5/16/2008

HELLLLLLLLLLLLPPP!!!


Folks, this is just getting ridiculous. At this pace, oil will be $200 a barrel by Christmas. Photo courtesy of my good friend Hermit.

32 comments:

The Merry Widow said...

I LOVE IT!
Great job, Hermit! And you are sooooo right, Jason.
It is getting beyond ridiculous! Why isn't the oil-shale industry taking off? Anything over $70/barrel makes it economically viable. I'm betting that the watermelons(green on the outside, "red" on the inside)are fighting it tooth and nail. They want America to be flushed!
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!

tmw
BTW-I snagged the photo, I may or may not use it...but it is good!

Anonymous said...

Dear Frank Family,
I ran into your blog when I saw your comments at "geez" concerning gay marriage. I like what you all have going here. Z is a good friend of mine.
As for the price of gas, I'm a small businessman who filled up my truck and some equipment yesterday for the grand total of $145. Yes that's kinda high. And there IS someone to blame.

I wrote an piece called "Gas Price Lies" around a year ago which explains it in laymen's terms if your interested. The only thing that's changed appreciably since then is the role of the weak dollar. As the dollar weakens, it requires more of them to purchase the same amount of gas. Outside of that it's STILL a matter of supply and demand and competition. Go give it a read on page two of my blog.

http://jingoist.blogtownhall.com
JINGOIST'S Corner

There's another aspect of oil supply which I didn't cover in my article from a year ago, and it's VITAL. The role of enviro-wackos and the politicians they own.

I'm sure that you're aware that supply and demand are the biggest factors in the price of gas.
The quantity of gasoline is determined by the supply of oil and our capacity to refine it.

The President going cap in hand to the Saudis is actually rather STUPID in my opinion since the Saudis could line up tankers end to end from Liberia to Key West and we STILL lack the refinery capacity to handle domestic need! This alone should be an actionable crime. We haven't built a refinery since the 70's and a BLIZZARD of "environmental" lawsuits is the MAIN culprit. Google it and check it out. These leftist radicals put our country at grave risk by making us "outsource" a goodly portion of our refining capacity.

Just as important is the SUPPLY of oil. You can't refine oil that you don't possess! We have enough oil in the Gulfo de Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to TOTALLY replace Middle Eastern oil. Once you add the supplies in ANWR and the huge new find in the Dakotas we're on the way to FAR greater supplies, lower gas prices, and less reliance on a bunch of Mecca-bending primitive head choppers!

Once again the radical left environmentalists prevent further drilling in US national waters and the frozen parking lot of ANWR. They practically own the Democrat Party which blocks further domestic drilling.

The gas price dilemma is rather simple to explain, but MUCH more difficult to solve.

We have more oil now that we did in the 70's and we CAN'T EVEN GO GET IT! A wise man once said that "the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone, and the oil age won't end because we ran out of oil."

Morgan

Anonymous said...

If oil were to stay at $120 barrel, we'd soon be swimming in alternative energy sources. No, the problem is that as soon as the massive investments in 'production' (refineries, etc.) of alternative energy sources get made and $100 barrel ethanol makes headway into the energy/gasoline market, the Gulf states will lower the price of oil back down to $15 barrrel and WIPE THEM OUT. And once they're gone, raise their prices back up to $120 barrel.

Anonymous said...

alice, the Gulf States cannot arbitrarely "lower" or even raise the price of oil on their whim.
What they CAN do is increase or decrease the amount of crude oil on the world market, and BELIEVE they couldn't care less what the US does with our INSANE production of corn ethanol!
If they manage to decrease OPEC production the price of a barrle of oil will increase based on their share of the world oil market. Remember that not all of the world's biggest producers are even members of OPEC.
Canada is OUR biggest supplier, followed by Mexico.

This is actually not difficult to understand. Our domestic political problems are our BIGGEST problem.
Morgan

Papa Frank said...

Welcome, Morgan. Make yourself at home - we're all friends here! Although i agree with much of your analysis here I believe that you are missing a key element to the problem. The underlying problem here is the ugliness of greed. The oil companies do not increase their production because they simply do not have to in order to achieve record profits. There is absolutely no incentive for them to do any more or any better for us. They answer to nobody and when questioned by congress they were treated to far easier and gentler questions than was major league baseball or the nfl. They maintain the same tax breaks regardless of their margin of profit. Any fluctuation in their profit margin is offset by changing the cost at the pump on a day to day, and sometimes more often, basis. We are not in need of a new form of fuel as the form of fuel is not the problem. We know how to find oil, we know how to bargain for oil, we know how to refine oil. The core problem is by no means in the supply of oil but rather in the heart of greed present in those who touch it. Why should the oil companies even try to find a way to make more fuel? Their profits are not dependent on how much they produce but only on what they can charge for what they do produce. If they were to double their production and it cut fuel prices to $2 instead of $4 then they have done extra work to make the same money. Until we can find a way to make their profits dependent upon an increase in production and not simply maintaining the status quo then we will have this problem. That is the task before us. We need some sort of carefully crafted regulation that will not choke the industrial spirit of the oil companies but will certainly hold them to account for how often they can change costs and how much they can change costs in a given time period. That way the only sure fire way of increasing profit would be to sell more product.

Anonymous said...

Greed in business is good. It's what causes businessman like me to wake up in the morning and compete like crazy to make our customers happy. We compete price-wise and in the quality of the services we provide. If we didn't do both, we AND the customers would suffer.

Read my article "Gas Price Lies" if you get the chance and remember that there's no dark, underlying conspiracies where the price of ANY worldwide commodity is concerned.

Shabbat Shalom! And thanks for making me feel at home. You have a wonderful looking family. As my grandparents would say, "that's a barucha (blessing)."

Morgan

Papa Frank said...

I read your article and I also agree that greed CAN be good WHEN it serves as an incentive to do better. In the case of the oil companies the ability to change fuel prices one, two, or even three times in a single day takes away this incentive. As a businessman, can you change the price of your product at the least raise in cost for you? More than likely you are tied to providing your particular product or service at a certain price for a reasonable amount of time. With the oil companies this is not true. There is NO competition but only cooperation with other oil companies. On one hand I do not place blame on them as they are businessmen and as such they seek the highest profit on the lowest investment. That is a basic business principal. It is not the players who need to change, although a change on their part would be gratefully appreciated, but rather there is a need for a change in the game. The ugly side of that coin is that it would call for some sort of regulation which is generally an ugly word to me.

You can not address the fuel price issue as a simple supply and demand issue. There are many more factors in which the oil companies AND our congress are covered in filth from. Congress is the gatekeeper to WHO is allowed to refine oil. The refining of oil is not a free marketplace but rather a tightly guarded privilege. The regulations do not tie the oil companies down so that they can not produce fuel but rather they serve to restrict others from joining the game. The regulations are what insure the profits for these privileged people and the money spent by the oil companies to pay for the campaigns of our elected officials. It's a circle and a symbiotic relationship. You can only believe that this is a true example of supply and demand if you thought that the company store of the railroad workers was also beholden to the forces of supply and demand only.

Yehudi said...

The whole situation leaves me yearning for Messiah. Maybe when Mashiach arrives, he'll drive down oil prices.

The Merry Widow said...

More refineries would be a good thing. After Rita, one of the refinery areas was out of commission. And there was no way to take up the slack.
We in Florida suffered a very real gasoline shortage. The prices didn't rise very much, but you could go miles to find a station WITH gas.
Morgan is correct(Hi, Morgan!), the watermelons have castrated us, and the taxes on gasoline are part of the problem! A HUGE PART!
If we started gathering oil out of the oil shale, oil prices would plummet significantly.
$70/barrel was the poin when changeover was feasible. WHY DIDN'T WE????????
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!

tmw

Anonymous said...

Hello TMW! Watermellons eh? LOL!

Morgan

The Merry Widow said...

Morning!
Watermelons; green on the outside and red on the inside.
They so desperately want to control our lives...for our own good of course. But the "Law of Unintended Consequences" trips them up and they end up wearing jackboots!
G*D bless and Maranatha!

tmw

EDGE said...

Let's get to drillin'!

Anonymous said...

It cost me $60 to fill up our 'new' used, fuel efficient teeny tiny car yesterday. I'm staying home more than ever.

Hey, Jason, did you really buy that motorcycle?

I ditto Daniel on this one. LOL!

Anonymous said...

Gas is over $3.80 a gallon here now. Every cent it goes up has to come out of some other part of our budget. We're staying home this Memorial Day, alas.

WomanHonorThyself said...

aw heck..lets bike to work!..lol

The Merry Widow said...

Angel-The watermelons would love it!
I remember "Bike day" in Santa Cruz, the bicycles completely dominated the streets, they were rude, cut you off, and generally behaved like leftista bores...I didn't appreciate having to travel to the grocery with 2 small children and having these...people...treat me like I was the biggest criminal in the world!

tmw

Anonymous said...

TMW, the truth is...they're so uptight and boring that they can't find a mate willing to stay with them lnog enough to procreate. Therefore, it's handy for them to ride their tricyles around acting superior! ;-)
See it for what it is, eh?
Gotta smile and laugh somehow! LOL!

Brooke said...

I don't know how I'll heat my home with our oil furnace!

BUT GAWD FORBID we drill or refine! GAWD FORBID we take care of our own! GAWD FORBID we piss of a caribou, because they're SO MUCH MORE important than HUMANS.

I could just spit.

nanc said...

last week in 1942 they began gas rationing - THREE gallons per family per week. where does it end?

depends on what side of the fence one gets off on. we're conserving and cutting back on unnecessaries with fewer extravagances.

don't you know this is but the beginning of people being willing to accept ANY help the government is willing to give them? aka: socialism?

ding-ding, everybody - it's a scheme and a scam and we'll fall like a house of cards when the time comes. this nation will walk silently into socialism; there'll be no kicking and screaming. won't it be nice to be taken care of?

::puke::

*;[

Papa Frank said...

I second your sentiments here nanc.

Deborah said...

Nanc,
You are so right! We are teetering smack dab into socialism and will wake up soon to find ourselves in the middle of it before one can say, "boo!"

I’ll never forget asking a liberal attorney whom I worked with if she really wanted to relegate her own healthcare to the level of those who are so irresponsible as to chose drugs over health, family, and shelter as we watched him stumble down the street. She looked at me with great big eyes and couldn’t answer me.

But, shoot, who’s worried about socialism when American’s are so ready to accept communism. B. Obama is plainly a communist! But you see, they haven't taught children over the past few decades what communism looks, smells, and acts like… and they haven’t reminded those of us who were taught. When I heard B. Obama say he was going to tax American’s inheritance to give every American worker a $1,000… every worker, not every household… I immediately thought, “That’s called spreading the wealth… and that’s communism, plain and simple.”

I have a friend who emigrated from Russia (legally) and two friends who emigrated from Cuba (illegally, but who are now legal), and those friends all say Obama is a communist – and they are certainly qualified to say who's a commuinist.

The Merry Widow said...

Deborah-Yup!
Nanc-Not with a shout, but with applause...it is a concerted effort to drag us down, dumb down our children, and cut off any expectations of bettering ourselves. Imposed by regulation and judicial fiat!
Pinky-But that makes them happy, not having children. After all, children make you grow up, they force you to become unselfish, they change your lives, and they add to the population! Watermelons are among the most selfish, self-centered and babyish group of people who need a good spanking!
Good morning, G*D bless and Maranatha!

tmw

Anonymous said...

Nanc, deborah, and tmw I'm with you ladies! The "people" are like sheep going to the slaughter. More and more I see them willing to believe conspiratorial garbage and BIG LIES. I long for the days when basic economics was taught in middle school. The nonsense surrounding oil and gas prices is indicative of ignorance on parade.

With so much ignorance, HOW can we remain a free people?

Morgan

nanc said...

morgan - i have to admit, i was much happier when i didn't know this much...there is something to the old adage about ignorance being bliss. i learned basic econ in fifth grade, along with the stock market and how to keep a checkbook - IN PUBLIC SCHOOL!

nowadays, it's revisionist history, and goodenuf math! no physical education - sick to tears.

*:[

nanc said...

p.s. - i'm not a physically violent person, but i'd like to smack the next politician i meet as they reach their hand out to shake mine!

mommyof7 (2inheaven) said...

Come by and check out my blog... You have been tagged again....

EDGE said...

Frank Fam,

Just bought an '06 Malibu. 4 cylinder 2.2L 30 city 35 Hw! Love it!

Yehudi said...

Where've you been, Jason?

Anonymous said...

I saw him today! He's hidin' around here somewhere. :-)

Papa Frank said...

Sorry. I'm around, I've just been a little busy for the last week or so.

Anonymous said...

I'll be busy grilling this weekend. ;-)

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Yehudi said...

Shabbat shalom, Jason!