Okay, one more time for the slow folks:

Like any other product, the price of gasoline is set at what the market will bear. If you keep buying it, they'll keep selling it at higher prices until you buy less, then the price will come down. How many times do you have to see this happen before you believe it?

" When there are so many enviornmental restrictions and regulations on oil refineries and energy companies in general,"

Why, yes, I'll gladly just choke to death for $1 a gallon gas.

"Why, yes, I'll gladly just choke to death for $1 a gallon gas."

Promises, promises.

I was shocked to read a while back that a major refiner was threatening to close two of its older, less efficient refineries if they couldn't sell them.

They were unwilling to invest in upgrading the refineries' efficiency.

This in a market where there is a decidedly tight supply.

Something is rotten in the state of the oil industry.

"Glad to see you are up and around before I have to go back to work."

I thought you were retired.

just_another_bozo_on_this_bus (Anonymous) says…

“Glad to see you are up and around before I have to go back to work.”

I thought you were retired

Retirement didn't last long. Taxes come from people like me (taxpayers) Thanks for your concern.

"Taxes come from people like me (taxpayers) "

Looks like we're both bozos on that bus, too.

"Did the rich people take my money, or did the the poor people?"

If it's the latter, they apparently aren't very good at it.

1. During the Presidential campaign, both candidates decried our dependence on foreign oil. John McCain and all the Republicans at the convention loudly urged us to "drill, baby, drill."

2. Now we're drilling and filling up warehouses with apparently cheap oil that no one wants to buy, so the price goes lower and more and more warehouses fill up.

3. Meanwhile, we're buying more expensive, yet inferior-grade, oil from OPEC nations. So, at the pump, the price goes up, up, up.

What's wrong with this picture? How about stimulating our ability to transport and refine U.S.-produced oil?

But locally, we should be reaping the benefits of availability of West Texas crude that is, apparently, being refined in the Midwest. Does this mean our area gas stations are actually able to buy cheaper but are keeping prices escalated along with the rest of nation and pocketing windfall profits? Or is it the midwest refineries that are buying low and selling high? Either way, it's increasingly obvious that oil is the most blatantly manipulated industry...next to banking, that is.

"Car I can drive for five years with only minimal maintainence, a car that will return over 20 mpg on the highway, a car that can carry six people and all their junk if I want and a car which is very safe in collisions; a car gurranteed to wipe out an offending Asianmobile in such a collision."

I'd be surprised if you exceed 16-17 mpg in that barge Marion, especially when you load it up with 6 passengers and all their junk even with it's primitive throttle body fuel injection. Good luck with the center front passenger riding the "crack" with the armrest as their seat back. I've been in many of these vehicles over the years and none of them could sniff 20 mpg on the highway even with only 4 passengers. The car was originally rated at 13/17 and maximum highway speeds were 55 mph in that era.

As for crash worthiness, I'll take a current model vehicle with airbags (no, I'm not describing you Marion) crumple zone technology, front wheel drive, traction control, etc any day over your lead sled which most likely has rusty subframe and suspension components. That's 1984's version of crumple zones.

Given the age of your present ride, I'll bet you'll be looking at replacing items on your "minimal maintenance" ride like the catalytic converter/exhaust components, fuel pump, power window/door lock switches and motors, the heater core/fan, radiator, water pump, master cylinder, brake rotors/drums and pads/shoes, AC compressor, shock absorbers, etc. over the next 5 years. Detroit was nearing the apogee of their crap building circa 1984-so good luck to you. Does yours have the horn button on the the blinker stalk? LOL

I will say this, they did have a great ride and are fairly easy to work on. Good thing, you'll need it. Do the safe/smart thing and just leave it parked.

As for spending $40,000 to get good gas mileage, once again you are the master of the overstatement. You can purchase a Kia or Hyundai for 11-14K, a Ford Focus for about 15K, etc.- all brand new. Program or decent used cars are even cheaper.

My most recent acquisition gets 36 highway mpg and sells new for 17K-complete with 5 star safety ratings all around. While it has Asian heritage, it's manufactured and assembled in the U.S by American workers and isn't primarily composed of imported parts and subunits.

To each their own.

"If their pollution affects your property, then you can sue them and get an injunction, and they'll have to pay you off or find some other way."

I'm more worried about my health than my property. And I really fail to see how what you suggest is any more efficient or less bureaucratic than having regulations limiting pollution.

"Smog pumps replaced with Ford Motor Sports “off-road” air pump idler pulley and the air system scrapped, thus improving engine efficency, power and fuel economy."

So you're saying your LTD is no longer EPA compliant or street legal? Shame on you Marion. I'll bet she'll really power brake though ;-)

Low mileage doesn't necessarily connote no rust. Frame rails rust internally as well as on the more visible external components. Gas tanks and fuel/brake lines also corrode, often without visible signs

Ordinary maintenance typically is somewhat relative in the life of a car. I typically consider that to include items like oil & filter changes, tune-ups, etc.; not the laundry llst I referenced above. Wait and see, Marion. I saw all these items replaced by friends when their cars were in their prime (whatever that may have been) and not 25 year-old, 17 foot long cargo barges that requires permission from the Harbor Master to dock, I mean park.

Don't get me wrong; I really liked American iron at one time. I'd still love to own a late 60's pony car again. It's just that they've put such junk on the streets since the mid 70's. I refuse to pay good money for the unreliable and generally styling devoid crap they foist on the public. It does seem to be getting a little better lately though, eg, Chevy Malibu, Ford Fusion, etc.

I did appreciate your comment re: converters. Many of them become just that-resonators or a pain in the butt airflow restrictor. Perhaps you should drop a in set of headers and put some 20s on that beast?

"I would take power away from the government to protect the environment and put in in the hands of the people directly affected by it."

I'm all for allowing people their day in court, but your suggestion merely takes the power away from the bureaucracy of the executive and gives it to the bureaucracy of the judiciary, which currently doesn't exist on the level you envisage, meaning that they aren't really equipped to monitor and enforce the regulations that they would be required to impose if they are going to have any effect. Fines, while they can be a useful enforcement tool, really are not an adequate substitute for carefully designed and clearly defined regulations.

" you can't pollute if it affects anyone else's property interests?"

I'm as much an environmentalist as it gets, but that's an impossible standard to meet unless we just all want to dig ourselves some holes and jump in.

Besides, to slightly lesser extent, that standard already exists. While the judiciary can be the proper venue to determine whether an acceptable level of pollution has been exceeded, industries need more guidance on their activities than just the knowledge that they can be slapped with big fines and injunctions if they exceed some ill- or un-defined level. Once legislatures and courts have determined what "acceptable" is, business needs clear guidelines (as in regulations) to know that they are on the right side of the law.

Frequently, as we learn more about the effects of our actions on the planet we all live on, the assessment of what is acceptable changes. That's currently happening with CO2. It would be the height of irresponsibility to build the coal plants in SW Kansas right now, knowing full well that they could be hit with a mega judgement as soon as they go on line because of all their CO2 emissions-- there are better ways to spend those $billions.

You've got a mighty romantic idea of "property rights" and how easily they are defined. By your definition, no one would be able to do anything on their property, because almost any action anywhere can be described as damaging to someone else's property rights.

That's because "property" is an abstraction-- it's not real, no matter how badly you hardcore libertarians want to pretend otherwise.

"Right now, in an unusual market trend, West Texas crude is selling for much less than inferior grades of crude from other places around the world. A severe economic downturn has left U.S. storage facilities brimming with it, sending prices for the premium crude to five-year lows.

But it is the overseas crude that goes into most of the gas made in the United States. So prices at the pump will probably keep going up no matter what happens to the benchmark price of crude oil."

AM I not reading this right?...US reserves (of a premium grade) are "brimming" but foreign oil goes into the gas made in the US? Why? Why not use the crude that is "brimming" in US surplus to make our own gasoline? Seems to me that it would be cheaper all the way around.

Imagine being tired of a poster's attacks and scummy behavior.

Or their elitist self-congratulations. Or their paranoid ravings. Or their hypocritical whining. Or their endless accusations. Or their. . . .

76trombones (Anonymous) says…

"Give up ?? We can never win the game even when we conserve our consumption …"

Perhaps you weren't paying attention over the past few months when gas dropped from $4/gal to less than $1.30/gal.

Geez, why isn't Economics 101 a required course?

When the price goes up, end-consumers use less. This creates a surplus in the finished product (gasoline) which means the middle-men (e.g. gas stations) buy less. That creates a surplus at the refineries so they buy less of the raw product (oil). Which eventually drives down the price of a barrel of oil because the folks who drill the stuff can't drink it.

Then the cycle reverses: The people who drill the stuff (like OPEC) sell off their surpluses and cut back on production, because they aren't getting what they want for a price on a barrel of oil. That creates shortages and higher demand all the way up the chain. Eventually we have something called equilibrium, which is why both oil and gasoline prices may fluctuate wildly over a period of a year or two, then stay stable for periods of a decade or two.

The prices of the two - the raw product (oil) and the finished end-product (gasoline) often seem to move in directions that make them appear disconnected. That's because of the number of steps in the process (which I've oversimplified here) and numerous complicating factors which affect every stage. It used to work much more smoothly, but then the government decided monopolies were bad, even 'vertical' monopolies, and said a company can't own everything from the wells all the way to the gas pumps.

If you don't like the price, stop buying it (or at least buy less). If you keep buying it, they aren't gonna' decide out of the kindness of their hearts to make it cheaper. Here's a newsflash - neither do the merchants who sell you everything else you buy; there's no reason they should, and there's no reason the oil companies should, either.

Wow..."No night games" Marion is at it again.

He writes..."baby-raping needle-equipped bug-intercourser".

Don't worry. He doesn't understand English, can't read a court document and hides when proven wrong. But, that was a little strong even for him. Must be a bad day.