$8 Gas a Good Thing? I Don’t Think So
Believe it or not, some people out there actually believe that soaring gas prices are a blessing. Time for them to "fill up" on common sense.
There really are people out there praising high gas prices.
They naturally include those who believe that “cheap gas and a clean economy are mutually exclusive,” even though the air got continually better in the U.S. for decades while gas prices declined in real terms. If they’re truly mutually exclusive, how did that happen?
Then there are those who, like this gentleman, believe that higher gas prices can bring about a return to “true values that have meaning.” I get that, but convincing families to eat more meals together or to get more involved in charities should be independent of that.
One of the high-price praisers is in the business press. He’d like to see prices go twice as high.
He is Chris Pummer at MarketWatch.com, in “$8-a-Gallon Gas: Eight reasons higher prices will do us a world of good.”
That Pummer has authored such a piece would not surprise those familiar with his previous work.
In August 2002, Pummer complained that because California had no employer-paid family leave law, “I couldn’t even afford the ‘bereavement’ airfare to bury my mom, let alone taking time off to be with her when she died.” California passed such a law that became effective in 2004 — yet another explanation beyond those I mentioned in a previous column why the state is currently holding back the U.S. economy.
Also that month, Pummer expressed disgust that U.S. workers weren’t uniting in revolt:
U.S. workers see evil, hear evil, and speak evil, but we’ve become too gutless to utter even a modest demand to our employers.
… American business provides the worst employee benefits of major industrialized countries and those we do have are being continuously scaled back.
… Of course, we have only ourselves to blame for our plight. We turned away from the union bosses and found no one else to stand up for us.
MarketWatch really is a daily business publication, not an adjunct to the AFL-CIO.
Pummer’s pitch for $8-a-gallon gas is also permeated with hostility. He characterizes oil as “poison” and “the pus of the earth.” With classic urban-planner arrogance, he seethes with contempt for “antiseptic, strip-mall communities” and “cookie-cutter developments slapped up in the hinterlands.”
Here are my responses to Pummer’s reasons to “rejoice” at $8-a-gallon gas.
1. RIP for the internal combustion engine — Name something other than the computer chip that has led to more human freedom — of movement, of flexibility, and of enjoyment. You can’t. If a replacement arrives, fine, but that’s not what environmentalists really want. “For the cause,” they want us to limit our movement, have less flexibility, and, inevitably, to enjoy life less. No thanks.
2. Economic stimulus — Pummer believes that $8 gas would “trigger all manner of investment sure to lead to groundbreaking advances.” Innovation is great, but it’s really irritating that he would be so cavalier about what $4-a-gallon gas has already caused. For example, it surely contributed to GM’s Tuesday announcement that it would close four plants (which, incidentally, employ a lot of union members).
3, 4, and 8. Wither the Middle East’s clout; deflate oil potentates; ease global tensions — The only reason those folks have their clout is that we haven’t allowed enough exploration and drilling in the U.S. On Tuesday, Bloomberg had a story that referred to “Saudi-sized reserves” in the Dakota oil fields. Do you mind if we retrieve it, Chris?
5. Mass transit development — Americans have been using mass transit in record numbers. No, I’m not talking about bus and rail lines. I’m talking about the greatest mass transit system ever conceived by man — the system of roads, expressways, and highways. Remember what I said about freedom of movement, flexibility, and enjoyment? The highway system has provided more of each than any other mass transit system. Yes, there are congestion problems, but I have solutions: Build roads to accommodate the traffic and charge reasonable tolls during peak hours.
6. An antidote to sprawl: Sure, the automobile has enabled sprawl, but I maintain that three things have accelerated sprawl: high crime, exorbitant taxes, and lousy schools. To the criticism that affordable gas prices have helped families who care to escape these menaces, I say, “Thank God.”
7. Restoration of financial discipline: Pummer believes that vehicle loans have contributed to our overburdened debt situation. But no one twisted anyone’s arm to buy things they couldn’t afford. Also, allow me to contend that many families have taken on debt willingly in the name of accomplishing important goals whose achievement requires freedom of movement and flexibility, ultimately maximizing enjoyment and accomplishment for family members. Exactly what is wrong with that?
Affordable fuel has led to a U.S. standard of living that is the envy of the world — one that the world, other than its control freaks, wants to emulate. While busy “rejoicing” over expensive fuel, Pummer overlooks the fact that those who can least afford it are the ones who are hit the hardest. That’s quite an oversight for a guy who has urged a workers’ revolt.
Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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40 Comments
1. bianchi_roadie:The problem is that all of his listed “good thing” would come well after a period of tension and hardship. Nothing on that list would happen overnight – migration to high density housing, mass transit and moving away from gas burning cars. All of that would take years (or even decades) – and would come after a period of turmiol and grief. Especially for lower income folk who can’t afford hard-to-get hybrids and downtown lofts.
But hey, the results might end up good (maybe) and as long as Pummer doesn’t suffer much – he’s all for it.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:27 am 2. BizzyBlog » Latest Pajamas Media Column (”) Is Up:[...] It’s here. [...]
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:38 am 3. Tom:Actually, one thing that the media outlets are missing is the disastrous effect high oil prices are having on the third world and other less developed countries.
Sure $4 a gallon gas is annoying in the US. In Thailand is stops everything. In China, crops lie in the fields rotting as it is now too expensive to get them to market verus their resaleable value. In Bulgaria wait until winter comes around and people start freezing to death since heating oil will be too expensive.
Worried about pollution? The worst polluting states are all poor. If they can’t get oil and they don’t have coal, they will burn trees instead. Anytime someone makes their first trip into La Paz the one thing they remember afterwards is the smell of 10,000 camp fires from the road into La Paz from the airport.
$8 a gallon for gas would be really annoying here. Elsewhere it is fatal. Of course the enviro jerks don’t care about the people dying from this. They are enjoying their Malthusian moment.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:40 am 4. Heather:..and his “good things” are only possible in areas with high population density and short distances between those. Entire states between the coasts will be destroyed. But then, that’s the true intention of coastal snobs like Pummer.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:49 am 5. Tolbert:It’s curious that Marxists like Pummer always have the answers to all the world’s ills. If only we would listen they lament.
God save us from our self-annointed intellectual betters.
Cheap energy is the wellspring of innovation, it has allowed us to reach out and attempt to touch the stars. It has benefitted the least among us the most. It has allowed us to make the most of our existence. It has freed us from the burden of merely existing and propelled us to where we can comtemplate the very fabric of the universe.
Why would anyone, except the demented, wish to return to such a constricted past where only the few were able to enjoy such bounty.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:59 am 6. Rob W.:The only problem with $8 gas is that it unfairly places a financial burden on the poorest working
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:07 pm 7. Media Mythbusters Blog » Blog Archive » Media Bias Roundup - 06/05/08:Americans. Gasoline is a much greater percentage of their income, and many have already been pushed past solvency by the price hikes so far. Except for the sprawl argument, all of Pummer’s points are dead on, and your refutations are weak. You want to keep the internal combustion engine around for ‘ol times sakes? Yes, GM closed SUV plants, but at the same time they ramped up production of the plug-in electric Chevy Volt. That is the real positive change that has already come from the gas hikes so far.
[...] Pajamas Media – $8 Gas a Good Thing? I Don’t Think So [...]
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:09 pm 8. huxley:Don’t get me wrong, I’m for cheap energy. However, I can see an upside for expensive gas in the short term to force us to take real action on energy: build nukes, drill in the US, develop technology to harvest oil shale, tar sands, and cellulosic biofuels, and continue work on solar power and fusion.
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:25 pm 9. Kim Zigfeld:George Will has a great piece on ANWR in the WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060403052.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:26 pm 10. Paddy L:$4 or $8 gas and $130/bl crude oil hurt everyone. If they contiue indefinitely the transfer of weatlth from us to the Middle Eastern countries will bankrupt our nation.
There is only one way to stop our hemoraghing, drill and exploit our plentiful oil and gas deposits. All other options are merely aspirin to treat a cancer.
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:38 pm 11. uburoisc:Tom’s right, it’s the worldwide poor who suffer catastrophically when oil spins out of control; American’s always forget that their poorest citizens are largely insulated against the sort of suffering that the real poor in the rest of the world go through. Idiots like Pummer never own up the the death and suffering they cause when they urge drastic changes in the name of ideological progress; he’s another ahistorical moron who takes the entire industrial revolution so much for granted that he thinks he can just wave it away with last weeks junk mail. I suspect that one of the reasons oil remains so high is that the honest speculators know that the world still runs on oil while the fashionable environmentalist twits keep up with the pretense that the world can just step off; the truth is in the price of a barrel.
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:47 pm 12. George:I blame this on all of you folks that voted these crazy liberals into office. They do not like for big oil to make money, they do not like for busuness in general to make money Listen To Hilliary, listen to Pelosy, listen to Obama.
Jun 5, 2008 - 1:16 pm 13. mvargus:The funny thing is that they forget is that without business this country would be nothing. We would be a third world country without business.
Just once, I’d like some military heavy in one of these “enlightened” western nations to round up every environ-weenie in that nation and let them live on a reservation where absolutely no carbon is burned. EVER! Lets see just how long it takes for these afficinados of the stone age to start begging for a return to modern times.
Sadly, we keep placating these id-10-ts.
Jun 5, 2008 - 1:24 pm 14. rvastar:There really are people out there praising high gas prices.
Duh! They’re called “Marxists”. And it’s not surprising in the least considering that their ultimate goal is – and always has been – to slowly erode capitalist economic systems via taxation, regulation, and class anger. It’s what Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) called “the long march through the culture”.
In brief, in the late 1800’s/early 1900s, Marxists weren’t having much success in stirring up violent revolutions amongst the masses of ignorant Western rubes. Gramsci postulated that the reason why was because the rubes were too mentally/spiritually bound to the underlying cultural foundation of Western Civilization – mainly, Christianity. So what to do?
Gramsci hit upon the plan that we’ve been seeing unfold in the West for the past 50+ years: stop attacking the capitalists and start attacking the culture.
But why?
The human ego can’t find sustenance in itself…we need to believe in something, or else life becomes a horror of chance and nihilism. The Marxists know that if they can break Christianity’s grip on the West, then people will need to turn to something larger than themselves to which they can feel connected.
The Marxist answer to that need is an all-powerful state.
But to get there, they first need to undo the current culture…and the first step towards accomplishing this is to gain control of the 3 major conduits of information dissemination in the West – i.e. education, entertainment, and news media.
They targeted the universities first, going after the throngs of naive, impressionable students that entered every year. After graduating, those same students moved into positions in education, entertainment, and news media. And as time has passed, those students have become the elites in those instutions: school teachers, principals, and superintendents…tenured professors, deans, college presidents…journalists, senior editors…directors, executive producers, studio heads.
Now, these “intellectuals” are in the position to “shape” the minds of future leaders, promoting what they believe is just simple, decent, small “l” liberalism. The funny thing is is that the vast majority of these people probably have no idea of the real ideology that they’re promulgating (see “Useful Idiot”).
Fifty years later, Marxism’s “useful idiots” have been allowed to gain absolute control over the conduits of information. And they’ve been using that control to promote and cover for the political party that is most amenable to “liberal” thought – i.e. Democrats. And for the past 50 years, Democrat politicians have been busy promoting policies that will eventually cause a meltdown of this country’s capitalist system – i.e. ridiculously unmanageable entitlements like welfare, Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, and coming soon!…Universal Health Care!; ridiculous environmental initiatives like no drilling, no new refineries, no nuke plants, and coming soon!…the Save the Polar Bears/Great and Wonderful Gore Tax!
What’s going on – or rather, what’s not going on – with our energy policy is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon, as their goal, of course, is to eventually nationalize energy production.
You see, the Left has given up on trying to convince all of us ignorant rubes as to the superiority of their brilliance and morality. Everything now is being done piecemeal, using the old frog-in-the-frying-pan tactic. Instead of just coming out and saying what their intentions are, they gently place us in the pan and slowly turn up the heat by 1) appealing to race/sex/class envy and populism and 2) threatening critics with the labels of “Racist!” and “Sexist!” and “Nazi!”
Regarding the energy policy, there goals are two-fold. First, fatally weaken “Big Oil!” by refusing to let oil companies drill where the oil is located, thus ensuring that they will eventually go under. Second, make consumers so angry about high energy prices that Democrats – the same party that is to blame for the nation’s lack of energy independence – can then turn and say, “Hey, why don’t we just nationalize the American oil industry?!? We can even subsidize prices for you, Joe Six-Pack…we’ll just raise taxes on those E-e-e-v-il Corporations! Heck, we’ll even be able to open up the coastlines and Alaska for drilling then…because there won’t be any chance for accidents or exploitation now that the greed and sloppiness of the E-e-e-v-il Corporations has been taken out of the equation!”
And will anyone say “But you’re the ones who’ve caused this problem in the first place!” Of course not! Because the media that should be informing the public are fellow travelers on the Democrats political train. They will actually provide cover for them as they do it!
And all the ignorant rubes (i.e. Democrats) will cheer “Yay!!!!”
It’s the exact same tactic they’re taking with health insurance “reform”. They can’t come right out and say “we’re going to nationalize American health insurance” because it opens up the floor for the American public to get real information about the mind-exploding cost that will be involved. So, instead, they’re going to create a government-funded “alternative” at first…then slowly turn up the heat.
Here’s how it will work: the US gov’t will offer all Americans the “option” of receiving a gov’t health insurance policy…”but it’s not going to be univeral health insurance, cuz you’re still going to have the choice of keeping your private health insurance if you want to!”
Sounds reasonable, right? WRONG! Because it’s just a ruse to fool people into opening the entitlement door…a door that, once opened, they know can’t be closed again. Once they get the go-ahead, the gov’t is going to be able to offer their insurance at a much lower cost than private companies. How? Because unlike private-sector companies, the gov’t can simply put off paying the actual costs of the services rendered by rolling it up into the national debt. IOW, they’ll simply subsidize the costs by dumping the real costs off onto future generations – and most importantly, future tax increases. So, over time, private companies won’t be able to compete and will go under. Et, voila! Universal health care!
People, we can talk about “adhering to conservative principles” until we’re blue in the face…until we break the stanglehold the Marxists have on our cultural institutions, we are facing a Sisyphean task of futility. Eventually, these people are going to do damage to Western Civilization that won’t be fixable by any means. And when they’ve succeeded in creating enough economic distress (think another Great Depression type event), they’re counting on people panicking enough to simply turn over power to them.
“That will never happen! People aren’t that stupid!” But they will be that scared…and scared people do really stupid things. Espcecially when they’ve lived a life of utter ease and comfort and are really, truly afraid that it might be taken away from them.
It’s time for us all to start being very concerned people. But it’s even more time for us all to start having the courage of our convictions and screaming out so that maybe – just maybe – enough people may begin to notice the gathering storm.
Jun 5, 2008 - 2:04 pm 15. Brian:Mr. Pummer readily admits that the truly groundbreaking technology is 25 or more years away. I guess in the meantime we are to suffer and like it. I fear what my heating oil bill is going to be like this winter. Maybe I should send the bill to Mr. Pummer and ask if it brings a smile to his face.
Jun 5, 2008 - 2:08 pm 16. cirby:I ride a motorcycle and a bicycle, so I’m pretty good with less cars on the road. Unfortunately, I spent nearly $15 filling up my motorcycle a couple of days back. Ouch.
Once or twice a week, I get a “would you be interested in selling your Honda” note on the seat.
(The local bicycle shop has a three-day waiting list for fixing bicycles… not to mention that nice used bikes have about doubled in price.)
Jun 5, 2008 - 3:13 pm 17. huxley:Like I say, I’m all for cheap energy, but it’s clear that it will take some pain like current gas prices before American voters will get serious about developing our own energy.
I hope that when voters have to choose between their jobs and lifestyles versus the impossible constraints and nimbyisms of the leftists/greens that things will change.
Jun 5, 2008 - 4:04 pm 18. bj:Like cheap food it has made us fat and slovenly, it is healthy for the rich to be humbled. The sad part of a ‘world economy’ is that the poorest are hurt so much more. In the end we will all be much stronger and better after the lesson we are about to learn. It is all linked to excessive consumption. Hopefully the next president will make the right decisions, to increase supply and demand energy efficiency.
Jun 5, 2008 - 4:40 pm 19. Fat Jolly Penguin:I don’t want to sound crazy or anything (though I sure feel like I’m getting there), but I’m fairly certain that people like Mr. Tallabas don’t honestly care about the benefits that might come from higher gas prices. Even if those benefits came to pass, it would only be by going in the direction they want anyway: greatly expanded control over minute details of the lives of normal people, while those in charge get a free ride. This is communism, pure and simple, and I pray that enough people will wake up and stop it before it’s too late.
Jun 5, 2008 - 4:40 pm 20. Jude:Damn those CEO’s for all their millions in profits. Have you considered the Hollywood crowd? How about the news casters with salaries that the CEO’s would envy? Sports people making millions? God love em’ make all you can. But let some bastard work his balls off to make a company make a profit for the share holders and the gallows are waiting. Actually the CEO’s are getting the crumbs.
The oil CEO’s embarrassed the Congress who haven’t a clue how to run a business with their questions not relevant to the oil production and their questions about everything not connected to oil at all. Congress is a joke!!! Each Congressman has a staff that advises the Congressman or women and the Congressman/Women is only as smart as its staff. Give me a break!
There are 535 people who control this United States of 30 million. Do your homework people and get your head out of your backside.
Jun 5, 2008 - 6:12 pm 21. Justin:I blame this on the Republicans. If they had been more worthy of their calling the libs would never have gotten into office in the first place.
Jun 5, 2008 - 8:32 pm 22. Gozer the Carpathian:Oooh I was sooooo pissed when I heard this on Fox News a few weeks back. (On Neil Cavuto’s show no less!) No seriously I was furious! What is wrong with these people? Do they want to ruin the economy and kill people world wide?
1. I live in the middle of the Mohave Desert. It’s hot here and lots of empty space between everything. We already pay more for gas here than most of the nation, and you can see every rise in price affect things locally. Do these morons think good just “appear” in stores or on their doorsteps? NO! They’re DRIVEN there by disel using trucks and good old disel/electric trains. (Trains are really good though, but they only go certain places.) You double the cost of fuel that price is passed along ALL ALONG THE SUPPLY CHAIN!
2. “Reduced mobility.” Okay these city folks LOVE to say “Use Mass Transit” or “take fewer trips.” That’s all fine and dandy for THEM. What about those of us who don’t have grocery stores in town, who are 30 miles away from the nearest store and there are NO mass transit systems in the area. How about those of us who would hate living in the “Hives” we call cities and prefer to live in the wide open spaces of this wonderful country? What about that age old passtime the road trip? Have you seen the road to Vegas/Laughlin/the Colorado River EVERY FRIKIN WEEKEND? Do you want to kill the economies that depend on that traffic? (Like here in Barstow or my hometown of Needles.)
3. We’re already seeing Air carriers going out of buisness due to higher operating costs, and folks are complaining about every little fee imaginable and with good reason. Do we want to kill a whole section of our economy or force it into government control like Amtrak? (Which is a joke let me tell you!)
4. How about the space industry? Let’s kill off another sector I’m in why don’t we? Currently I’m 90 miles away from the nearest town (in the middle of Fort Irwin) and we were responsible for getting the Phoenix down. Can you imagine the gas costs for an entire NASA complex that HAS to be far away from cities and town that cause RFI?
So let’s see let’s kill off the Auto industry, the air industry, tourist based communities, rural communities, increase the cost of everything that’s transported, increase the cost to produce everything (since it costs money to get supplies to make stuff!), oh and starve those worldwide? Yeah that’s a plan. FU morons!
Jun 5, 2008 - 8:38 pm 23. rj:I’m surprised that so many of you don’t agree that there is an real upside to $8/gal fuel. I hate to think how much of my working week goes to pay for just for the privilege of driving to-and-fro, but at the same time I am glad that it is causing so many people to take a hard look at their lifestyles – already I have seen people do small things that will improve their situation and the environment’s…why can’t we see this as a win-win. People should have been conscientious about fuel conservation and environmental impact all along…combining errands instead of making several individual trips into town all along…car-pooling…using fuel efficient practices…using bikes or public transportation when appropriate. I would love to bike more or take the bus, but the area I live in makes this almost impossible to do…now, however, after the specter of $4+ gas, the city been taking steps to expand bus routes and widen bike lanes – these are all good things. Maybe I have a simplistic, positivist view, but I will embrace it, and I wish everyone else would do the same.
Jun 5, 2008 - 9:02 pm 24. Justin:@ rj:
Because a lot of this country can’t afford it. The environment can go to hell if it stops America from being a third world country.
“would love to bike more or take the bus, but the area I live in makes this almost impossible to do”
Not everyone has the option of biting the bullet. And many who try will be broken by it. Also, this is going to cause a recession and later on a depression, which is bad no matter how you slice it.
Jun 5, 2008 - 9:47 pm 25. Chris:Rob W,
“You want to keep the internal combustion engine around for ‘ol times sakes? Yes, GM closed SUV plants, but at the same time they ramped up production of the plug-in electric Chevy Volt. That is the real positive change that has already come from the gas hikes so far.”
Where does the electricity come from to plug in my plug-in? Just asking. You’re for nukes, I presume?
And Rvastar pretty much nails it. This isn’t about the environment but rather expanding government control.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:38 pm 26. Fat Jolly Penguin:Justin:
@ rj:
Because a lot of this country can’t afford it. The environment can go to hell if it stops America from being a third world country.
“would love to bike more or take the bus, but the area I live in makes this almost impossible to do”
Not everyone has the option of biting the bullet. And many who try will be broken by it. Also, this is going to cause a recession and later on a depression, which is bad no matter how you slice it.
Jun 5, 2008 – 9:47 pm
Just thought that was worth repeating. Most excellent.
Jun 5, 2008 - 11:58 pm 27. Scott:I don’t agree that the american lifestyle is the envy of the world. And I think that is a cliche that gets used far more often by american journalists then is the case.
Now sure, what person starving in a third world country wouldn’t envy the selection we have at a supermarket. But try going out to the native tribes still left in the world, that is the ones who’s land we haven’t stolen, and they might not be so envious of the american lifestyle, in fact they might look at it with disgust.
Jun 6, 2008 - 4:59 am 28. Steve:This is more then just about expanded government control. This is about destroying America and Western Europe. Think about what most of the tree huggers want, for us to de-industrialize and return to basically 17th century technology and for there to be a lot less of us. They don’t care how much it hurts people because the ugly secret is they hate humans and see as a plague upon mother earth.
Scott
But try going out to the native tribes still left in the world, that is the ones who’s land we haven’t stolen, and they might not be so envious of the american lifestyle, in fact they might look at it with disgust
Ah I love this arguement. The people who wring their hands over what we did to the natives but yet who have no problem reaping the benefits of our evil ways. If it bothers you so much why aren’t you living with those natives?
Jun 6, 2008 - 6:06 am 29. Jeff:Anything more than 2200 calories a day, a thatch lean-to, and a small camp fire is excess consumption.
Jun 6, 2008 - 6:33 am 30. tcarver:what nobody wants to talk about or aknowledge is what effect high fuel prices have on inflation. the trucking have to pass on as much of it as they can to stay afloat. this price must then be passed on to the consumer. everything you buy at the store is transported on a truck, every thing manufacters buy comes on a truck. all this is directly affected by fuel prices. if fuel goes to $8 a gallon the average will have hard time affording grocies let alone the other things that spur our economy. now if we find a solution the fuel prices the inflation it created will not just go away. the sooner we can stop this the better we’ll all be. p.s. desiel is already $5 a gallon plus at the current rate it will be over $8 this time next year.
Jun 6, 2008 - 12:20 pm 31. Thomas Vago:I personally think it’s great that we’re paying $4+ per gallon of gasoline. We reap what we sow, so to speak. This is what happens when people keep on voting in the status quo. And in the end, we only have ourselves to blame.
This is what happens when you mandate ridiculous formulations of gasoline for different areas of the country, and prevent the building of new refineries at the same time. This is what happens when you prevent drilling for oil in ANWR and Colorado and Montana.
Go ahead and hug those cute, cuddly polar bears that you think are like the ones in those stupid Coke commercials. I would personally love to see one of them eat such an idiot. Especially those morons who think that the US has such a ‘poor’ track record on pollution – they either ignorantly or willingly disregard the really awful polluters of this age. You know, the USSR and Red China?
Jun 6, 2008 - 3:37 pm 32. Oil Fallacies « Tai-Chi Policy:[...] of these reasons are absurd when viewed [...]
Jun 6, 2008 - 3:59 pm 33. Justin:The one good thing I can see coming out of this is the possibility of people tracing back to who it is that is keeping us from drilling for oil in our own country. This could be a bomb that will blow up in the faces of the democratic party.
Jun 6, 2008 - 8:58 pm 34. Fighter Pilot:Couldn’t agree more Thomas & tcarver.
In an election year the MSM always turn to the “miserable economy” if they’re trying to get a Dem elected. Unfortunately, this time I think they may be right. The issue, however is not pointing at what I percieve as the true culprit, their “green” buddies.
I would argue that the world economy runs on oil today. The movement of goods and services depend on this “puss”, like it or not. High oil prices effect everything from farming to internet commerce to the handyman with a truck and ladder. High oil increases the cost of any business and equally affects every household. Do I fill up the car to get to work and buy higher priced food or buy the latest must have item. Simple.
Our tree hugging friends have prevented us from tapping a huge resource in our own country and also prevent us from refining it. I can guarantee their cool little foriegn 300 mile/gallon smart car didn’t arrive in the country by sailboat. The blocking of drilling and refineries in this country has allowed foreign powers to dictate world oil prices and supply…FACT. Now until a viable alternate source is created we need oil at a stable price…FACT. If the economy stalls, their is less money to invest in alternate source research…like it or not FACT. Build all the windmills you want, but a windmill can’t run an airplane, truck or cargo ship (things that move goods).
The blocking of refineries and drilling rely very heavily on the belief that we are still using 1970s technology which was less reliable and efficient. It will cause environmental chaos and disaster they chant. Bull#@*! It will actually increase revenues and allow for more research for alternatives and safety precautions. Here’s a nasty little secret…the oil companies know that oil is a nonrenewable resource so they need to look to the future too. They need alternatives as well for when it runs out.
Once again the liberal chant “Don’t interupt my emotional argument with facts”. They made this SH#! sandwhich and now we all have to take a bite. Thanks for that and pass the ketchup.
Jun 7, 2008 - 6:28 am 35. Mace:Rising gas prices “unfairly places a financial burden on the poorest working Americans”
Nice summary of Socialism – EVERYTHING impacts the poor “unfairly.”
Jun 7, 2008 - 6:55 am 36. Mike:The U.S. survived the onslaught of the Reds, but the Greens will surely complete what their ideological predesessors began. You see, the Greens use of energy is “good” i.e., necessary, everyone elses is “catastrophic”. Also, Al Gore’s feces doesn’t stink, and Obama is a divine being so he doesn’t even produce feces. Get it now? Like Orwell said: ” All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. “
Jun 7, 2008 - 7:40 am 37. John:Call me a loon if you like, but I see this a bit differently.
What the Arabs failed to accomplish with a suicide squad on 9-11, they are now doing with OPEC. This is just another facet of jihad. They’ve finally figured out they can’t kill us with bombs and bullets, so now they are going to try to wreck our culture and civilization by economic starvation. I believe it’s all a part of their means to an end.
Folks should remember that it only costs the Saudi $2.00 to produce a bbl of oil, which by the way, was found and developed by the American oil companies. (No one actually believes an Arab has the mental and technical capacity to find, drill, develop, and build all that infrastructure, do you?)
We are at war, folks, and the enemy is winning this one. Better dig in and face the future with a bit of backbone, we’re gonna need it.
Jun 10, 2008 - 6:29 am 38. STEVE DUNKLEY:the true reason for rising gas prices and the resulting inflation is capitalism. the capitalist will try through speculation to profit from the most essntial of human needs when all else fails. such as energy, food, and property this can be easily illustrated by the present sub prime crises where desperate instituitions aided by their lackeys in government gave high interest loans to poor people who could not pay them back. why should a person have to put themeselve in hock for a basic need? why cant you people understand that capitalism is chaotic system\`at is prone to high inflation, economic insecurity lation, military conflict BECAUSE =
Jun 18, 2008 - 2:17 am 39. Anonymous:e struggle to control energy resouces. this system should be replaced world wide by a democratic system that distributes rescources fairly and i dont mean the old starlinist system of state capitalism that existed in a few contries. that still had banks and rationed by the use of mon `The can be no democracy under capitalaisim democracy is also about democracy of resouces not just being ablt o vote for whatever cola brand differnt names but same product
the australia is so cool
Jun 21, 2009 - 7:23 pm 40. mike3:The FACT of the matter is that oil will not last forever and will run out. Yet you don’t provide any answers here at all to this problem.
What do you suggest?
Nov 6, 2009 - 1:19 am