Tag: energy

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

It’s another sign of the End of the World. The NY Times writes the obituary for summertime teenage cruising:

For car-loving American teenagers, this is turning out to be the summer the cruising died.

Kevin Ballschmiede, 16, pined for his 1999 Dodge Ram – “my pride and joy” – the other night as he hung out in a parking lot in this town outside Chicago. Given that filling the 26-gallon tank can now cost more than $100, he had left it at home and caught a ride.

From coast to coast, American teenagers appear to be driving less this summer. Police officers who keep watch on weekend cruising zones say fewer youths are spending their time driving around in circles, with more of them hanging out in parking lots, malls or movie theaters.

The price spike in gasoline, to an average of $4.07 a gallon for regular unleaded, is so recent that government statistics do not yet capture the teenage-driving trend. But the figures show that overall demand for gasoline is dropping. In dozens of interviews, teenagers and their parents said the price of gasoline was forcing hard choices on them.

Recall Deep Throat (All the President’s Men), that basic piece of advice: “Follow the Money.”  As we listen to the George W. Bush’s, John McCain’s, the Republican Party’s, and the RWSM’s response to what George W. Bush described as America’s “addiction to oil”, remember those words.

In face of addiction, is the Republican Party fighting to get us (the US) to a treatment center? Struggling to help us (the US) get off the addiction? Preparing us (the US) for going cold turkey?  No, they are struggling for ways to feed the addiction and keep us hooked.  Hooked, that is, as the problem worsens even more such that the inevitable crash truly will be a crash and burn of our nation.

John McCain went to Houston Oilers’ territory for his first major energy speech. Totally apropos, because the best he could come up with was to argue for putting drills everywhere one can imagine.

Today, as I drove past a local intersection in upstate, Eastern New York with 2 gas stations, Mobil and Sunoco, and observed that the price of unleaded regular was now $4.169/gallon, I said aloud, making a terroristic hand gesture, “Basta ja!  Enough already!  Somebody needs to freeze the price right where it is before it gets even higher.”  Sometimes the truth is said in anger.

Maybe what’s needed in the short term is a price ceiling on gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil.  Admittedly this would not be a long term solution to America’s lack of an energy policy, but it might provide some short-term relief to consumers.  And it would provide far more relief than the bogus McSame proposal for a “gas tax holiday.”

This is an extremely brief sequel to this gasoline essay.

Here you go:

Oil prices veered wildly on Wednesday, as they swung back from a spike higher on a sharp fall in crude oil stocks shown in weekly data. Crude oil in New York trading jumped $6.79, to $138.10 a barrel immediately after the release of the inventory data. It retreated to $134.66 but was trading up $4.25, to $135.56 at midday.

The government’s Energy Information Administration showed that American crude oil stocks fell 4.6 million barrels to 302 million barrels last week, four times the drop that analysts’ expected.

The price fluctuations came as the Energy secretary, Samuel W. Bodman III, representing the world’s top energy user [that would be the US], said on Wednesday that he would attend a meeting later this month in Saudi Arabia where global energy producers and consumers will grapple with record-high oil prices.

As oil prices have surged 40 percent since January, Washington has differed with Saudi Arabia – the world’s top exporter – on the reason behind the price increase.

Did you get that?  Again:

where global energy producers and consumers will grapple with record-high oil prices

Producers and consumers will “grapple” in Saudi Arabia.  This will be bigger than the Thriller in Manilla.  Not.  This “grapple” is being promoted by the alleged “free market,” supply side, tax cutting Ayn Rand fans in DC.  I wouldn’t expect a caged, no rules, death match.  I’d expect more kissy face and tea with “our Saudi friends.”  And, of course, no short term solution, and no longer term energy policy changes.  Crickets.

Folks, everything is breaking down. Since we don’t have a short term solution for gas prices, I have nothing new to offer, except maybe hiding your wallet.

With the news of a possible raise of oil prices to even $150 per barrel (see Meteor Blades’ diary), I thought it was worth going back 31 years to a televised speech by Jimmy Carter in early 1977.  

Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes.

snip

We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

We did not listen, and now the “future” of energy shortages controls us.  More, after the fold.

Also on Daily Kos:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Clinton’s and McSame McCain’s energy dumb and dumber song-and-dance act about a ‘gas tax holiday’ is not getting any support from independent people who actually understand energy issues and/or economics.    As per GasTaxScam DOT com, the merit of this idea is about the merit of setting out on a long voyage with an empty tank.

A secret and confidential letter from energy dumb and dumber provides some details:

We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.

If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a “GAS TAX HOLIDAY”.  You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money.

Sure, this is a parody but parodies often hit the mark.  After all, does the ‘gas tax holiday’ concept have any more merit than that latest Nigerian oil scam or Dutch lottery winner e-mail that hit your inbox.  And, just as with those fraud emails, Hillary’s and McSame McCain’s energy dumb and energy dumber proposal merits filing in the spam folder.

Hopefully, the American public is developing the filters to filter such political spam into the ‘junk’ folder without wasting time and energy on them.

The Democrats are either very naive and  nearsighted or they are willing participants in their own party’s destruction. Perhaps they are a mixture of both. If the Democrats win the election this fall, (personally I think Obama is the odds on favorite), then they are going to be saddled with a plethora of problems. As we reach the breaking point for serious global issues. By not fixing accountability for these long ignored problems on this runaway neocon fascist train, the fallout for ignoring those problems will fall squarely on the leader in charge. You would think that the Democrats would understand this: by not pursuing impeachment and fixing accountability where it belongs, the media will vilify and blame them for all the problems that they will be handed.