of known it was a holiday weekend by looking at the traffic. I only seen 5 boats and 2 campers on the road all day. I do watch this because this affects the towns finances. Ussually it's almost 40/60 per vehicle has camper or boat one, on a normal weekend. 60/40 on holidays weekends. Yea our town is going to be hurting for lack of tourist dollars this year! Screw the cost of gas.. Some won't beable to afford anything else either this winter! Many here will likely lose thier cars, homes, and other posessions because few traveling to save gas. Thanks for the patritiosm!

 

We went shopping today and the three stations we went by were all completely out of gas. The pumps had bags over them.

I have family in Houston that went up there because they found an apartmetn to rent and they said they have gas up there. They're considering filling up some containers of gas and bringing it down to BR for me. The population in this city as pretty much doubled. The streets are overloaded and grocery stores are PACKED. Took us about 30 mins waiting to check out.

 

You know I would conserve if there truly were an honest shortage. But what pisses me off is that there is plenty oil. The oil companies don't have enough refining capacity. They run them at the max all the time, so when there is a disruption they can't make it up with extra capacity else where. Build some more refineries, drill more here in the U.S. Also I heard that the only place in the U.S. where large tankers can unload is 18 miles off the LA coast, what kind of sense does that make, the only place in all the US and it's right in the middle of hurricane country. Come on we should have 3 or 4 of them scattered around the US. It's unbelieveable. Another thing, I work in the coal industry, I was reading in an industry magazine, it said we are building large coal recieving ports, and that someday we will be a net importer of coal. For christ sakes we have the most coal reserves of any nation. What the hell is happening here. What do want to become totally dependent one others for our energy, that way it will be easier to bring the US down? I just don't understand this crap. Use some common sense. Come on one port..all we have to do is screw up one port and we can throw them into chaos. We ain't gonna make it much longer if we don't wise up and start taking care of our own needs.

 

12:00 AM and am getting ready to make a 3 hour trip in 2 hours! I am taking my sister inlaws camry so does that count as patriotism for saveing fuel?

 

First of all, not sure where in my email I questioned your patriotism. As for your ignorance of capitalism, I'll let that slide because public schools don't teach a whole lot these days.

Second of all, when you accused my words of being mindless drivel, well, I took a bit of an offense to that and answered you accordingly. You should not open up threads you don't want to waste your precious time on and when you do, don't criticize the writer, just close the thread and go read another one about kevlar gas caps or personalized ash tray covers.

What really opened my eyes up to where your brain is obviously misfiring is your statement that your contribution to conservation won't have an affect on demand. Sure, if every person had your attitude then no, it wouldn't. But if those of us on this sight who actually care about other human beings besides ourselves cut back (I did not say drastically as your original reply stated) just 10 percent of their driving (one less trip to get that twelve-pack) and stopped speeding from red light to red light, we would have an effect. I'm just trying to raise awareness in a place where I can talk to the most people with sub-15 mpg vehicles. I happen to care about my country and am tired of being beholden to a bunch of wacko extremists who want to destroy us and everything we stand for. Cutting back demand would reduce our dependency on the foriegn oil and give our policiticians some time to get some cahones and start building refineries and drilling for oil where it exists here in the US.

Listen bud, you don't have to do anything, when gas hits $4.00, take a raod trip, I don't care, Burn out up to every light if that's what blows your skirt up. The rest of us will take up the slack so you can live your life the way you want to.

 

Phew, talk about a long and tiring road trip... There was barely anyone on the interstate from 3:00 am til 9:30. I made the 333.68 mile round trip in 6 hours total and that was with spending 1.5 hours TCB plus another 45 mins at the casino!
Yea I was flying low... Guess the state is helping out with the gas consumption too, because I only seen 2 patrolmen the whole trip!

 

Funny, the only ignorance I've read in here so far is yours !! Pull your head out of wherever you have it and look at what is really happening:

Gas/oil companies are simply screwing the American public because they can.

If someone were to run for office that had the b@lls to regulate the petroleum industry like electric, water, etc. I'd vote for them on that one issue alone. This isn't about capacity, capability, etc. - it is simply about greed.

Don't believe me ? When the supposed "shortage" is over in 6-8 weeks, see if gas goes back down. Wanna bet me on that one ?

The reason you see empty gas stations is because of the news media and people's stupidity - the news says everyone is rushing down to buy gas and that there will be nothing left. So guess what - it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy... everyone hears it and goes to top off their tank, fill spare cans, etc. and guess what - no gas !!

I've lived in FL for over 40 years and I've been through my share of hurricane scenarios. Guess what - the stations here run out of gas when everyone tries to top-off, hoard, whatever.

If the news were forbidden to talk about it and people just went about their business nothing would change and no one would be the wiser. Gas stations have their deliveries set-up on an average usage estimate. So many gallons per day / tank capacity = so many deliveries per month. Put the media hype out there and boom - there goes the model.

If we had any sense, we'd be pulling all the oil we can from Iraq and stockpiling it here. Figure what the cost of our presence is there, subtract it from the price of the oil and bring it on over.

Lawyers, newscasters and liberals - this country could use a lot fewer of them then we have !!!

 

I did not see the Army National Gaurd drving into New Orleans in flue efficent hybirds...Trucks have a place and a purpose, if you drive, you pay, or you can park it. Nobody in Canada or the United States are all = when it comes down to how much $$$ we have, Some of us will not change are habit's no matter what gas per gallon sell's for...55 MPH on all major interstates will do more to conserve flue....if your caught speeding, than the cost of the ticket can go to the American Red Cross...

 

Thank you for verifying my statement. Capitalism = Reduce demand and prices go down, increase demand and the prices go up. If people had any brains, like you of course , they would reduce their driving 10 or 15%, stop flooring it to the next light and hit the oil companies where it hurts. They would drop the price in a heartbeat to spur demand. That's how the system works. 10-15% would cause panic at the oil companies.

You obviously are too young to remember the 70's when Nixon implemented price controls. Lines were two blocks long. Regulation doesn't work, free market does but people have to realize the power they hold over the producers of goods in our country. The gentleman I was responding to has no clue how the systemn works, neither do you. read some books, listen to Rush Limbaugh, learn something, it's good for you.

 

I think there are some great points here. I do understand how capitalism and the free market works and to a point it works for the basic necessities and natural resources.

While I do consider myself a conservative and really dislike the tax system that steals money from its citizens who bust their butt, as well as businesses that provide jobs, which further helps to funnel money to our federal budget, I have mixed feelings when it comes to business that deal with natural resources and the basic necessities.

Electricity, coal, water, and oil to name a few are natural resources and basic necessities that all Americans need. I do not think, and actually know from past experiences, that price controls never work and actually raise the cost to all citizens in the long run.

Therefore, what to do? I am not real sure but have a few ideas. First an oil company, electric company or any other company that provides natural resources to its citizens should "not" be looked at like a cable company or auto manufacturing company. Those companies, such as cable, do not provide a natural resource nor is it considered basic necessities so they can charge and make as much profit as they wish because they are truly at the mercy of the free market. If they charge to much a citizen won’t pay for it, and the citizen don’t need it.

Now, when you talk about electricity or oil we do need that for the basic infrastructure of our country to work. If you took either of those away our economy would completely collapse. If you took cable away you might have a lot of pissed off people but it wouldn’t harm our economy at all…

So, what to do. Well experience tells us you can not have the government running those companies because they would run them in the ground and make it more costly for all citizens, much like price controls. So perhaps one way is a different tax structure for those types of business, where they pay a much larger tax on their profits. Huge tax incentives for the little guy to get into the business of building refineries.

I mean these people didn’t invent oil or gasoline like Bill Gates invented Window's, well actually Bill kind of took that from Zerox and ran with it, but that’s another story.

Point of my post is we need to look at some business different from others. While the free market and capitalism works for most business and to a small point for oil and electricity etc. it does not have much affect on oil and electricity because everyone needs it.

That would be like everyone relying on a business to sell them the oxygen they need to breathe to stay alive. You have to have it to survive and if prices go up you find a way to get it so you can continue to live. Sure the free market would keep some checks and balances on oxygen companies but you can only reduce your oxygen intake to a certain amount before you die…

 

I went to a Ford dealer to look at a Ranger as an alternative to my two full size trucks. My 89 is too old for me anyway, and my 98 F was payed for years ago.

$ 13 k for an 05 long bed short cab with air - 22 - 28 mpg.

I can dump my older truck and save the 98 for fun times. The savings in fuel will nearly offset most of the payment.
I've even thought about 2 wheels, but with the way people drive in this town I'm chicken.

The biggest problem we all have is that we are status / image minded - we are what we drive.

 

XLT Sport, you're right about a few points such as these products being a commodity that people need, but so is bread, milk, meat and Oreo cookies. If you tax the corporations, they will just pass the cost on to us, they will not make their investors suffer in the way of lost investments nor will they cut their exhorbitant salries. Risk must equal reward or this nation ceases it's financial machine.

I will make my point again, if we as a nation began to conserve (not as the hippie environmentalists push) but I mean, just cut back our daily trips some, and slow down (I watch all day how SUV's in my town speed to every light and drive 25% over the speed limit, their gas mileage is half what mine is I guarantee), we would reduce our gas consumption by 15%. This would cause prices to drop because supply would go up. No need for regulation, that's how it works.

My whole point of starting this thread was to hopefully cause a few members here that drive 12 mpg vehicles to cut back and spread the word to others. Since most of this group as well as most of America is too selfish to change their ways even a small amount, my idea will not have an affect. Let's just keep being sheep and go along with whatever feels good at the moment.

 

You are an arrogant @sshole.

I am plenty old enough to remember gas rationing - I guess you really think there was a delivery / production problem back then too ?? Once the "delivery" or "production" problems were resolved, why didn't the prices return to the pre-bull***** "delivery" or "production" reason prices ??

What I do completely understand is that the oil companies are screwing the consumer and that it has nothing to do with capitalism - it has everything to do with greed and stock prices.

You should stop pressing your "I'm smarter than everyone" attitude here. You are a ***** and you are not smarter or better than anyone.

The judgement you pass on everyone regarding driving habits, vehicle choices, etc. are your own - that does not make them right, wrong, etc. If you want to conserve, slow down, etc. to affect the consumption of fuel, do it. Don't act as if anyone that doesn't share your views are stupid, wrong, etc. I guarantee you there are plenty people here that can match wits with you all day long.

Stop being led by the propaganda and think for yourself. Oh wait, you probably are - that's why you defend the scum bag oil companies.

 

Well. I started reading the first paragraph and I was getting ready to give you a lesson in economics. Then I got to the last sentence of your second paragraph and recalled some useful philosophy:

Confucious say: Never argue with a fool.

I haven't laughed out loud at a post here in quite awhile. Thank you.

-Fatz

 

Dang it to freaking heck... I'm trying.