Bush gives the U.S. gas

[Al_U_Card]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/17/markets/oi...sion=2008041708

 

It would appear that "I ran" and the sabre rattling has had the desired effect. Iraq sent oil from $30 to $70 and now we are well on the way to $140 per bbl.

 

Is there any hope of pouring oil (if we can afford it) on these troubled waters?

[Al_U_Card]

As an aside to this point, recalculate the "actual" price per bbl in euros over the same time period. Guess who is taking the hit? Thank you Mr. U.S. citizen!

[Aberlour10]

 

Is there any hope of pouring oil (if we can afford it) on these troubled waters?

 

I am afraid, there isn't, the last bad news: Russia cannot sustain its current oil production level.

 

Robert

[Al_U_Card]

Well, price to supply cost between Arabian crude to gas at $70/bbl is close to that for Canadian oil sands to gas at $140/bbl......so, are we (Canada) next?

[Winstonm]

The falling dollar is the root of rising oil prices. Thank Bernanke and Paulson, too.

[kenberg]

As of yet, I cannot think of a single instance where the price of gas has influenced any plans that I might wish to make. I assume that over time it will effect my choices, and will influence society as a whole. It just takes a while to address the issue.

 

In the 70s, a time when you got in line for maybe an hour to buy gas on a designated day, there were some substantial social effects. For example, some of the planned communities, where the typical resident had a long commute, went bankrupt. Columbia Md, a Rouse planned community where I lived at the time, survived but housing prices took a tumble because of the distances involved for the many who worked in DC or Baltimore. You could get really good deals on used, and new, guzzlers.

 

I'm not sure how much of this has happened yet (the widespread tumble in house prices being mostly from other causes), but surely it must be on its way.

[Winstonm]

As of yet, I cannot think of a single instance where the price of gas has influenced any plans that I might wish to make. I assume that over time it will effect my choices, and will influence society as a whole. It just takes a while to address the issue.

 

In the 70s, a time when you got in line for maybe an hour to buy gas on a designated day, there were some substantial social effects. For example, some of the planned communities, where the typical resident had a long commute, went bankrupt. Columbia Md, a Rouse planned community where I lived at the time, survived but housing prices took a tumble because of the distances involved for the many who worked in DC or Baltimore. You could get really good deals on used, and new, guzzlers.

 

I'm not sure how much of this has happened yet (the widespread tumble in house prices being mostly from other causes), but surely it must be on its way.

Consider all the petroleum-based products you use.

[kenberg]

As of yet, I cannot think of a single instance where the price of gas has influenced any plans that I might wish to make. I assume that over time it will effect my choices,  and will influence society as a whole. It just takes a while to address the issue.

 

In the 70s, a time when you got in line for maybe an hour to buy gas on a designated day, there were some substantial social effects. For example, some of the planned communities, where the typical resident had a long commute, went bankrupt. Columbia Md, a Rouse planned community where  I lived at the time, survived but housing prices took a tumble because of the distances involved for the many who worked in DC or Baltimore. You could get really good deals on used, and new, guzzlers.

 

I'm not sure how much of this has happened yet (the widespread tumble in house prices being mostly from other causes), but surely it must be on its way.

Consider all the petroleum-based products you use.

Whatever they are, I still use them. But yes, I assume that there will be changes.

[onoway]

It isn't even the petroleum based products we use directly but the fact that almost everything we use depends of some mode of transport to get it to us. Consider also the rising cost of growing food, every time a tractor get fired up to plow. disc, fertilize, seed, spray, harvest....not a lot of choice but to cope with the price of fuel

 

Interesting, perhaps..years ago I read a study done way back on the comparitive value of horse vs tractor. At that time the conclusion was, that if all factors were taken into consideration, as long as fuel was under 50cents a gallon, tractors were the most efficient/profitable way to go. Well...horses are cheap and tractors are not, and grass grows most places, but it's rare to find anyone who would have a clue now how to use a horse to farm, or to find the equipment to put behind it, plus it's hellishly hard work to plow with horses. It also wouldn't be possible to farm 12000 acres or so with horses nowadays, unless you had a LOT of horses and a LOT of people to work with them. Someone once told me with pride that he needed a tractor that was the size of a small apartment complex because he had so much land to work...the problem was he needed that much land just to pay for the tractor..

 

Anyway, (anyways? :) ) gardens this year might be a good idea as I expect food prices to climb considerably, especially next winter.

[jtfanclub]

Consider also the rising cost of growing food, every time a tractor get fired up to plow. disc, fertilize, seed, spray, harvest....not a lot of choice but to cope with the price of fuel

It's worse than that, most industrial fertilizers are petroleum based, and the new genetically engineered crops take a lot of fertilizer. The oil usage of the tractor is apparently overwhelemed by the oil usage of the fertilizer.

 

Gonna be strange, the "organic" tomatoes and other vegetables are actually going to be cheaper than the mass market stuff. I'd say having a garden this summer would be a very good idea indeed.

[Al_U_Card]

My recollection of the '70's oil crisis was the bbl went from around $6 to the $30 range.

 

We had been plugging along at the $30 bbl until Iraq and it since has doubled to $70 ish.

 

Take the $7 bbl in 1970 and increase at a rate of 7% per year (to allow for those big inflation years) so that

 

1980 $14

1990 $28

2000 $56

2010 $112

 

OMG! Oil prices are where they were expected to be!!! Good thing we had those wars to get things back on track for the poor oil companies. Thanks Bushie!

[kenberg]

Consider also the rising cost of growing food, every time a tractor get fired up to plow. disc, fertilize, seed,  spray, harvest....not a lot of choice but to cope with the price of fuel

It's worse than that, most industrial fertilizers are petroleum based, and the new genetically engineered crops take a lot of fertilizer. The oil usage of the tractor is apparently overwhelemed by the oil usage of the fertilizer.

 

Gonna be strange, the "organic" tomatoes and other vegetables are actually going to be cheaper than the mass market stuff. I'd say having a garden this summer would be a very good idea indeed.

Change is particularly likely to occur when self-interest and common interest merge. During the Second World War my family had a fairly substantial garden. It was a good economic move, it provided good nutrition,and it was considered patriotic. Gardens were then called, if I recall correctly, victory gardens.

 

The price of gas could hasten other changes, many that will be coming eventually anyway. Of course BBO is an example. My unit game is about 40 miles from my home. The traffic is tough and mostly I often figure it takes more time to drive there than it is worth and so I log on. But the fact that even with my reasonably fuel efficient Honda it now costs somewhere near ten bucks in gas round trip is not totally irrelevant. On a different example, I am teaching a couple of classes this spring semester (In theory I am retired but a guy can't play bridge all of the time). Personal contact with students is of value (at least I like to think so) but there is a fair amount of instruction that would work just fine over the internet and with CDs. Think of Bridgemaster and the various instructional CDs in bridge. We could all save some gas, and perhaps actually increase the quality of personal contact, by blending online and in person instruction.

 

No doubt some policies by our government would be better than others but the fact is that the wisest policy can only do so much if we continue to use oil, gas, and other petroleum products as if there were an infinite supply and no consequences. It would have been far better if years ago we had imposed a significant tax on gasoline so that we could reduce consumption while giving the money to ourselves rather than to Saudi Arabia, but we didn't and now we have the situation we have. I imagine there will be some changes, and hopefully at least some of them will be for the better.

[mike777]

I thought the policians wanted the cost of energy to go up so we would use less and pollute less. Now people say it costs too much to use energy and they complain.

 

Europe has a huge tax on energy. I am not sure what they have accomplished with it but assuming they have stopped pollution and created a bunch of high tech cool stuff from all that tax money we should borrow their stuff. I guess we can pay for it with a couple bucks more tax per gallon of gas or unit of energy.

[mike777]

Consider also the rising cost of growing food, every time a tractor get fired up to plow. disc, fertilize, seed,  spray, harvest....not a lot of choice but to cope with the price of fuel

It's worse than that, most industrial fertilizers are petroleum based, and the new genetically engineered crops take a lot of fertilizer. The oil usage of the tractor is apparently overwhelemed by the oil usage of the fertilizer.

 

Gonna be strange, the "organic" tomatoes and other vegetables are actually going to be cheaper than the mass market stuff. I'd say having a garden this summer would be a very good idea indeed.

If food prices go up and go up alot is that not good news? We eat a lot less, grow less, and pollute less as you use less chemicals because they cost too much or fuel to transport food costs too much.

 

We all may wish for cheap, pollution free energy but that just means we use alot more of it if we did. That means we use that energy in all kinds of areas, some of which may cause pollution.

[irdoz]

It feels to me that the 'global food crisis' as it is being called is the firestorm of global warming. International rice prices are projected to increase by another 100% in the next two months.

 

As I understand it the reasons for the current shotage are:

 

i) decrease in arable land (global warming? and use of land for housing i.e. overpopulation)

ii) a run of 'bad' years for crops (global warming? and usual variance)

iii) overpopulation (increased demand)

iv) and probably the biggest reason why this suddenly became a 'crisis'

- traditional food crops being used to make biofuels (and to supply Bransons mad idea to run his planes on biofuels would take 66% of the UKs agriculture)

 

Possible things to do about it:

 

i) make farming practices more efficient (inefficent farming is massively subsidised in the US, Japan and Europe)

ii) a liitle more sense on biofuels (mostly they seem like a bad idea) - it seems to me that the current redirection of food to biofuels penalises the poorest who did the least to contribute to global warming.

[whereagles]

There are a couple of big oil projects coming onstream next couple of years (kazaksthan, saudi arabia, brazil, angola). That and tar sands should put an extra 5 million barrels/day into the market.

 

Too bad older fields would have declined more than that by the time. Oil has no where to go but up. Expect $300-500 oil before some changes start to operate and $1000 before any major lifestyle switch.

[luke warm]

not to mention the big find in the gulf... they think it'll be bigger than anything so far

[Winstonm]

Bush today reached the distinction of being the president who has held the highest approval rating in history (90%) and now the highest disapproval rating in history (69%).

 

"I'm a uniter, not a divider." - George W. Bush

[whereagles]

leaders in times of war usually get huge approvals.

 

I consider George W. Bush a clear casting error.

[PassedOut]

leaders in times of war usually get huge approvals.

 

I consider George W. Bush a clear casting error.

During the Vietnam War Johnson and Nixon weren't hugely popular.

[kenberg]

leaders in times of war usually get huge approvals.

 

I consider George W. Bush a clear casting error.

During the Vietnam War Johnson and Nixon weren't hugely popular.

Nor was Truman during the Korean War, at least not by 1952. The twenty-second amendment didn't apply to him (it was passed while he was in office and applied to future presidents) but there was no way he could have won re-election. Of course the same thing was said in 1948, but lightning rarely strikes twice.

 

If a president wants wartime popularity, he damn well better be seen as winning it. You don't become popular by getting a bunch of people killed in what appears to be a hopeless cause.

[whereagles]

i said "usually", not "always"

[Winstonm]

leaders in times of war usually get huge approvals.

 

I consider George W. Bush a clear casting error.

During the Vietnam War Johnson and Nixon weren't hugely popular.

Nor was Truman during the Korean War, at least not by 1952. The twenty-second amendment didn't apply to him (it was passed while he was in office and applied to future presidents) but there was no way he could have won re-election. Of course the same thing was said in 1948, but lightning rarely strikes twice.

 

If a president wants wartime popularity, he damn well better be seen as winning it. You don't become popular by getting a bunch of people killed in what appears to be a hopeless cause.

Correct - Truman held the old disapproval record at 67%.

[han]

DId Bush really have an approval rating of 90% at some point? When was that?

[jdonn]

DId Bush really have an approval rating of 90% at some point? When was that?

I think they added together the approval ratings for the entire family. 90% was the official Bush approval rating!