$2.29

Gas has risen to $2.29 over the weekend. This is unbeleivable.

Isure wish I could find it for that much here. Paid $2.43 yesterday.

they said by spring it would be back up to 2.7x

Here where I'm at it's 2.40.

All Hail George W. Bush and the Oil Companies.

pvfan you mean all hail george bush and all his oil companies.

I orginally had that but didn't want to have to explain to all the republicans on here how he is connected to oil companies.

I guess you can blame the mining accident of last week on him, also. Not to mention Katrina and other natural disasters that have hit in the past year. Yeah, its his fault. He's the president. isn't he????? [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

No, I actually have common sense.

why arent we drilling in alaska?

I dont give a damn if Ted Kennedy is president, if he could get gas prices down to about $1.50, I would support him.

By the way, Im sure Bush has a little red button in his office and when his checking account gets below $10,000,000 he can just push it and make gas prices soar and fill his account up. Give it a break man.

If you did, then no one would have to tell you that the president has no control over gas prices. They started up before Bush ever became prez.
I fill up every two days...part of my job...so I've been keenly keeping up with fuel prices for the last 20 years.
Doesn't matter if its an Elephant or a Donkey in office, we all still get the short end of the stick.

This argument is pointless cause I believe my way and you believe yours. If I was Bush and had his power I'd try to help out my oil buddies all I could. This is also the reason I have a hard time believing we are actively pursuing Bin Laden.

There's no "my way" or "your way" to it. The fact of the matter is that some people think the prez is next in line in the power department to God. That will never happen as long as we have the check and balance system our forefathers were wise enough to put into effect to prevent another "king" or emperor" from evolving in these United States. They recognized that no one man (or woman) should have the kind of power some are trying to give the prez credit for having. Has nothing to do with politics.

From what I've assessed about the news and from talking to my commerce friends throughout college I've assessed two things to contribute to the HUGE spikes in oil prices over the past couple of years.

#1 (this is huge). Up until recently, China had been a borderline third-world country, standing on the world's oil consumer list down somewhere in the teens. With massive economic reform and a shift more towards a more free-market based economy (like ours here in the good ol' U.S.), they've risen to #2 with all of the industrialization they have going on. This has GREATLY overstressed the supply/demand curve for oil throughout the world.

#2. A lot of people tend to have forgotten this, but LAST summer the hurricane season was also horrible (no where near as bad as what we've seen this year though). A lot of refineries were hit hard down in the Gulf, and this shoved the price of gas into the above $2.00 threshold that we are used to as of the present.

Of course there are billion other factors involved. I.E. the ongoing wars/battles/etc... in the Middle East errode consumer confidence raising the price of oil, the creation of OPEC back in the 70's (which sadly was the US's brainchild as well), or better yet and growing sense of awareness that most of the world's known oil reserves are being depleted (this none of us can control) - which also alters market value of crude oil and hence gasoline.

And additionally, oil as a market commodity does not follow a simple supply demand curve such as say X-box 360's. For you economic's majors you know that the "oil curve" follows an irregular pattern where price depends on a whole lot more factors beyond supply and demand.

If anything the price of gasoline in the United States is kept artificially LOW... Yes for those of you who think you are politically inclined and well informed, the government is to blame for the price of oil to an extent, but not to the extent that you hard core leftists would like to imagine so (I'm a centrist who leans far right on some topics and far left on others btw).

What does ARTIFICIALLY low mean? Look at the price of gasoline in Europe, how expensive is it? You will typically find that a European pays about twice as much for a LITER of gasoline compared to what we pay for a gallon. On first glance this doesn't make much sense because in Europe they have much better standards of public transportation. Families typically only have 1 car at most unless you are wealthy. Compare that to our great nation which is huge and spread out (a blessing and a downfall). We depend more on individual transportation and hence use up more gasoline per person than anywhere else in the world (the fact that we are also richer and can afford more personal automobiles helps us use up more gas).
So even given the complex supply-demand relationship, one would expect that since we use up SO much gas, our gas prices should be much higher than in Europe. The fact of the matter is that our government has known from the beginning that we would be a heavily gasoline dependent economy to help each of us make the long treks to work since most of us don't live near subways. As a result oil companies have been given huge tax breaks to keep the price of gasoline low since the turn of the 20th century.

If you hard core lefties want the US government to absolve itself of its influence in gas prices and let our gas prices more accurately follow the oil-gasoline supply-demand curve that exists world wide, I hope you all can start stomaching upwards of 6-7$$$$ a gallon.

If you notice, the Europeans don't whine as much as we do when gas shoot up 50 cents a gallon or so because to them it's such a smaller percentage of an increase.

With that rant being said, I do believe the oil giants in the U.S. are guilty of price gouging in wake of the hurricane as they should have used their excess profits to either find more oil resources or invest in cost-cutting measures instead of redirecting the money back into their fat CEO paystubs. I think this is an area where government regulation needs to step in immediately. But for those of you who are so hardcore anti-Bush you would follow the next Democratic presidential candidate even if he decided to copy and paste some of the tenets of the Nazi party into the practices of the DNP, you make me sick. Bush is not a very good president I will give you that, but I believe most of you anti-Bush people are just jumping on the liberal band wagon because MTV tells you it's the cool thing to do. I'd like to take a poll of all you local democrats who are against gay marriage/life-partner benefits. The majority don't even know philosophically what it means to be politically "liberal".

Granted Bush may suck in a lot of ways, but I'd like to see some intelligent criticism from people. Read some friggin' books and then respond back to me.

Get an education before you open your mouths.

what pisses me off about the gas situation is the fact that the people who argue most of the time are driving the most non fuel efficient vehicles

George Bush's Family and Bin Laden are the founders of Arbusto Energy. The company has so many political ties it's ridiculous. $4.7 Million dollars was gained through "political supporters" of the Regan/Bush Administration during the 1980's. Bush was given 13% of the stock in the company. Two months before Iraq invaded Kuwait, on June 20, 1990, the younger Bush sold two-thirds of his Harken stock, 212,140 shares at $4 a share-for a total of $848,560.
"That was $318,430 more than it was worth," Dr. Arthur F. Ide, author of George W. Bush: Portrait of a Compassionate Conservative, said. "George W. broke the law to do this since the transaction was an insider stock sale."

Now, lets do the math. Bush has direct ties to the Bin Laden family through Oil. They help him with insider info so he can sell his stock. It's Bush's turn to help out right? Lets go to Iraq. Bush can get rid of Hussein (the man who tried to kill his father) and help raise oil prices. This helps out his old friends the Bin Laden's who scratched his back years earlier.

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If you hard core lefties want the US government to absolve itself of its influence in gas prices and let our gas prices more accurately follow the oil-gasoline supply-demand curve that exists world wide, I hope you all can start stomaching upwards of 6-7$$$$ a gallon.


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If it ever did that RW01, you'd better bet that one of those NRA card carrying gun toting "hard core righties" would save money to buy the gas to go down to his local ammo store, or even better, just order off the internet, a nice lil scope for their hunting rifle and we'd have a JFK "back and to the left" moment all over again. Our president would get assassinated if prices ever got that high.

In terms of supply vs. demand, gas is HIGHLY demand inelastic and highly elastic in the case of supply--new reserves are found everyday, and old ones are drying up quicker than that. So you're right to a point--a regular supply demand curve for gasoline or crude oil in the US is irregular, but that's only if you don't see that gasoline has become a necessity item in this country. Throw out all the external causes for a regular curve to be irregular for this item--it doesn't work here. Necessity items are always high on demand with varying extremes of supply availability, so there is no "curve" per se, there are merely points along the line of demand, and if you graphed demand versus supply, it would end up being a descending straight line. The less demand, the higher supply. The higher demand, the less supply.

Yes I'm an economics/accounting major. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] This is just my way of looking at gas prices--if prices go up, it means for the most part consumption has gone up and supply is strained already and cannot keep up. Prices will only go down with greater regulation of supply or demand (supply regulation = greater rationing/newer sources, demand regulation = more efficient vehicles).

BTW--I'm not going to act like I know it all...if someone who is studying economics right now knows better than I do about the supply and demand relationship and has a more recent definition of things, please feel free to share. My econ's a little rusty seeing as how I use my accounting daily.

it would not surprise me to see gas that high because 2 years ago i was on a cruise in Grand Caymon and gas was $5.50 a gallon and that was 2 years ago

All good points from people. The government definitely does its part to exacerabate the oil problem, but I stick with my guns that it definitely is not the number one cause (i.e. see the rising power that is China).

Bush's foreign economic policies do suck no doubt, e.g. his unfair embargo on cheaper/higher quality Japanese steel during his fair term which almost caused the WTO to put huge ass embargos on the U.S., and though I've heard about the Bush family's connections to the oil of the Middle East I wouldn't put it all on them (although I'm sure they are damn well guilty for a lot of bad things over there).

If I weren't a pre-med, I would've liked to study foreign economics; it's good to get some educatied input from people instead of simply spouting "Bush Sucks" and decrying all who do not agree with them as gay-hating male chauvenistic pigs who like dumping toxic waste in rainforests while killing third-world orphans who do not perform to standard in sweatshops, who give their wives cheetah fur coats.

In the next presidential elections, my allegiance will be more practical than idealistic this time and I'm trying to get as much knowledge as I can to support the best choice for my interests in the next presidency.

vote Obama [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I've been hearing that name.

Is that a joke, or is he a serious candidate. Who the hell is he?

GC is Barack's campaign advisor. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I can't blame him at all too...GC can tell you a lot more about Obama than I can.

Just looked him up, and without reading anything and seeing one glaring thing, one has to realize he has no chance (that is if this is a serious conversation and you guys really do support this guy). A Black man stands no chance in America of becoming president, or any other minority or woman for that matter. Such is the sad truth of life in the U.S.
*Note* I am a minority as well.

If the DNP seriously wants to take the GOP down, they may have to really do some hard soul searching to see if they would back this guy till the end.

He may be THE presidential candidate, or he may be the VP choice for whoever wins the primaries. It'd be a ticket that would be doomed from the beginning if we had Hillary Clinton w/Obama, but it'd make things interesting...especially since I don't really see a GOP candidate out there who could realistically win the WH again. I personally think it'll end up with some combination of Mark Warner &amp; Barack Obama, but that's just me.

Wikipedia's Entry on Obama

He seems like a very upstanding guy so far, I think more research is warraned, thanks all.

I sadly voted for Bush last time based on religious principles (I'm Catholic), but with the appointments of two conservative Supreme Court Justices, I find the issue that caused me to vote Bush to be a non-issue is this go around.

Whoever presents the most practical and believable approach to fixing our country, I will sign my support for that person.

RaiderWahoo--just curious and I'm don't mean to offend--you said you were a minority--which minority class are you in?

You don't have to answer if you wish not to.

Racial minority.

It will be very difficult for any type of minority to ever be president in the u.s. Whether you are a Catholic (it is weird callin us minoritys because one in every six people on the planet are considered this), or of a different pseudorace such as african american or hispanic. Not to mention it will be atleast 50 years before a woman is even vice president.

I know several people who don't consider Catholics to be even Christian, just to show how ignorant people can be.

Haha in 7th grade I told some kinds in class that I was Catholic and a girl was like, do you worship God?

I had the class in shock and awe when I convinced her we worshipped the sungod Rha HAHAHAH. Sigh some people. I seriously think a good religious person should know the background of his/her religion. This is an area in which I'm lacking and hope to improve, but seriously some people are just too... well...

Another weird thing. I notice a lot of people on Myspace list under their religion "Christian-other", instead of "Christian-Protestant".
Protestant by definition means Christian, but non-Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.
"other" refers to Mormons, snake-handlers, and some oddballs who are in their own league.

I'd vote for Obama. I personally hope the dem's run Warner though. I think he has a greater chance of being elected. If Hillary runs I'm voting for the Libertarian candidate whomever it may be.

No Democratic candidate will defeat John McCain if he gets the Republican nomination.

please

JFK was catholic...so was John Kerry

Obama is half black half arab

mark my words.

first off he wont win the republican party nod, and second if he did, like i said, he will be defeated by ANY dem.

Now I will beleive the first part of your statement, him getting the Republican nomination will be much more difficult than him wining the presidential election. Mark my words though, McCain gets the nomination, McCain becomes president.

I agree. I know a lot of hard-line Dems who will vote for him, especially if he's running against a ticket that has Hillary on it. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

RaiderWahoo0105, very good posts. Its obvious you knew where I was coming from in my statements.

I keep hearing these repetitive accusations that GWB did something illegal, yet he's never been charged. Wonder why not?

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JFK was catholic...so was John Kerry

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exactly JFK is the only president.

I would vote for McCain, and I am a registered democrat. I wish Warner would run, but I bet he wont run until 2012 or later. Hilary will not be a serious canidate for atleast 3 more terms. With the state the U.S. is in overseas, a liberal woman is the last thing America is gonna elect.

It can get pretty frustrating being Catholic, on this board alone last year we had a guy claim the Pope was the anti-christ. in grade school I had a kid tell me "making the sign of the cross is satanic."

The little bit I remember about Omaba was very interesting. I would list him in the top 3 I would like to see run for the democrats.

I personally would love to see the team of Edwards-Warner. Edwards is without a doubt one of the most popular democrats on the planet, and Warner has a great record in Va, especially this region.

Raiderwhaoo fan nailed the biggest part of it. China has become a major player.
They use more oil than anyone. And have not looked into alternative fuels for many things in China. That in turns run the price up. Supply and demand.
What the US needs is an alternative fuel supply. I think this shows that. Im wondering what this is the start of.
3 bucks a gallon or more by spring? Cause with the heating season here and more oil being used here and abroad.
The supply is gonna drop which means the demand goes up as does the price.
And is China looking anywhere else for oil? Not that i have heard lately.
But things don't look to good for us all right now.
Were right in the middle of heating season and up to where we are now, what happens in 2 more months when were into driving season again, plus still heating some?
I can see prices easily spiking early to 3 bucks a gallon by March if not sooner.
Hope not but it ain't looking good.
Why were not looking into alternative fuels i'll never understand.
Hitting Alaska will only help a little not enough there to do what all needs to be done. We needs another type of fuel or to get China and others to reduce their use.