A thought that ran through my head.

Thoughts?

6/5/2008 9:15:23 PM

Probably good for us in the long-term. Huge pain in the ass and possibly dangerous in the short (5-20 years) term.

6/5/2008 9:17:31 PM

6/5/2008 9:25:09 PM

Duh. But I am sure there will be a camp who think that punching holes in the earth to satisfy their oil crack habit is a good idea.

6/5/2008 9:28:19 PM

SAY IT AIN'T SO!!! </Randy Watson>

6/5/2008 9:28:31 PM

that boy can sing

6/5/2008 9:32:17 PM

6/5/2008 9:33:55 PM

It's the only way we'll get off oil. Feel good alternative energies are great, but when the average working american looks at their bills at the end of the month, they're going to go for whatever is cheaper, and as long as that's oil, then oil will be what they use.

6/5/2008 9:36:11 PM

provide me with an affordable electric car and ill buy it.

6/6/2008 8:42:25 AM

That thought wouldn't have have run through your head while reading the NY Times, did it?

Tom Friedman was thinking the same thing the other day.

I actually tend to agree. I'd like to see $5/gal. by the end of summer, $10/gal. by Christmas, and $20/gal. by this time next year.

[No joke.]

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 6:09 PM. Reason : ...]

6/8/2008 5:48:41 PM

Yeah... That'll only make life and work impossible for most Americans, myself included.

6/8/2008 5:51:05 PM

I for one believe that punching holes in the earth to satisfy our crack habit is a good idea.

^ But he'd like it!

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 5:54 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2008 5:52:40 PM

^^ Then stand up for yourselves.

A green Manhattan Project is the only one of Barack Obama's talking points to have had any lasting effect on me. I prefer a more free market approach. The gradual increases in the price of gas have almost boiled this American frog alive, albeit slowly. I say sit back and let global demand push oil into the stratosphere.

All the more incentive for some tinkerer in his garage to make his first billion inventing a solution to the destructive short-run effects of such a catastrophic increase in price. This is still America, right

This should be intuitive. People don't act unless conditions are actually shitty.

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 6:12 PM. Reason : ...]

6/8/2008 6:01:38 PM

^^ Justify

6/8/2008 6:07:48 PM

^^ How so? Should I go bomb a Chinese manufacturing plant, or go shoot an oil speculator in the face?

As a college student with no money and living in a crappy student apartment, I don't exactly have much power to do anything about the change in oil prices besides stop driving myself except when I need to (and even then it's getting retardedly expensive, as I can't cut out any more driving at this point unless I want to stop hanging out with my family each week).

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 6:10 PM. Reason : ^]

6/8/2008 6:09:46 PM

Invent an engine that runs off of shit.

...

profit.

6/8/2008 6:19:59 PM

Quote :

"Mindstorm: ^^ How so? Should I go bomb a Chinese manufacturing plant, or go shoot an oil speculator in the face?"

Let's not be hasty. Prison is a far worse animal. Even though about $50/barrel of the increase in oil price we've seen since Bush took office are due to speculators, responding to one crime with another gets us nowhere. But, when "life and work" are "impossible" for you due to the price of a commodity, I'd say you're allowed a little more ethical leeway.

No. I don't know what you should do. That's for you to figure out. A few options include:

- Quit driving
- Contribute to companies (stock) and non-profits (contributions) you believe seriously address this problem
- Write letters to local and national political candidates, letters to the editor, and other influencers

This is America. You're free to stand up for yourself however you want.

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 6:23 PM. Reason : ...]

6/8/2008 6:21:16 PM

Quote :

"I'd like to see $5/gal. by the end of summer, $10/gal. by Christmas, and $20/gal. by this time next year. [No joke.]"

6/8/2008 6:27:43 PM

Haha, but I don't want to write to the government about it, I want them to butt out on the issue because whatever they do will probably make it even more expensive for me (including short-term solutions like subsidies that don't fix the underlying problem, or long-term solutions like CAFE standards increases).

Like I said, no money to contribute to stock. Stock is useless for me as I'm risk-averse given my current resource pool. Quit driving also isn't an option, as when I go job hunting in the area I can either find somewhere to work on campus (for a ridiculously short drive that won't cost me TOO much so I wouldn't mind driving) or find an engineering firm off-campus in Raleigh somewhere that pays enough to justify the longer drive (I have a shitty inefficient car and can't replace it, which is why driving is an issue).

We'll see, though. There are other people in the same boat, there just isn't really a winning solution for this situation for me besides speculation cooling off a bit and letting prices fall back down a bit. Hell, if it was all our politicians making all the retarded statements that keep resulting in market panics I'd be writing letters out like crazy ("BITCH BE COOL!"), but I don't know how much an Israeli state department employee is going to care when i ask him to stop being so nasty in the news about a country that wants his country to be blown to bits.

6/8/2008 6:35:34 PM

oh Christ...

yes, we should have gotten off oil years ago. FUCK! We should have started getting off oil when we passed the peak in the US.

Finite resource, you're going to get off it one way or the other. The absolute last way it will happen is for people to realize shortages are coming, drive up prices. How much? Until people fucking stop protesting prices and stop using it.

6/8/2008 6:37:32 PM

Quote :

"Until people fucking stop protesting prices and stop using it."

Exactly Friedman's point.

Quote :

"Haha, but I don't want to write to the government about it, I want them to butt out on the issue because whatever they do will probably make it even more expensive for me (including short-term solutions like subsidies that don't fix the underlying problem, or long-term solutions like CAFE standards increases)."

Write the media. You'd be more effective with a good number of signatories and celebrity friends, but work with what you have.

Quote :

"Like I said, no money to contribute to stock. Stock is useless for me as I'm risk-averse given my current resource pool."

Nonprofits.

It's like you read one part of each of my suggestions, but not the other...

Quote :

"Quit driving also isn't an option..."

Not true. Raleigh has buses. You can buy a bicycle.

Quote :

"as when I go job hunting in the area I can either find somewhere to work on campus (for a ridiculously short drive that won't cost me TOO much so I wouldn't mind driving)"

If it wouldn't cost that much, odds are good you could walk or bike to work.

Quote :

"find an engineering firm off-campus in Raleigh somewhere that pays enough to justify the longer drive (I have a shitty inefficient car and can't replace it, which is why driving is an issue)."

And take the bus to work.

This isn't exactly counting angels on a pinhead, here.

6/8/2008 6:43:56 PM

Ya, I read the article by Friedman, and I wasn't impressed. The basic premise is fine (that higher oil prices will lead to fundamental changes in infrastructure and energy usage) but his socialist idea of price floors and government-funded alternative energy research is the wrong approach.

6/8/2008 6:58:10 PM

I get the former criticism, but not the latter.

What's the beef with government-funded alternative energy research?

6/8/2008 7:02:31 PM

The market is much better at allocating resources than the government. Investors are almost always better at picking winners than bureaucrats, and they are less prone to corruption and / or deception.

6/8/2008 7:05:38 PM

the best solution to high prices, is high prices themselves

6/8/2008 7:10:53 PM

Investors got us into this crisis.

6/8/2008 7:11:26 PM

explain.

6/8/2008 7:12:02 PM

i don't think you can say investors are the cause. speculation exacerbates it, but its real demand (and the fact that we're running out) that's making prices sky rocket

6/8/2008 7:15:19 PM

Influence peddling with scientifically disingenuous data in Congress and the public. The oil lobby stalled the environmental imperative to actively seek and develop alternatives almost single-handedly for most of recent history. We could have made this a strategic priority twenty years ago if we weren't so busy debating whether global warming existed at all, or whether oil was going to run out in another 20 years or another 100.

[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 7:33 PM. Reason : ...]

6/8/2008 7:31:29 PM

i dont know which side to be on yet...gamecats last point is kinda a good "oh burn" imo

6/8/2008 7:59:41 PM

And you didn't read my post! Amazing how that can go back and forth. I'll just run through some of it again. I'll emphasize the point that I didn't get across clearly, as I think it's important (skip to the end).

Quote :

"Nonprofits. It's like you read one part of each of my suggestions, but not the other..."

I have no money at all, your suggestion still doesn't help.

Quote :

"Not true. Raleigh has buses. You can buy a bicycle."

Raleigh's buses have sketchy assholes that would love a well-dressed me to hop on there to go to my decent-paying engineering job in north Raleigh (that's a theoretical, I'm fairly certain I'll be looking a while before I find somebody hiring with all the bad news about the economy). I'd have to transfer buses more than once and it'd take over 45 minutes to get to where I need to go (hell, probably longer). As for riding the wolfline to work, well I tried that when I first moved into this neighborhood 2 years ago and it was always full when I needed it. I walked for 2 years but got a back injury and now I drive because it's the only reliable option that doesn't kill me. I'd ride a bike but my bike is REALLY nice and it's very likely to get stolen (I'm not concerned about a 1.4 mile drive to school, I'm concerned about the drive to a decent paying job which is looking to be 12-16 miles from here). Also, the places where I'll be looking to work are small enough that they won't have proper sanitary facilities for me to clean up after walking/riding a bike, and I'd get fired if I showed up for work like that!

Quote :

"If it wouldn't cost that much, odds are good you could walk or bike to work."

You can't walk to work when you have to show up for work clean and they don't have sanitary facilities. Same goes for biking, along with me not wanting to get my shit stolen. Again with the back thing, which is my own problem (I have an interesting situation which leaves most of these options as unacceptable).

Quote :

"And take the bus to work."

Sketchy assholes love people who are dressed up to go to work at a nice consulting firm. I'm not going to make myself a target by riding the bus.

This argument would be totally different if Raleigh was a proper city, but it's been developed as a gigantic suburb with a small downtown. It's in a bad transition phase between being a well-functioning suburb and a proper city. The bus is too slow because you take the time you'd be stuck in traffic and add the time it takes to transfer routes and to add enough time to catch the next bus into your schedule (because if I"m late for where I want to work I'd pretty much be fired) and it ends up being well over twice (if not three times) what it'd be if I drove myself (this is just due to where I am and where these jobs are). Riding a bike would be nice, but Raleigh was not developed for riding bikes. I'd have to ride on stretches of road that are extremely dangerous, and having seen quite a few people get killed on Avent Ferry while living here I have no interest in becoming street pizza myself. Bikers in this area have a bad stigma and are treated poorly on the roads by drivers, and the roads aren't wide enough to make this a non-issue. If you look at Cary, there's bike trails and bike lanes on roads in most areas, enough that it would be fairly safe to ride a bike on Cary streets instead of Raleigh streets (where I'm going, up to congested hell).

There's more to it when I'm saying that gas prices are too high and that there isn't a winning solution for the current situation. Raleigh is a city that was built around cheap gas and cheap personal transportation. Public transit is really only sort of effective here, as Raleigh isn't exactly progressive when it comes to public transit (that's been much more of a recent attempt on Raleigh's part to improve their public transit). In addition, the way developers have put in the new offices around here I'd end up having to commute to north Raleigh or Cary in order to get a job, or I could just work at State (at a job that pays $jews). The way public transit is I'd be riding the bus and switching stops enough that it would take me over an hour to get to work by bus, or I could drive and show up early and it'd be 20 minutes (and that early time could be added onto my payroll).

We need to find some sort of temporary supply solution for this because the price of gas needs to increase at a slower pace in order for Raleigh to be able to adapt without completely damaging or destroying the wellbeing of some of its residents (read: lower middle class families). I don't think we should go and drill everywhere drop gas prices down to $2/gallon again because I don't think that would be beneficial, and I know you don't think it would be. I'm simply advocating that the rapid price increase is extremely bad for this economy (especially in this area) and that it's hurting a lot of people in this area who are going to be more on the edge of getting stuck in a bad situation because Raleigh's development in the past few decades has been for suburban growth and development instead of urban growth and development. They could catch back up, to some extent, if gas prices could be stabilized by a greater limitation on speculation of oil or by an increase in supply capacity (and capacity utilization). As-is I'm really concerned that cheering on higher gas prices from these relatively high oil prices (which will only get higher right now, it seems) is going to have the opposite intended effect instead of making everything more efficient and sustainable around here. Most people on TWW wouldn't be affected because they're all middle to upper middle class in terms of income, or their finances are supported in such a way that they won't really feel much of a burden from increasing gas and food prices besides being unable to eat out as much each month.

I don't really like saying "dear god drill for more oil, quick!" but it almost seems like it'll be a necessity if we want to avoid letting more people slide into poverty and if we want to avoid stagflation again. It's a combination of bad past politics (leaving CAFE standards untouched for a really long time, for example), bad current politics and media coverage (every time israel farts oil prices go up $1/barrel), and bad development choices by federal, state, and local governments for years (Raleigh is a great example of this due to the fact that you can call it a Megaburb).

There, that should be enough words to scare everybody away, lol. I'll write cliff notes if anybody gives a shit, I rant when I'm off-schedule.

6/8/2008 8:07:17 PM

lol just call them black people man..."sketchy assholes" just sounds like you are trying too hard to "not be racist" omg we cant be racist!!!

6/8/2008 8:09:31 PM

Quote :

"Sketchy assholes love people who are dressed up to go to work at a nice consulting firm. I'm not going to make myself a target by riding the bus. "

L-O-L

soft like a twinkie filling

6/8/2008 8:15:33 PM

Ok, I've been bugged by bums in this area that are white and black (though surprisingly nothing else), and that's what I mean when I say sketchy assholes. Y'all can read it as black people if you want but those aren't the only people that ride the bus.

^ Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs and I'm used to being civilized and minding my own business. I've always been a target for sketchy assholes and that's why I don't ride the city bus.

6/8/2008 8:24:34 PM

I dont own a car

6/8/2008 9:12:49 PM

Quote :

"Influence peddling with scientifically disingenuous data in Congress and the public. The oil lobby stalled the environmental imperative to actively seek and develop alternatives almost single-handedly for most of recent history. We could have made this a strategic priority twenty years ago if we weren't so busy debating whether global warming existed at all, or whether oil was going to run out in another 20 years or another 100."

I asked you to explain how "investors got us into this mess", as you stated. This does not answer the question. Oil industry and global warming skeptics != investors.


A better answer would have talked about the short-term, profit driven nature of investment being at odds with the obvious long-term risks of irresponsible energy usage and diminishing oil reserves. For the past 30 years, anyone informed about the topic knew about the inevitibility of skyrocketing oil prices based on demand eventually outstripping supply, but there has been a paucity of investment in alternative fuels because investors didn't know WHEN it would occur. Dirt-cheap oil in the decades preceding this one made those kinds of investments a losing proposition. Investors didn't "get us into this mess", but the markets have clearly failed to anticipate and plan for it.

Now, with prices out of control and no immediate relief in sight, investment is pouring into alternative energy and battery technology, as well as new oil exploration. Unfortunately, these investments likely won't spell relief for several years, because of the nature of research and development cycles. Energy has proven to be a very volatile commodity.

That said, I don't advocate a green "Manhattan Project" style investment into renewables and alternative energy because the seeds have already been sown by private investment, and the free market is usually the best measure of a particular technology's merits. For years in the '90's, hydrogen fuel cells were the darling of oil opponents. If some in congress had their way, we would have dumped billions of dollars into a hydrogen auto infrastructure. Nowadays you don't hear too much about fuel cells. Why? Because hydrogen is not a viable transportation fuel. Likewise, if we trust some government panel to invest billions of dollars from a "windfall profits" tax, we can expect a much higher level of waste and misallocation than we could if that money were in the private sector.



[Edited on June 8, 2008 at 9:28 PM. Reason : 2]

6/8/2008 9:16:46 PM

Quote :

"The oil lobby stalled the environmental imperative to actively seek and develop alternatives almost single-handedly for most of recent history. We could have made this a strategic priority twenty years ago"

there is NO denying this. i just don't think you can solely blame speculators for running up the price.

6/9/2008 12:22:19 AM

Quote :

"Most people on TWW wouldn't be affected because they're all middle to upper middle class in terms of income, or their finances are supported in such a way that they won't really feel much of a burden from increasing gas and food prices besides being unable to eat out as much each month. "

I think there are plenty of people on TWW who DO feel the burden of increasing gas and food prices.

6/9/2008 12:46:31 AM

the problem is that even if a new idea was invented tomorrow it would take years before it was actually in full use. paradigms are hard to break

6/9/2008 1:16:10 AM

plus if gas goes up way high police departments are not gonna be able to drive around as much and therefore more crime will occur

6/9/2008 1:17:16 AM

last i recall they leave their patrol cars running more or less constantly while on duty. i doubt they'll stop going out because of prices. they will probably just be spending more like most of the rest of us.

6/9/2008 3:06:14 AM

Quote :

"last i recall they leave their patrol cars running more or less constantly while on duty."

depends on the situation. if your eating a meal or stopped at a gas station for coffee and you leave it running your ass will be in trouble if someone (ie supervisor) sees it

if you are on a call then you usually leave it running, you never know when you may have to get in and go, quick. like if someone starts popping rounds, the suspect jumps n runs, gets in a car and flees or if you are on a BS call and the "big one" goes out and you have to divert...."sorry lady your complaint about your neighbors barking dog has to wait because i have a shots fired call". And you sure as hell aint turning it off while on a traffic stop.

hell i envision a time where they will tell us to find a place to sit and wait for calls in order to save gas. of course that limits being pro-active and will most likely hurt response times.

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 3:36 AM. Reason : .]

6/9/2008 3:35:44 AM

Quote :

"they will probably just be spending more cutting back like most of the rest of us."

Police stations have budgets. There have been numerous stories of cops taking fewer patrols, switching over to bicycles, etc.

6/9/2008 3:36:02 AM

bikes wont work in my department, not even an option

6/9/2008 3:37:22 AM

the population of NYC, Chicago, Philly and San Fran are going to go through the roof.

not needing a car is wonderful.

6/9/2008 8:33:58 AM

Quote :

"Prawn Star: A better answer would have talked about the short-term, profit driven nature of investment being at odds with the obvious long-term risks of irresponsible energy usage and diminishing oil reserves."

lol

And what exactly did you think was wrong with the lobbying influence I mentioned?

[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 9:45 AM. Reason : ...]

6/9/2008 9:44:08 AM

It is irrelevant to the statement I asked you to support.

You said that "investors got us into this crisis". I asked you to explain, and you said something about the oil lobby and environmentalism.

6/9/2008 11:18:03 AM

everybody talks about alternatives to oil, but the reason they have not become mainstream yet is that oil prices haven't gotten high enough yet to cause the market to invest in them. maybe the current fuel prices are high enough to spur that investment, maybe not. it's anybody's guess.

6/9/2008 11:09:46 PM

i would think what obama is saying is better...i would think the government solving the problem would be way better than letting the free market which is dictated by greedy capitalists

6/10/2008 2:08:16 AM

[carlface]

We tried that back in the 70's. Windfall profit taxes and price controls.

Lets have a history review:

Quote :

"Let’s begin with a review of what happened the last time Congress tried to protect consumers from “Big Oil.” When Richard Nixon enacted his strict retail price-control regime in 1971, service stations ran out of gas and motorists were forced to wait in staggeringly long lines to get what fuel remained. Burned by the fiasco, Congress adopted the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973 (EPAA), which essentially removed price controls from the pump and instead applied them upstream into the wholesale domestic oil market. Indeed the gasoline lines and physical shortages disappeared, but the cap on profits from domestic oil production discouraged investment in new domestic supply, increased reliance on imported oil, and increased the upward pressure on world crude prices. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA) tightened the wholesale oil price controls established in the EPAA and exacerbated the economic dislocations associated with it. All the economic post-mortems that have been undertaken on the EPAA/EPCA regime paint an ugly picture. Harvard economist Joe Kalt calculates that domestic oil production was 0.3 - 1.4 million barrels per day lower than would have been the case had wholesale price controls never been slapped on the U.S. oil industry. Economist R. T. Smith calculates that the lost production and higher demand that resulted from the price controls increased world crude-oil prices by 13.5 percent. The net effect of the price controls, according to economist Robert Rogers, was to increase the price of oil products for American consumers. Even in the teeth of such a policy debacle, Congress was unwilling to abandon their jihad against oil profits. So to replace the EPAA/EPCA laws set to expire in 1981, Congress passed the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax of 1980. The act, however, was a misnomer — it was an excise tax, not a profits tax — and, like the price controls before it, the law discouraged new supply at the very time that production should have been encouraged. "

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200511081818.asp

[Edited on June 10, 2008 at 3:08 AM. Reason : 2]

6/10/2008 3:02:40 AM