The Gasoline Blues

[porcy62]

organissimo Tour of Italy, 2009.

organissimo relocation to Italy, 2010.

Gonna be tough on you guys moving Jim's instrument of choice via motorcycle!

Are you kidding? We are in the third world where the answer is always: NO PROBLEM.

http://www.slideshare.net/yasas/the-real-kingsof-logistics/

[Free For All]

organissimo Tour of Italy, 2009.

organissimo relocation to Italy, 2010.

Eurorganissimo?

[Guy Berger]

So, you guys don't vote on tax increases, they are just added to the budget?????

Yeah, we vote on the Government every five years, or so.

The theory - and I think it's correct - is that a government should have an integrated tax strategy, which includes different kinds of tax to raise the revenue it thinks it requires. Different mixes of taxes have different effects - on each other and on the behaviour of businesses and individuals. Letting people vote on individual elements in the mix - and people would vote their pockets, of course - risks generating all kinds of counter-productive behaviour that runs against what the government - with the people's consent - is trying to do.

That's the theory - it isn't quite as neat as that in practice.

MG

Doesn't the budget have to be approved by Parliament anyway? If so I don't see what Berigan finds to be objectionable.

Guy

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

So, you guys don't vote on tax increases, they are just added to the budget?????

Yeah, we vote on the Government every five years, or so.

The theory - and I think it's correct - is that a government should have an integrated tax strategy, which includes different kinds of tax to raise the revenue it thinks it requires. Different mixes of taxes have different effects - on each other and on the behaviour of businesses and individuals. Letting people vote on individual elements in the mix - and people would vote their pockets, of course - risks generating all kinds of counter-productive behaviour that runs against what the government - with the people's consent - is trying to do.

That's the theory - it isn't quite as neat as that in practice.

MG

Doesn't the budget have to be approved by Parliament anyway? If so I don't see what Berigan finds to be objectionable.

Guy

Parliament votes on expenditure - and crawls over whichever items it feels like. But they don't, as far as I've ever heard, vote on proposals for raising money; unless those proposals involve new legislation, which is unusual (but not unheard of) - most tax changes simply change the rates at which a tax is levied and don't require a new Act of Parliament.

In any case, what Berigan was talking about (I think) is the notion that specific proposals (including taxes) have to be voted on by the public as part of an election process - other boxes to tick on the voting paper or something. Isn't that the system over there?

(sorry to be so slow - connection problems)

MG

[Jim Alfredson]

$3.69 a gallon in Lansing today.

It makes the prospect of going to Grand Rapids tomorrow to play a gig for $120 kinda stupid.

[WorldB3]

Its already 4 in the bay area but we always pay more then the rest of the country. I expect to see 5 by the end of the summer.

[Shawn]

I'm seriously considering finding another job specifically so I don't have to commute. The little bit of extra money I was using to live off of is now being sucked into the bottomless gas tank. I'm now working a second job basically so I can afford to buy the gas to get to the first job.

I miss the days when I lived places like Seattle where a car wasn't necessary...

[7/4]

I'm seriously considering finding another job specifically so I don't have to commute. The little bit of extra money I was using to live off of is now being sucked into the bottomless gas tank. I'm now working a second job basically so I can afford to buy the gas to get to the first job.

I miss the days when I lived places like Seattle where a car wasn't necessary...

I can't blame ya. I barely travel outside of my neighborhood now unless I really have to.

[7/4]

April 23rd, 2008

Another day, another record gas price

Posted: 08:25 AM ET

(CNN) — Continuing a recent trend, gas prices hit a new record Wednesday, with the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline coming in at $3.533 — up more than two cents from the previous record of $3.511 set Tuesday, according to AAA.

A month ago, the average price per gallon was $3.26. A year ago it was $2.85.

[Jazzmoose]

The gas price is definitely affecting me now. I don't make unnecessary trips at all; heck every trip into town and back costs over $5...if I'm not working, I ain't going. Sure miss my motorcycle now; I switched to a van in order to move out here, and the difference between 50mpg and 20mpg is killing me!

[WorldB3]

I'm seriously considering finding another job specifically so I don't have to commute. The little bit of extra money I was using to live off of is now being sucked into the bottomless gas tank. I'm now working a second job basically so I can afford to buy the gas to get to the first job.

I miss the days when I lived places like Seattle where a car wasn't necessary...

When I visited Seattle last year I was really impressed with how easy it was to get around and how accessible all the neighborhoods were. The busses are free if you stay within the downtown area but even going out to the Ballard distrct from downtown was easy and the busses were constantly running, even on a Sunday. Rain aside its a great city.

Edited April 23, 2008 by WorldB3

[WorldB3]

April 23rd, 2008

Another day, another record gas price

Posted: 08:25 AM ET

(CNN) — Continuing a recent trend, gas prices hit a new record Wednesday, with the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline coming in at $3.533 — up more than two cents from the previous record of $3.511 set Tuesday, according to AAA.

A month ago, the average price per gallon was $3.26. A year ago it was $2.85.

Where was it 2.85 a year ago, I haven't seen under 3 since the 90's. I am not kidding.

From business week - There Is No Gas Shortage

But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed Wallace

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/cont...8041_945564.htm

[7/4]

Where was it 2.85 a year ago, I haven't seen under 3 since the 90's. I am not kidding.

It was under $3 here in NJ only a few weeks ago, especially in my neighborhood. We have NY Harbor and refineries to keep prices down.

I filled up my tank at $3.29 a gallon yesterday. It's still too much.

.

[Chuck Nessa]

$3.68 today.

[Chalupa]

[Joe G]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...st&p=482337

[alocispepraluger102]

driving?

i drive 3 or 4 days a week.

bicycles and new balance running shoes give surprisingly good mileage.

[Chuck Nessa]

The falling dollar is driving the price up. Live with it.

[Jim Alfredson]

Show me how to get a Hammond organ and Leslie on the back of that bad boy, and I'm there.

[Free For All]

Show me how to get a Hammond organ and Leslie on the back of that bad boy, and I'm there.

[Robert J]

[BeBop]

Just landed in San Francisco, California and headed North for two days of work.

Chevron in Mendocino - $4.88.

Still, a whole lot less than I paid last week (obviously outside the US)

Cross reference to the How's the Weather Thread: 28 this morning in Napa Valley

[Chalupa]

April 21, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Running Out of Planet to Exploit

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Nine years ago The Economist ran a big story on oil, which was then selling for $10 a barrel. The magazine warned that this might not last. Instead, it suggested, oil might well fall to $5 a barrel.

In any case, The Economist asserted, the world faced “the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future.”

Last week, oil hit $117.

It’s not just oil that has defied the complacency of a few years back. Food prices have also soared, as have the prices of basic metals. And the global surge in commodity prices is reviving a question we haven’t heard much since the 1970s: Will limited supplies of natural resources pose an obstacle to future world economic growth?

How you answer this question depends largely on what you believe is driving the rise in resource prices. Broadly speaking, there are three competing views.

The first is that it’s mainly speculation — that investors, looking for high returns at a time of low interest rates, have piled into commodity futures, driving up prices. On this view, someday soon the bubble will burst and high resource prices will go the way of Pets.com.

The second view is that soaring resource prices do, in fact, have a basis in fundamentals — especially rapidly growing demand from newly meat-eating, car-driving Chinese — but that given time we’ll drill more wells, plant more acres, and increased supply will push prices right back down again.

The third view is that the era of cheap resources is over for good — that we’re running out of oil, running out of land to expand food production and generally running out of planet to exploit.

I find myself somewhere between the second and third views.

There are some very smart people — not least, George Soros — who believe that we’re in a commodities bubble (although Mr. Soros says that the bubble is still in its “growth phase”). My problem with this view, however, is this: Where are the inventories?

Normally, speculation drives up commodity prices by promoting hoarding. Yet there’s no sign of resource hoarding in the data: inventories of food and metals are at or near historic lows, while oil inventories are only normal.

The best argument for the second view, that the resource crunch is real but temporary, is the strong resemblance between what we’re seeing now and the resource crisis of the 1970s.

What Americans mostly remember about the 1970s are soaring oil prices and lines at gas stations. But there was also a severe global food crisis, which caused a lot of pain at the supermarket checkout line — I remember 1974 as the year of Hamburger Helper — and, much more important, helped cause devastating famines in poorer countries.

In retrospect, the commodity boom of 1972-75 was probably the result of rapid world economic growth that outpaced supplies, combined with the effects of bad weather and Middle Eastern conflict. Eventually, the bad luck came to an end, new land was placed under cultivation, new sources of oil were found in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and resources got cheap again.

But this time may be different: concerns about what happens when an ever-growing world economy pushes up against the limits of a finite planet ring truer now than they did in the 1970s.

For one thing, I don’t expect growth in China to slow sharply anytime soon. That’s a big contrast with what happened in the 1970s, when growth in Japan and Europe, the emerging economies of the time, downshifted — and thereby took a lot of pressure off the world’s resources.

Meanwhile, resources are getting harder to find. Big oil discoveries, in particular, have become few and far between, and in the last few years oil production from new sources has been barely enough to offset declining production from established sources.

And the bad weather hitting agricultural production this time is starting to look more fundamental and permanent than El Niño and La Niña, which disrupted crops 35 years ago. Australia, in particular, is now in the 10th year of a drought that looks more and more like a long-term manifestation of climate change.

Suppose that we really are running up against global limits. What does it mean?

Even if it turns out that we’re really at or near peak world oil production, that doesn’t mean that one day we’ll say, “Oh my God! We just ran out of oil!” and watch civilization collapse into “Mad Max” anarchy.

But rich countries will face steady pressure on their economies from rising resource prices, making it harder to raise their standard of living. And some poor countries will find themselves living dangerously close to the edge — or over it.

Don’t look now, but the good times may have just stopped rolling.

[WorldB3]

Show me how to get a Hammond organ and Leslie on the back of that bad boy, and I'm there.

Well sure but I don't think the rest of the band would like it.

[Guy Berger]

There are some very smart people — not least, George Soros — who believe that we're in a commodities bubble (although Mr. Soros says that the bubble is still in its "growth phase"). My problem with this view, however, is this: Where are the inventories?

Normally, speculation drives up commodity prices by promoting hoarding. Yet there's no sign of resource hoarding in the data: inventories of food and metals are at or near historic lows, while oil inventories are only normal.

Well, we know there has been hoarding of rice recently - so at least for that commodity, we are probably seeing a bubble.

Personally I am much more sanguine than Krugman at least in the long run, which pushes me closer to the 2nd scenario and further from the 3rd. Consumption and production patterns will adjust in response to higher prices, and improving technology will help as well.

That said the short run could be pretty painful as the world adjusts.

Guy

Edited April 26, 2008 by Guy