I agree with what you are saying here and would go even farther. We've also toppled governments, installed dictators, and are night fighting wars to keep the price of fuel down. But why our of the goodness of the major oil company's hearts? Hardly. Manipulating the price of oil and therefore gasoline has allowed them to control both the political and economic agendas for decades.

I also agree with what you are saying but it begs a question. If all of this was known and supposedly common knowledge clear back in the 1970's how come things like alternative fuels, mass transit, more fuel efficient vehicles and yes even higher prices hasn't become a reality until now? If all these things were not only good ideas but absolutely essential changes why haven't we as a nation managed to actually do them in the past 40 years?

TR I would add an even more serious omen. The oil companies don't call themselves oil companies anymore. They have become energy companies and moved into electircal generation, coal, geothermal, and yes even solar. Its all intended to continue their monopoly and dictate the timetable and agenda of what happens and when.

 

I would say it greed, on the parts of the oil companies and the middleast.

 

Yes and they bought (stock and commodities) their way into control of ethonol, now the e-85 is mostly gone, and where it is it is higher than gasoline again another Why.

 

One way to fight back is to stay at home on the weekends, a few times a month..I do.hell I haven't been fishing in a year..

 

I've been pushing hemp ever since I got on this forum and biofuels as an alternative as we make the transition to other forms of renewable energy but for the most part all I find is resistance to biofuels in general and especially bio mass production of hemp which is 10 times as productive as corn for ethanol, does not compete with food prices, has several other uses from paper to construction material to chemicals and can be grown on land that otherwise does not support farm crops.

I think a lot of people are being forced to take these kinds of conservation methods simply because they cannot afford the cost of fuel.

But the problem is that does nothing to keep food prices and everything else from going up because one way or the other all of it depends on oil.

 

The price of gasoline can be greatly reduced simply by having the government remove it from the commodities market. Oil is traded just like OJ, Wheat, or Pork. Once Wall St. gets through with it, Mr. Common man is fucked. Blame for the skyrocket jump in price is not wholly OPEC. The U.S. gets most of its imports from Canada and Mexico. It was the pit traders that did this to us. Once they realized that we would pay $30 a barrel, then $40, well then push it as hard as it will go. The real nightmare is that if you'll pay $100/brl then you'll pay $200, and some ass in NewYork just made 800 million off you with a retirement package valued over 2.2 billion.......lol

 

I still the Our government is screwing us , as well as the leaders of these other countries.

 

Bio Fools will not work! Once you start converting food production into fuel production the cost of staple foods will rise even if the fuel product is a non-food plant. There are already millions on the brink of starvation, and the small amount of biofuel production has this year caused rice to triple in price. This sent off several riots in Asia and Africa, although U.S. news would never tell. There is a fuel that is so abundant that it will be hard to justify any price hikes after the infrastructure has been established...HYDROGEN. Yes scream OMG what about the Hindenburg, its unsafe...ooohhh. Yeah well so was flying back then, but we do it now and at 10,000 times safer. Hydrogen fuel cells 0% pollution the most abundant element in the Universe cost 95% less than Oil.

 

If I could buy a car tomorrow it would be the Smart Car!!! It's base price is 12,500 dollars, and it just did very well in crash tests...
Smart, safe, and small.
According to conventional wisdom, the bigger the car, the safer you'll be. And maybe that's true, but the Smart car has proved that size isn't always such a, er, huge factor. One of the smallest cars in the world, the Smart fortwo recently kicked butt in crash tests. It scored surprisingly well with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and buzz on this article from the Ledger drew looky-loos like a fender-bender.

 

Your so right! and screw they will till your nipples pop off. There will be no change in the fuel system untill every last wretched penny has been torn from your dead hands.

 

This is true and something I have been saying all along but don't be blinded to the fact the the oil companies directly and indirectly also control Wall Street

This is a perfect example of how successful the propaganda and brain washing the oil companies and media have been. Now I'm getting tired of explaining this to each individual that thinks they know something about biofuels, the effect they have on the food supply and especially the very rational and real possibility of using hemp for biofuel without the negative ramifications you claim here.

This is the real problem. We need something NOW not ten or 15 years down the road. Everything you just said comes right out of the oil monopoly noise machine.

And look at the post you yourself put up above. It is commodity trading driving up the cost of food. There is no real food shortage it is price increases causing the riots.

 

OK! Welcome to common sense 101. Take a seat and shut up. Given the finite supply of natural resources at any specific cost and location, agriculture that is inefficient or damaging to needed resources may eventually exhaust the available resources or the ability to afford and acquire them. It may also generate negative externality, such as pollution as well as financial and production costs. The most important factors for an individual site are sun, air, soil and water. Of the four, water and soil quality and quantity are most amenable to human intervention through time and labour. With the exception of desertification which is at an all time high. What grows and how and where it is grown are a matter of choice. Two of the many possible practices of sustainable agriculture are crop rotation and soil amendment, both designed to ensure that crops being cultivated can obtain the necessary nutrients for healthy growth. Even with proper pactices the amount of arable land is insufficient for the current rate of population growth. Now you propose to cut into this for the sole purpose of transportation. When there are so many other alternatives. Fuel cells may not be quick enough for you then fine lets go Electric the systems are already there. All that is required is the fat automotive industry to get off its ass and start building us some fucking cars. If you think electic is too slow then check out TESLA MOTORS.

 

You are sure right about the commodities market driving the price of oil.. Look who bush put in as his banking chies.

 

Totally right, if we stop using oil.. or is we drastly cut back on use oil.. But there is enough rich dudes out there to be able to afford that trip to Fla for a vacation..
From my insider to a major oil company.. they have a glut of product so great that if in a 30day period consumption dropped 9% they would have to drop gasoline as much as $2.00 a gallon. Right now there is a problem with gasoline quality, almost all punp gas is 10% ethonol.. Ethonol absorbs water (mixes with it) Several gas stations have been hit with poor gas complaints. Gasoline does not have that long a shelf life..

 

bio fuels will work.....quit feeding every damn country with a hand out and let the middle east countries who are making billions a day feed them.....ooooh thats right if we switch to bio and elec. or even hydrogen powered the mid east pricks would starve to death cause we would have no use for them eccept for target practice....and some comments are right ,the auto companys need to get off there asses and get these other cars out here and the goverment needs to force the gas stations to put hydo pumps in every station coast to coast

 

and for you numbers people,,, we used 2% less oil/gas last year than the year before and we've cut that back even move at the start of this year....so why the spike in oil prices....FUTURE TRADERS

 

I think the answer is electric cars, and then planes and larger vehicles (semis, construction equipment) powered by the biofuels. You then switch to power sources like wind, fission, and fusion (when they commercialize it).

It's going to require lots of money though from both investors and the government.

 

Im gonna buy a bike, Prob a Gsxr 600

 

Of course the fact that the amount being sent to the SPR was less than 1/10th of one percent of the worlds daily demand seems to be lost here.

How would you expect that action to even rate a wiggle in the futures bidding?

 

We have reduced the amount of growth, but the rest of the world consumes far more now.