$4 Gasoline? Who Sets the Price Anyway? Does He Have A FAce?

reply to post by 4thefight



Very telling, look for six buck a gallon soon if we don't boycott by cutting back, this will drive the cost down.


[edit on 013030p://bThursday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Well it seem that the speculators are now targeting the food supplies to hype and inflate food prices.

While this is illegal you don't see anybody in Whasighton helping stop this practices.

On top of that the fed is killing our dollar in benefit of bailing out the financial institutions that brought us the housing crash.

It seems that everywhere you look is different groups working within the government to profit from the American people.

Weak dollar is helping boost everything from oil to commodities, I wonder.

reply to post by marg6043

Well it seem that the speculators are now targeting the food supplies to hype and inflate food prices.

You think it is hype?

I have just spent sometime reading about the food shortages, yes some are hoarding and some is panic.

But when you are buring corn for fuel, someone, somewhere, is going hungry.

It just gets me, and I don't know who or what to believe anymore.


[edit on 023030p://bThursday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Ever notice that Bush only orders the reserves filled when gas is at it's highest price... Talk about obvious and a criminal...

reply to post by Stormdancer777


That is the problem is not that is not enough food to go around, but that people can not afford to buy it due to the inflation caused by oil prices around the world.

Do you know that US government subsided farmers in American to make them grow what the government wants them to grow? specially corn? only to be use for ethanol?

Do you know that US government pay farmers not to grow anything? so we can get more imports.

While we in America are not short of anything we see developing countries struggling for food that they can not afford.

Very soon as our dollar keep falling out of grace we Americans will be in the same boat, plenty of food but no able to afford it.

reply to post by GrndLkNatv


I have noticed, taking into consideration that speculators play their game with shortages of anything this is only benefiting the private sector.

Our oil is privatized after all.

reply to post by marg6043

Our oil is privatized after all. The problem is not that is not enough food to go around, but that people can not afford to buy it due to the inflation caused by oil prices around the world. Do you know that US government subsided farmers in American to make them grow what the government wants them to grow? specially corn? only to be use for ethanol?

I attended an Old Folks Class today, an 8 weeks every Thursday 1 PM - 3 PM discussion group on current events sponsored by the University of North Florida. $35 for elders. My sister and I go out to the south-side’s very beautiful Westminster Woods for the class, stopping on the way for lunch. We ate in a small newly redecorated restaurant operated by a Bosnian refugee. I had a 16 inch grilled chicken Crepe Suzette. Very good all fresh ingredients but too much. Next time Betty and I will split one. www.westminsterretirement.com...

The teacher said the ethanol subsidy was 51 cents per gallon. I guess that is paid directly to ADM - Archer Daniels Midland? A favorite sponsor of Senator Bob Dole. He was sometimes called the “Senator from ADM.” More: To protect ADM (and other energy intense ethanol processors) from competition, there is a 54 cents a gallon tariff on imported ethanol. The product made in Brazil is superior to ours (and less energy consuming) but adding the two government subsidies gives ADM an $1.05 advantage over Brazil. Republicans like to talk about FREE MARKET but I remind them there is NO free market up here.

And you are also right on price supports, M43. As usual. The US sets a minimum price per bushel for corn. It is such a good price that many farmers will plant 1,000 acres to sell corn to cow and hog feeders and to corn meal grinders and another 1,000 acres to sell to the US Govt.

What makes me SICKEST of all is that corn (and soybeans) needs a lot of WATER. Corn growers draw valuable water from two aquifers that were filled as long ago as the last ice age - 10,000 years. One extends for about 170,000 square miles. The Great Plains Aquifer. The other - the Ogallala - is larger, 225,000 square miles. The water is being withdrawn at 10 X the rate of re-charge. In 40-50 years it will all be gone. Then when we need FOOD more than we need OIL or ethanol, we’ll be A Day Late and a Dollar Short! Thank You Senator Dole!

The Great Plains aquifer system underlies most of Nebraska, about one-half of Kansas, the eastern one-third of Colorado, and small parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Total fresh ground-water withdrawals from the Great Plains aquifer in Kansas and Nebraska were about 133 million gallons per day during 1990. About 73 percent of the water withdrawn, or about 97 million gallons per day, was used for agricultural purposes, primarily irrigation.

Much of the recharge to the aquifer system is from precipitation that falls directly on aquifer outcrop areas in southern and southeastern Colorado and east-central Kansas. capp.water.usgs.gov/gwa/ch_d/D-text4.html

The Ogallala Aquifer underlies approximately 225,000 square miles in the Great Plains region, particularly in the High Plains of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska. Use of the aquifer began at the turn of the century and since World War II reliance on it has steadily increased. The withdrawal of this groundwater has now greatly surpassed the aquifer's rate of natural recharge. Some places overlying the aquifer have already exhausted their underground supply as a source of irrigation.

Here is a good example of a choice that society must make - consume the groundwater resource today or conserve it for future generations when climate in the region might not be as favorable to agricultural production as it is today. www.meteor.iastate.edu...

[edit on 4/24/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by marg6043


Yes I knew this marg, BTW I noticed how last year the large number of usually fallow fields were popping up full of corn, amazing.


Food Crisis Starts Eclipsing Climate Change Worries
Gore Ducks, as a Backlash Builds Against Biofuels
www.nysun.com...

“It takes around 400 pounds of corn to make 25 gallons of ethanol,” Mr. Senauer, also an applied economics professor at Minnesota, said. “It’s not going to be a very good diet but that’s roughly enough to keep an adult person alive for a year.”A Harvard professor of environmental studies who has advised Mr. Gore, Michael McElroy, warned in a November-December 2006 article in Harvard Magazine that “the production of ethanol from either corn or sugar cane presents a new dilemma: whether the feedstock should be devoted to food or fuel. With increasing use of corn and sugar cane for fuel, a rise in related food prices would seem inevitable.” The article, “The Ethanol Illusion” went so far as to praise Senator McCain for summing up the corn-ethanol energy initiative launched in the United States in 2003 as “highway robbery perpetrated on the American public by Congress.”

www.newswithviews.com...

[edit on 093030p://bFriday2008 by Stormdancer777]

[edit on 093030p://bFriday2008 by Stormdancer777]

The reality of food Shortage and American government cause and effect are we the ones responsible for the rest of the world starvation?

You be the judge, Like you said DonWhite The United States produces 46% of the world’s biofuels, with Brazil coming in at a close second with 42%, American has been the biggest importer of grain to the rest of the world but as the need for biofuel increases the grain production that used to feed the rest of the world is diverted to produce alternative energy.

This feeding the pockets of the markets commodities as they are becoming attractive to investors, but is also causing the increase on shortages we see today in many nations around the world, because the scarce imports of grain from the US are becoming too expensive for the poor.

Does US care? Well in a nation that is ridden by profits margins and Markets speculators, our nations just sit there as in oblivion because in American food is still no a problem.

Well as Americans incomes keep shrinking and the dollar keeps devaluated thanks to the fed, Americans will reach a time that food will become a concern and we are more vulnerable that many thinks.

Are we to see riots when food security starts to become a problem? Well you do not need to have a shortages for people to feel insecure about their food availability and supply, just look the at the freenzy that the rice shortage is causing just that to increase in food security and affordability and you will have a nation on mass hysteria.

Food has been so tied to the oil supplies and fluctuations that when the barrel of oil reach 200 to 225 it will be many people in America that will not be able to afford it.

Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don't Farm

under a federal agriculture program approved by Congress, his 18-acre suburban lot receives about $1,300 in annual "direct payments," because years ago the land was used to grow rice.

www.washingtonpost.com...

Hi Marg, I am so surprised this topic isn't getting more traffic.

reply to post by Stormdancer777

BTW I noticed how last year the large number of usually fallow fields were popping up full of corn, amazing. Food Crisis Starts Eclipsing Climate Change Worries Gore Ducks, as a Backlash Builds Against Biofuels

My version of a short history of ethanol. As a fuel for internal combustion engines ethanol has been known as long as gasoline. The major disadvantage at the small scale is ethanol has fewer BTUs per gallon than gasoline. Heat equals power. On the large scale, the great East Texas oil field came online around the time the number of automobiles exploded. The first and second decades of the 20th century. It was cheaper to refine gasoline than to make ethanol.

Which brings us next to a very good reason NOT to use ethanol as an alternative fuel. It requires more energy (BTUs) to make ethanol than the finished product contains. Every gallon of ethanol is a NET energy expense item. That’s not economic. But for the Federal subsidies on corn and the financial aid to processors of ethanol, there would be NO ethanol added or E85 at your gas pumps.

Ethanol has been used as a fuel in racing cars for a long time. It has one vital advantage over gasoline: ethanol will NOT pre-ignite. Gasoline will. Pre-ignition in auto jargon refers to the undesirable phenomenon known to us as engine “knock,” or “spark knock,” or “pinging.” The sound we hear is the result of a fuel charge detonating on the UP stroke of the piston and not on the DOWN stroke as intended. The noise is the sound of metal violently slamming against metal, as in the few 1000ths of an inch clearance in wrist pins and connecting rod bearings. This condition - pre-ignition - if left unchecked can destroy an engine in a few minutes.

To make ethanol fueled cars faster and more competitive, race car builders add nitroglycerine to the ethanol, commonly called “nitro.” Once it was about a 10% mix but now it is up to 30%. Or higher.

In the 1970s new Federal rules forced taking the lead out of gasoline. The EPA issued exhaust pipe emission standards that the available gasoline was not capable of meeting. By adding ethanol to the gasoline - ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline - some small improvement in exhaust gas emissions was quickly attainable. As a stop-gap measure, the EPA consented to allow emissions at a level achievable when the car was fueled with a 90/10 gasoline to ethanol mixture. In the meantime, petroleum refiners improved their crude oil processing. Today’s refineries make about 15 variations of 87 octane fuel for use around the country according to EPA rules for different locations. And without ethanol added. Ethanol is like a dinosaur. It's past its time.

In 2008, ethanol is counter-indicated. Growing corn requires TOO much water that could be better used in other ways or conserved. But the ethanol lobby has accumulated many powerful supporters. If corn is a major cash corp in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, and it is and a substantial cash crop in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Colorado and Wyoming and it is, then you see the PRO ethanol lobby has 16 senators on its side.

One hand washes the other. The United States Senate works by compromise. If cotton growers in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas want a pro cotton law, they may join with the pro corn senators to have 24 senators for the 2 subsidies. Add rice grown in South Carolina and Louisiana along with sugar beets in South Dakota and you now have 30 senators. Tobacco in Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky gives a solid block of 36 senators with a shared interest more important to them than Global Warming will ever be. And here we are. Growing corn for processing into inefficient uneconomic ethanol - free market be damned - when people by the millions are on the verge of starvation. Old ways die hard.

No one wants to face it but SMALLER engines in LIGHTER cars is the only way we can reduce our fossil fuel addiction. We can never stop it altogether but we ought to reduce it substantially. Maybe we should limit everyone to 20 gallons a month? Let the R&Fs - rich and famous - "buy" the poor man's quota for a negotiated price? Hmm?

[edit on 4/25/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite


Good thread! But as depressed as I am this day, and the leading days into my life I just want to answer your question with a quickie..

Does He Have A FAce?

If this Gas beast does have a face, Id like to punch him in it!
So my guess is if this person does have a face its gotta be someone with glasses or a woman.
I guess id still punch them in the face, glasses, woman or otherwise..
just IMHO.

reply to post by zysin5

If this Gas beast does have a face, Id like to punch him in it! . . my guess is if this person does have a face its gotta be someone with glasses or a woman. I guess id still punch them in the face, glasses, woman or otherwise.. just IMHO.

A face?

I think this says it best: "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" first seen on a poster for Earth Day in 1970 by Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo.

[edit on 4/25/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite


Arg! Sorry for my ignorance in my first post.. I was having a ruff day here and am at my witts end. And I guess I missed the overall point of what you where saying..
That the person to blame is us.. There for by punching myself in my own face I have learned that my ignorance does not sleep alone.

There are to many people out here willing to fall into the ignorance of the way I spoke.. They are so easy to just want to hurt the people that are hurting them.. When the whole time its been us doing this to ourselfs.

Gas and oil I guess is alot like drugs, and abuse. We abuse ourselfs, and constantly keep up the work on hurting ourselfs in the long run.
Like any drug addicition, its full of blind sided ignorance, and full of confusion and pain.

Thus In ending, sorry for making myself come off like a typical Jackass..
I took some time to cool off from a long day, and took the chance to get your clear message..

The face is you and me.. And I only end up punching myself in the face, because of my own ignorance..

reply to post by zysin5

I took some time to cool off from a long day, and took the chance to get your clear message . . The face is you and me.. And I only end up punching myself in the face, because of my own ignorance..

Don't be so hard on yourself, Mr Z. We all started from the same point: Zero. It's just that some of us have been at it longer.

Try this on for size:

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon




[edit on 4/26/2008 by donwhite]

Amazing posts Don, thanks,

Is there any truth to this?

www.straight.com...

Most of the world's oil pumps are about to shut down.In 1956, Hubbert predicted the continental United States would peak in 1970. He was correct, and the 1970s gave us a small, temporary taste of the sociopolitical and economic consequences of expensive oil.The world peaked at 74.3 million barrels per day in May 2005. The two-year decline to 73.2 million barrels per day produced a doubling of the price of crude. Later this year, we fall off the oil-supply cliff, with global supply plummeting below 70 million barrels/day. Oil at merely $100 per barrel will seem like the good old days.Within a decade, we'll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream. By Guy R. McPherson

Peak oil spells the end of civilization. And, if it's not already too late, perhaps it will prevent the extinction of our species.

M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist employed by Shell Oil Co. described peak oil in 1956. Production of crude oil, like the production of many non-renewable resources, follows a bell-shaped curve. The top of the curve is termed "peak oil," or "Hubbert's peak," and it represents the halfway point for production.

The bell-shaped curve applies at all levels, from field to country to planet. After discovery, production ramps up relatively quickly. But when the light, sweet crude on top of the field runs out, increased energy and expense are required to extract the underlying heavy, sour crude. At some point, the energy required to extract a barrel of oil exceeds the energy contained in barrel of oil, so the pumps shut down.

Most of the world's oil pumps are about to shut down.

We have sufficient supply to keep the world running for 30 years or so, at the current level of demand. But that's irrelevant because the days of inexpensive oil are behind us. And the American Empire absolutely demands cheap oil. Never mind the 3,000-mile Caesar salad to which we've become accustomed. Cheap oil forms the basis for the 12,000-mile supply chain underlying the "just-in-time" delivery of plastic toys from China.

There goes next year's iPod.

In 1956, Hubbert predicted the continental United States would peak in 1970. He was correct, and the 1970s gave us a small, temporary taste of the sociopolitical and economic consequences of expensive oil.

We passed the world oil peak in 2005, and we've been easing down the other side by acquiring oil at the point of a gun - actually, guns are the smallest of the many weapons we're using - paying more for oil and destroying one culture after another as the high price of crude oil forces supply disruptions and power outages in Third World countries.

The world peaked at 74.3 million barrels per day in May 2005. The two-year decline to 73.2 million barrels per day produced a doubling of the price of crude. Later this year, we fall off the oil-supply cliff, with global supply plummeting below 70 million barrels/day. Oil at merely $100 per barrel will seem like the good old days.

Within a decade, we'll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream.

In short, this country will be well on its way to the post-industrial Stone Age.

reply to post by Stormdancer777

M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist employed by Shell Oil Co. described peak oil in 1956. Production of crude oil, like the production of many non-renewable resources, follows a bell-shaped curve. The top of the curve is termed "peak oil," or "Hubbert's peak," and it represents the halfway point for production.

See this www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0P8yQSTU74

There have been several long threads on ATS discussing the Peak Oil Theory. There may be some in the achieves but I have never tried to access that.

Peak Oil. The Mr. Herbert mentioned in the quote I lifted from your link got a lot of credibility from his correct predication about the one mega-field in America, the East Texas Oil Field. Spindletop I think. See Note 1. He said it would peak around 1950 and it did. Suddenly people began to listen to him. Another oil engineer turned banker named Matt Simmons - see YouTube above, also has written about the theory. He contends the Saudi Arabian mega field is on its downward production slope although the Saudi deny this.

The theory relies on two facts that we all “KNOW.” 1) Oil is a finite resource. The theory is that 2) oil production will rise until it PEAKS and then begin to decline.

Trouble is, we won’t know for certain that we have passed the peak for a few years as we search fitfully for more oil but find little or none. We usually date the oil industry from the 1859 well at Titusville, PA, drilled by Col. Drake looking for water. www.drakewell.org...

The underlying assumption for the Peak Oil Theory is this. The United States has endured over 500,000 oil wells drilled in every place imaginable. Therefore, it is logical to ASSUME that every other 3,000,000 square miles - the US - around the planet will contain approximately the same amount of oil found in the US. Not counting Alaska.

Last, there has not been a reliable engineers determination of the quantity of oil remaining in Saudi Arabia since the late 1970s which lends some credence to Matt Simmons argument PRO the Peak Oil Theory.

It was just a decade ago that we finally decided how oil came to be. It involves an Anoxic Ocean condition. This occurs periodically thought to be due to large volcanic eruptions like the Deccan Trap in India. en.wikipedia.org... The release of volcanic gases during the formation of the traps "contributed to an apparently massive global warming. Some data point to an average rise in temperature of 8 ̊C (14 deg F) in the last half million years before the impact at Chicxulub." That is the meteor impact that ended the Cretaceous Period and killed the dinosaurs. The newest massive lava flow was found in Brazil. The previously unrecognized area of ancient lava flow covers about 965,000 square miles in the Amazon basin. query.nytimes.com...

It is thought that very small creatures like plankton thrived in the oceans during those warm periods. When the creatures died, they fell to be bottom but due to the lack of free oxygen, they did not rot back into their constituent components. Instead they accumulated “as is” until covered over by sediments and were gradually compacted over millions of years, into pools of PURE carbon. What we know today as oil.

Siberia has not been well explored. Most of central Asia has not been explored. The equatorial regions in Africa and South America have not been much explored for oil. And remember that 65% of the earth’s surface is under water. So, many people guffaw at the Peak Oil Theory. They say “not in our lifetimes!”


Note 1. The 1901 discovery of petroleum in the State of Texas. The find was made at Beaumont and it is claimed that the output of the single well now spouting amounts to more than 25,000 barrels daily. www.iht.com...

[edit on 4/27/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by Stormdancer777

Oil at merely $100 per barrel will seem like the good old days. Within a decade, we'll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream. By Guy R. McPherson

Long before we will let that happen, the world will finally unite in one great World Petroleum Authority. The WPA will take over all oil fields producing over 1,000 bbls a day. Smaller fields would cost more to incorporate into the GRAND OIL SCHEME than it would be worth.

If GOD is in charge of the WPA, then every person on the planet will be allotted an equal about of oil. If MAN is in charge, then the Rich and Strong will take all they want and leave the rest of us to fight over what’s left. But $400 oil? Never.

Oil prices through the roof, so gov't. in their infinite wisdom begins to push for more ethanol production. Ethonal is processed from corn, corn prices soar through the roof, triggering food riots in the third world, triggering concerns of mass starvation.

So what to do...what to do? I mean other than blame big oil in most cases, or the Jews in one singular case (still haven't figured that one out). What's needed, and it seems fairly obvious to me, is more refinery capacity, opening new fields here in North America, or at least in the neighborhood. A little stability in the Middle East wouldn't be amiss, either. There are many factors in the rise of oil prices most of which is fear, fear of global events that may, or may not, spiral out of control. Geopolitical stability will stabalize the prices, or something resembling stability.

Alternative energy is an option as well. Geothermal, tidal, wind...etc... The only problem I see with these is the efficiency factor, but there are really smart folks out there working on that issue.

We need to quit looking for scapegoats and look in the mirror for the true root of the problem. Us...you...me...everybody who drives when walking would be possible. Need some milk for the morning corn flakes? Walk to get it. I'm guilty of that as much as anyone 'cause I loooove to drive my car. But gas prices approaching four bucks a gallon? I like my bike, too. It gets great gas milage, lol...

Supply and demand rule all. Demands go down, prices will undoubtably follow.

If GOD is in charge of the WPA, then every person on the planet will be allotted an equal about of oil. If MAN is in charge, then the Rich and Strong will take all they want and leave the rest of us to fight over what’s left. But $400 oil? Never.

thanks again Don, yes, I doubt people with means will ever do without