Republicans Blame Democrats for 'A Nation of $4 Gasoline'

reply to post by mybigunit

I would argue another strategy:

1) The government needs to stop printing new money and start impounding and destroying some of what has been created in the last decade.
2) Start raising federal reserve rates.

Take those two courses of action and this inflationary bubble we're experiencing will pop. It won't be a quick, painless recovery, but when you're choices are bad or worse, I'd take bad. The Fed, however, will do neither, at least until after this year's election is over. They've always tended to keep the status quo when possible during election years.

Originally posted by mybigunit

RR did u even read the posts above. The gas has nothing to do with Anwar its the dollar. You keep bashing on Clinton but wasnt gas around $1.50 under Clinton? Why because he had a strong dollar policy. Dont be a sheeple its Repubs and Dems fault and I recommend you read all the posts.

So what you are saying if someone posts something I should take it as the almighty truth? Sorry, I don't play that way.

Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWAR 10 years ago. That is a fact! We are dependent on other countries for a majority of our oil. That is a fact! We have more than enough natural resources in the United States of America, that we don't have to be dependent on others for oil. That is a fact! If you use our own resources to the utmost, gas prices will come down. That is a fact! We won't because Enviro-whackos and Democrats won't let us. That is a fact!

reply to post by RRconservative


I dont disagree with you on the fact we rely to much on the arabs when we could be drilling in our own country but that is not WHY we have $4 oil which is the premice of this thread. That is just causing us to import stuff that we shouldnt be importing. They have known about Anwar for awhile now from what I understand. Why didnt Regan or the First Bush drill up there? That being said wake up my fellow hard working American because as long as we keep spending all sorts of money we dont have THAT is why we will be paying $10 here soon.

reply to post by vor78


Dont worry they will start to raise rates probably by the end of the year but not for the reasons you think. The fact is the banks were going bankrupt and needed money so the fed dropped the rates and gave the banks the crack money rates and now the banks are holding on to all of this borrowed money. When the rates go up the banks will then lend that crack cheap money at a premium. So until then we have to pay the inflation tax and then when we go to borrow money we will be paying the high interest rates. We get screwed either way.

Originally posted by vor78
reply to post by mybigunit

 

Who ever made that video is right, but he's also wrong. Indeed, inflation is a major issue in the price of gasoline these days and that commodities tend to maintain equal relationships in value to one another. Hence, (x) amount of silver will always buy (y) amount of gas, more or less, anyway. However, note that he pulls a fast one here: he quotes the value of a gallon of gas in 1947 as 'about a quarter' yet the value of a gallon of gas in 2008 as 'about a quarter of an ounce of silver.'

The problem? We don't know what the value of a quarter of an ounce of silver was in 1947. Its an apples-to-oranges comparison in the manner presented. A quarter ounce of silver was worth about $.18 in 1947, BTW. Its still close enough that it doesn't invalidate the point, but its a correction that needs to be made.

I'm not sure how in one breath you say that we don't know the value of silver in 1947 and in almost the very next sentence give us the worth of silver in 1947. The value of oil and silver in 1947 are very easily looked up. You're right, it doesn't invalidate the point. What it does is throw in misdirection. You should work for the Gov't. The Dollar is worth around $.02 compared to when the 'FED' took over in 1913.

reply to post by HimWhoHathAnEar


It was worded improperly in my post and should say that he simply doesn't provide the 1947 value for us. Certainly, we can look it up, but it makes an immediate comparison more difficult and is potentially a little misleading. It should be presented in the same terms. I agree the point is more or less valid under most circumstances, though a look at the relative prices in 1980 for a case when this ratio completely fell apart and provides an exception to this rule and a reason why it needs to be an apples-to-apples comparison.

[edit on 9-6-2008 by vor78]

reply to post by RRconservative


I watched a Democrat pundit being questioned by Sean Hannity a few nights ago over oil policy. As I recall:

1. Do you support drilling in ANWR?

NO

2. Do you support offshore drilling?

NO

3. Do you support building new refineries

Maybe

4. Do you support drilling in the north central US?

NO

5.Do you support building more nuclear facilities?

Only if no gov't money is involved (Hint: this has never been done, so the answer is NO)

This is the NIMBY mindset of the Dem's.


The end result was the fact that, if our own sources were exploited, it would keep an HUGE amount of money - somewhere around $250Million/day, iirc - from leaving our country and into the pockets of OPEC, etc.

[edit on 9-6-2008 by jsobecky]

American's are like greedy little children. Everyday I go to work and see 50% of the vehicles on the road are HUGE with one person average per vehicle..............American's gobble up 24% of the oil on the planet each and every year and yet we make up only 4% of the planet's population. I don't feel sorry for any of you whining and crying that own a SUV or huge pick up and drive it to work. I believe gas should be taxed at $10.00 per gallon and the tax money received from that should be put towards good public transportation. We already have alternatives to oil / gas and it's not nuclear or coal........BUT...........the people, the ruling elite that own the shares to our current mode of energy are not about ready to give up their throat hold on the rest of us and everyone out there almost is too stupid to realize it. We need to DEMAND these alternatives be brought to light. Go to educate-yourself.org... to learn more.

“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” ~ P. J. O'Rourke

reply to post by vor78


I haven't watched the video again but I thought he said .23 cents. But at any rate, the fundamental lie that has been put forth by the PTB is that gold and silver are 'commodities'. For all of human history they have been 'Real' money.

The Constitution recognizes this and so did foreign governments in the seventies when they started demanding payment in gold. Nixon was forced to strip our money of its last ties to gold and we have been inflating it like crazy ever since. Every fiat currency in history has returned to its intrinsic value=ZERO!

So of course the brainwashing has centered around gold as only a commodity. But if we wanted to we could talk about dollars and euros as 'commodities' as well. Soros made a big part of his fortune shorting the Pound. Currencies as commodities and visa-versa here in lies the deception.

The corrective measures mentioned here would all fail as long as the Fed, the IMF, and the World bank retained the legals rights they enjoy today.

In fact, unless all corporations are stripped of their citizenship status and the Judiciary branch was prohibited from favoring the UCC over the constitution, they would just steal it back again anyway.

This is about the corporate citizen being 'superior' in representation and access in this country. I don't know about the rest of the world, maybe they have a solution too, within their own governmental frameworks.

Originally posted by RRconservative
So what you are saying if someone posts something I should take it as the almighty truth? Sorry, I don't play that way.

Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWAR 10 years ago. That is a fact! We are dependent on other countries for a majority of our oil. That is a fact! We have more than enough natural resources in the United States of America, that we don't have to be dependent on others for oil. That is a fact! If you use our own resources to the utmost, gas prices will come down. That is a fact! We won't because Enviro-whackos and Democrats won't let us. That is a fact!

Actually on that last one you're dead wrong. To put the blame squarely on the backs of environmentalists and Democrats is disingenuous. There's plenty of conservatives who don't want offshore drilling either, because they don't want to look out the windows of their multi-million-dollar mansions and see a rig on the horizon, or a humongous glob of oily tar on their personal stretch of private beach.

And even if environmentalists WERE to blame, what do you want? Is cheap gas worth the pollution? Is it worth destroying the wilderness? Do you really want to turn this nation's unspoiled beauty into a stinking cesspool just to bring your fuel prices down to $1/gallon?

Here's an idea, and give me an honest answer: Why not take some of the trillions we spend on military procurement and pointless adventuring, throw it into an Apollo-style program to end the use of fossil fuels in the USA entirely? We could do it in five to ten years if we'd just spend the money in the right places. No more need to deal with the Middle East, no more OPEC (except for those products still made from petroleum, and I'll bet there's plenty of alternatives for plastics as well as fuel) and our power needs could be decentralized and self-sufficient with control directly in the hands of the individual. Couple it with a massive increase in public transportation and high-speed rail to open up more choices (and thus more competition in the transportation sector) for consumers. What could be more American than that?

reply to post by HimWhoHathAnEar


He's quoting the value in two different terms, not that it really matters. Most of the time, his assertion that commodities will maintain certain ratios of value to one another is true. Admittedly, its a nitpick, but it could potentially be misleading if our current situation wasn't a good example of "most of the time".

There are a lot of factors in this, but ultimately, the expansion of the money supply, IMO, is the big one. We have over 220 times as much money in circulation as in 1917. There is $818 billion in physical currency out there today. Compare that to about $53 billion just in 1970. It has doubled in the last 12 years. The problem? Does anyone think that we have had corresponding increases in actual economic growth? If not, where does that excess money make its impact? Its very likely going to be inflationary.

I think that a fiat currency can work, but only so long as it is backed by something. There's another problem. Our currency really isn't backed by anything except for the 'good faith and credit' of the United Stated government and Federal Reserve, neither of which is worth a whole lot these days.

Originally posted by Scramjet76
reply to post by burdman30ott6

 

As you can see... the cost of fuel skyrocketed under republican control too. This leads us to two possible conclusions:

1) It's a bi-partisan conspiracy
2) There is little lawmakers can do about the oil prices.

Or they are all one

Electioneering to me it seems... more 'pointing fingers' crap and keeping away from real issues.

Originally posted by vor78
reply to post by HimWhoHathAnEar

 

He's quoting the value in two different terms, not that it really matters. Most of the time, his assertion that commodities will maintain certain ratios of value to one another is true. Admittedly, its a nitpick, but it could potentially be misleading if our current situation wasn't a good example of "most of the time".

There are a lot of factors in this, but ultimately, the expansion of the money supply, IMO, is the big one. We have over 220 times as much money in circulation as in 1917. There is $818 billion in physical currency out there today. Compare that to about $53 billion just in 1970. It has doubled in the last 12 years. The problem? Does anyone think that we have had corresponding increases in actual economic growth? If not, where does that excess money make its impact? Its very likely going to be inflationary.

I think that a fiat currency can work, but only so long as it is backed by something. There's another problem. Our currency really isn't backed by anything except for the 'good faith and credit' of the United Stated government and Federal Reserve, neither of which is worth a whole lot these days.

According to M3 we have 15 trillion in money out there. That being said we need to have gold and silver certificates. I mean hell in a free market society why cant we let people choose if they want a faith backed fiat dollar o r a gold and or silver backed dollar. Even if its only 1/4 or whatever just make it so that dollar is worth at least a LITTLE something if the system crashes which I do believe will happen in my lifetime. If the government paid as they go we wouldnt be in this situation but we have a government who likes to put all our bills on a charge card. Now we are paying for it.

Originally posted by GhostR1der

Originally posted by Scramjet76
reply to post by burdman30ott6

 

As you can see... the cost of fuel skyrocketed under republican control too. This leads us to two possible conclusions:

1) It's a bi-partisan conspiracy
2) There is little lawmakers can do about the oil prices.

Or they are all one

Electioneering to me it seems... more 'pointing fingers' crap and keeping away from real issues.

*looks at ghostriders avatar and he reads this* hmmm




Anyways, to the topic. Its the oil companies plain and simple. In the US gas was relatively cheap until Katrina hit. Then all of a sudden no one could find a way to get gas under $3/gallon. It did dip to 1.99/gallon for a couple weeks here (right before the election) but then back up to over $3/gallon after a few months. Now premium is over $4/gallon and I heard a "expert" say a couple days ago you could see a $7/gallon averge across the nation (add the extra dollar for california because the always seem to pay a dollar mor than everyone else) by the end of the year. In fact, in January I heard a "expert" say that around the end of the year gas would be about $4/gallon and today the estimate is $7/gallon by the end of the year, so I can only imagine what itll be by 2009.

Save up all your cash for the gasoline riots in the US! By 2010 youll have to take out a bank loan to throw molotov cocktails!

[edit on 9-6-2008 by emptee]

reply to post by emptee


Its not the oil companies Katrina was when it all started to go down hill because we have to print $110 billion dollars of money we didnt have but the "refineries" were a good excuse. Then on top of that the billions in the on going war in Iraq and billions in all the other pet projects of the government and its really happening fast because it used to be we would borrow the money so we wouldnt have to print more but less and less countries are wanting to lend us the money which is forcing us to print the money and really ratcheting up the inflation.

I agree with several of the ideas I've read here. I do believe our weakening dollar is part of this, but it is symbiotic with oil right now. As the dollar goes, so goes oil and vice-versa. I also agree wholeheartedly that the liberals in congress who have gone out of their way to stop years of advances where new refineries and extracting oil from new sources, both traditional and non-traditional, share much of the blame. For years liberals have done everything they could do to villify the consumption of oil by the US. Everything from demonizing SUVs to inventing man-driven global climate change. In the end, isn't it ironic that they are achieving their goals through two things that were directly attributable to Richard Nixon, a Republican who became the Democrats' most reviled poster boy? Nixon's EPA opened the door to a littany of new regulations from barring new refineries to issuing emission standards while his removing the US from the gold standard ensured that as oil goes up, the dollar suffers, which makes oil go up even more. Wash, rinse, repeat.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Yup how does it feel to take it to the chin by old uncle sam. I will say this though. The republicans had 6 years of control of government they had the congress and president and didnt do crap with it. They had the chance to drill but didnt do it why? I ask the same think as far as the first Bush and Regan why were they not drilling up there. I agree the far left has been a thorn in the side of drilling here but there are a lot of republicans out there who have been against it because they would be the ones having to look at the big rigs or big wind turbines. I mean hell wind we all agree wind is good energy technology and you friend Ted Kennedy refused to let them but wind Turbines near his ocean looking house it would obstruct his view but so have a lot of the wealthy republicans with ocean front houses.

My point is its not just the far left its ALL of the government they all suck and the sooner you understand that the quicker we will fix the problem and the only way to fix the problem is to get rid of this 2 party dictatorship that has RUINED our country. Then again maybe Im wrong BUT thats rare.

reply to post by The Nighthawk

Here's an idea, and give me an honest answer: Why not take some of the trillions we spend on military procurement and pointless adventuring, throw it into an Apollo-style program to end the use of fossil fuels in the USA entirely?

I'm with you on that!

We can't allow the market to simply "fix itself." If we wait for fuel prices to start "affecting the rich" we are going to be waiting a long time. Who are the people most affected by these outrageous prices?? The poor and middle class! All this money our poor and middle class spend on fuel is going right into the pockets of the few!

Let's take a look at how we are spending shall we?

Altogether, military-related expenses totaled approximately $626.1 billion.[3]

wiki

So 626 billion for defense.... and....

Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. The Budget provides $309 million to complete the President’s five-year, $1.2 billion commitment to support development by 2020 of commercially viable hydrogen infrastructure technologies and fuel cell vehicles that produce no air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions.

whitehouse.gov

There you go..

309 million / 626 billion = 0.049361%

So for Hydrogen Fuel the government invests 0.049361% the amount of money it dumps into Defense! Sounds like we'll be middle-east free in no time!

This isn't exactly a Republican/Democrat issue. What it is, is an American consumer issue. Our economy is shifting from one based on what we could afford on credit, to one that is now based on what we can afford with cash, and as the economy contracts to compensate, the only liquid asset that is truly holding us to the ground is oil.

Liberalism and conservatism aren't dirty words. They are two schools of thought that have no place being used against each other when the most important thing our generation has ever been confronted with is staring us down the barrel.

We are finally being pulled from the fantasy that we will always be able to act the way that we always have, and it hurts. It's like any teenager maxing out a credit card for the first time. It'll be ok, it just hurts. We'll be much stronger when it's over and we've learned to work together.

[edit on 9-6-2008 by FunkyTechnic]