Ten things not to do about them. But you can bet that many economic ignorami will be calling for all ten.
18 thoughts on “High Gas Prices”
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Ten things not to do about them. But you can bet that many economic ignorami will be calling for all ten.
Comments are closed.
I should amend my statements from the other day. As the author of the link points out, we have more proven reserves today than in the previous years. My point was more to understand that we know we aren’t at Peak Oil because nobody is seriously acting like we are at Peak Oil.
What we have right now is flow issue. There are many things causing this problem. One of the more straight forward solutions is item number 2 in the list (or rather its opposite though it is poorly written). We have plenty of oil that we used to be pulling from the Gulf of Mexico. Allowing access, as required by a federal court order, would not only lower gas prices, but also help the depressed economies among the gulf states, particularly hardest hit Louisiana.
The government’s already doing most of them, aren’t they?
rickl,
I think so. Then again, trying to write an opinion in the negative (what not to do) can become problematic. But if we just go by the title of each item; yeah, doing them by the numbers…
It will be interesting to see if the Administration tries price controls. Even thinking about it out loud would betray a profound ignorance of both economic theory, and Reagan’s historic proof of that theory. Before he took office, the United States was alone in the world in suffering oil shortages. He had campaigned partly on a plan to gradually lift price controls, but instead did it all at once. Prices spiked, but the United States has never had a shortage of oil since. That, I think, was his greatest economic accomplishment…and it goes far beyond “just” ending oil shortages. But it was virtually ignored by the media at the time.
Also, gasoline doesn’t appear particularly expensive to me. Maybe at $5 or $6 per gallon. But that would require a massive increase in oil prices (probably double current prices) or a serious disruption in the oil/gasoline infrastructure (eg, Saudi Arabia undergoing a revolution).
Drudge had an article linked that said part of the problem is transporting oil from the north to the refineries in the south.
High speed trains!
I disagree that Speculators don’t raise the price.
I just read an article recently saying the rise in gold prices IS tied to people using it as a hedge against the falling dollar. BUT 15% to 20% of the rise was because of speculator interest. It was the same with silver, the percentages were just a little different.
A few years ago home and real estate prices in general were up due to speculation.
I’m not saying the gas prices are up by the same percentages as good or silver, but if speculation drives up the cost of other investment items, how in the hell can it NOT affect gasoline prices?
I’m cautious about blaming speculators, because that’s what Communists always do when their economic fantasies don’t play out. Then they confiscate their wealth and shoot them.
Speculators are only trying to profit from current and forecast conditions. It’s not their fault if oil supplies are tight due to boneheaded government policies like the refusal to develop our own energy sources.
Gas prices are up for a simple reason, and I believe I predicted it right here at the time of the event: QE2.
The Fed is printing $600 billion of money, specifically in order to cause inflation. Quick quiz for anyone over age 30: with the price of what commodity does inflation always start, for the last 50 or so years at least? Gasoline.
This was totally predictable, and I believe it was predicted, by those who are engineering it, as well as by me here. The mistake most people will make is being distracted by all the bullshit about supply. Gas is not up sharply because Libya is in flames. It’s not up because China is suddenly buying 20% more gas. It’s up because the value of the dollar in Saudi Arabia is plummeting. Deliberately.
Carl, so you say Obama is responsible for the awakening of democracy in the middle east? Wow, maybe he did deserve that Nobel peace prize 😉
Inflation during a deep, triple-dip recession. What could possibly go wrong?
McGeheee,
maybe locusts, flies, frogs, hailing sulfur, crops withering, droughts, animals dying, bad breath, B.O., crotch itch…the usual things that happen when the people,
A.) worship a Golden Calf
B.) worship a self elevating, self proclaiming living God who walks among them
C.) worship a hard core socialist who has no prior experience as a self elevating, self proclaiming living God who walks among them
But then again, with him as our God, what could possibly go wrong? Wait, that sounds familiar, where have I heard that before?
The nice thing about speculation is that you never have to blame speculators; if they’re actually deserving of blame then the problem is self-punishing. Either they buy low and sell high (raising supply and thus lowering prices when a commodity is most needed) or they buy high and sell low (hurting prices but losing their shirts in the process).
Of course, this only works when the aftermath of selling low is actually the speculators losing their shirts, instead of them being allowed to take taxpayers’ shirts as a replacement.
No, Trent, in the case of the Sun perihelion and periapsis are synonymous. Also, the mumgroves did wimsy in the thoves.
How about requiring cars to work on a wider variety of fuels, including M85 and straight methanol? Methanol is easy to make from natural gas or coal; grey-market gasoline in China is often (I understand) cut with methanol because it’s so comparatively cheap.
The latest cold fusion hopeful does not seem to be going away:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3124295.ece
and:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/01/focardi-and-rossi-lenr-cold-fusion-demo.html
Basically transmuting nickel into copper with significant energy release (0.1kg of nickel running their 10kW reactor for six months).
They are claiming $0.003/kWhr thermal and $0.01/kWhr electrical should be possible. If true this would change things dramatically, nothing can currently compete with that. While not directly applicable to cars and aircraft it would enable cheap oil extraction from tar sands and old oil wells (cheap steam injection).
I do not know if any of this is true or not, but I am not currently seeing how they are faking it – something seems to be going on. If it is true, the energy situation will change dramatically.
The new cold fusion people have a table-sized black box which can spit out 10kW of steam for half an hour, as reported by an invited audience? I think “figured out how to hide a quart of gasoline” is a more likely explanation than “figured out how to fuse nickel nuclei”. It especially makes me wary that their “conservation of momentum” explanation for a lack of high-energy gamma rays doesn’t seem to add up. But I really, really hope I’m wrong.