Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Yup, and there's a lot more "non-deep water" space off our coasts where we ought to be drilling. Might not bring the price down immediately, but we'll all still be driving 5-10 years from now and I don't want to deal with these prices for that long.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Amen, and had the drilling in the Gulf been closer to shore in shallow water, that spill would have been capped in 1/4 the time.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

The day the uprising first broke in Tunisia, some 4 months ago, I traded my truck for a tiny-a$$
Chevy Cruze. I thought, "Hmm, this is going to spread fast, and if it gets to Sau.Ara., look out." Well
as usual, I prove to be eerily good at predicting bad. Granted, it was getting time to either fix the
niggling little broke crap and change the Serp. belt or go new vehicle anyway, but....
So my fillup only recently passed what my truck USED to take at the old price. But Chevy lied, it doesn't
even sniff 39 mpg. Of course, I drive like a maniac. But I digress.
1.) STOP ALLOWING speculation on oil futures.
2.) take back all subsidies
3.) get the F OUT of the middle east.
After these three things are done, there will be precious little else we can do about it and we'd better
strap in for the long haul. As long as a gallon of "biofuel" takes way more energy to to produce than it
replaces, we might as well be Vietnam and all be on bikes.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

I wish more people drove tiny cars, walked, pedaled or solared there way around. That would leave more, cheaper fuel for me.


Unfortunately, as long as the middle-ages-east is part of the world, we're stuck in it with them.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Saw one of these last weekend a little north of town

http://www.marax.at/funpix/ford_f650_01.jpg

And I thought it was bad filling up my 250!

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

^forget the cost of diesel for that thing. Imagine what the cost of AT tires that big is :o

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Thing is the "fixes" being sold to us aren't what the public wants. Americans like big comfortable cars/SUVs/trucks. We don't want to be shoehorned into a tin can and risk our lives just to cut our gas price down by 30%. Americans want to be comfortable and be able to haul their family (and their crap) around without costing an arm an a leg. Last time gas was over $4 and went back down, the first thing that hit the skids was hybrid sales. Go figure. You'll never get the extra $3-5000 back from a hybrid unless gas is over $4 consistently for 5 years.

Brad I think you're right to an extent. Speculation on oil futures needs to go. Let the market dictate the price, not speculators or some production group strangling us like OPEC.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Speculators are the market. All commodities are future traded.
I agree that OPEC is a cartel and should be illegal.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2011/...gy_oil.top.png

Oil prices plunged more than 8% Thursday as weak economic data and a strengthening dollar drove crude to its biggest one-day drop since April 2009.

The main U.S. oil contract for June delivery settled down $9.44, or 8.6%, to $99.80 a barrel. That's its lowest level since mid-March and marks its biggest one-day percentage drop in two years. Brent crude, the European benchmark, fell $10.73 to $110.46 a barrel.

The drop hasn't translated into lower gasoline prices though. The national average price for a gallon of gasoline rose for the forty-fourth straight day to $3.985 on Thursday, according to motorist group AAA.

Lower crude prices usually translate into lower gasoline prices, but the effect is delayed.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

:tpd: Speculators are what drive the oil business. There is nothing wrong with speculators. Every investor (no matter what the investment), is a speculator.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

I'll pay the national average! Here it is $4.29/gal. :hn

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

Bull$hit, you can stop oil futures trading with a stroke of the pen...Speculation may well be what drives the market,
and I agree, it IS THE MARKET. But the market IS NOT ALL OF AMERICA. Stay out of things that crush families
in whimsical fashion, go trade pork bellies and orange juice. Speculation won't change, just what's illegal to play with.

Re: Steamed up my afternoon
 

After thinking about it more, I realize that buying oil in general is speculating, because you secure supplies
and contracts in advance. BUT you do not have to have traders in expensive ties who buy and sell but
never touch involved. Let's leave pricing to the people ho actually know and understand the effects of
world events on the price of a barrel of oil. Wide swings anytime an arab farts are the fault of commodities
speculators out for an exiting buck, not people who make a living trading oil from the patch to the consumer.

I mean I GUESS, what do I know.