Saturday, May 3, 2008

Obama Says "No" To Summer Gas Relief

And good for him.

When you lower the price of gasoline, you spur demand. That's not a way to reduce our dependence on this old-fashioned energy source.



A true leader would call for an increase in the gasoline tax, that would pay for research into renewable energy sources.

Read about it here.

15 comments:

Denarii said...

yes DT lets taxes use some more so the government can create another monster to rape us with like ethanol.

our government has done so many things to keep prices high while saying it is trying things to reduce them.

I just wish the government would stay out of more things - everytime it tries fixing something with good intentions vote garbing idiots just destory any good that could come out it

Jorge said...

I don't play politics, but why not release oil from the strategic reserve we have? Could temporarily lower the price of oil for a bit.

TraderCaddy said...

Actually, it's the only thing that Obama has said that makes sense. Now if he would allow more more drilling (Alaska,off the Florida and California coasts), allow about a dozen nuclear power plants be built, lift the restricions (tariffs) on Brazilian ethanol, importation, increase tax credits on solar, wind, geothermal, and shale mining, allow about a half dozen refineries be built, and increase the MPG on US vehicles, then we may have something here.

Anonymous said...

Nah, he'll just tax the oil companies because it is all their fault.

Them Ivy Leaguers be smart.

Obama's a tool.

Dinosaur Trader said...

Denarii and Jorge,

I think you both miss the point... gasoline is CHEAP here. When you want to "ween a nation" off of gasoline, for every reason, you don't keep it cheap, as that will only spur greater demand. So I'd be very against opening the reserve. As for ethanol, that's a disaster, but I guess it's politically expedient. Another short term choice by our "leaders" that will hurt us down the road.

And TC, I agree with the tax credits for solar, etc, the increase of MPG on cars, and the nuclear plants. However, I don't think we need more drilling... at all, since that's just short term again. We need to take any money that we can get from gasoline taxes (and remove the SUBSIDIES that the oil companies currently receive... the oil companies that are making BILLIONS each year) and put them into only long term, game changing solutions, like solar.

-DT

INTERNATIONAL DAYTRADER said...

FYI here's a good baroc Obama spoof video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMs-p5y6cvo&feature=related

Denarii said...

DT - I really love the fact so many people bring up the fact gas is cheap - that is a lot of liberal BS - the places that gas cost more - all of Europe, Japan and Canada - then it is the US. Out of all those nations who has the largest nation to drive on US and Canada and then all the countries get a lot smaller quickly. So I do not understand the cheap comment.

and I do not want to be more like Europe except maybe Nuclear Power.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/

and I agree with TC on a complete answer.

The funny thing in NJ right now. The Governor wanted to put a wind farm out at sea. He did not get any fight from consumers, business, home owners, beach people or anything like that. The group that may stop it for years is the "we may kill some birds and the whales may not mate" people. I want to throw up.

Oh - one other thing - that ethanol tax breaks plus the framer billing the part which is for crops is about half the size of what the energy companies - go figure.

and the amount of tax breaks Exxon gets is less than 5% of the taxes it will pay this year.

Add another point - the tax breaks given to the Oil companies are 1/2 as big as the ear-marks voted on this last year.

You got to put every thing in its place.

Denarii said...

I forget one other point - you want to lower Gas prices tomorrow. Triple the margin requirements before the openning tomorrow on the NY Merc and that should get some tempory down draft prices.

That worked in 1987 with Stock Index Futures.

jsp9999 said...

Nation City Price
UK TEESIDE $5.64
HONG KONG HONG KONG $5.62
UK MILFORD HAVEN $5.56
UK READING $5.56
UK NORWICH $5.54
GERMANY FRANKFURT $5.29
DENMARK COPENHAGEN $5.08
NORWAY STAVANGER $5.07
NORWAY OSLO $4.93
ITALY ROME $4.86
TURKEY ISTANBUL $4.85
PORTUGAL LISBON $4.80
KOREA SEOUL $4.71
SWITZERLAND GENEVA $4.56
KOREA KOJE/OKPO $4.53
AUSTRIA VIENNA $4.50
CROATIA ZAGREB $4.32
JAPAN TOKYO $3.84
AUSTRALIA SYDNEY $2.63
CAMBODIA PHNOM PENH $2.57
TAIWAN TAIPEI $2.47
GEORGIA TBILISI $2.31
LAOS VIENTIANE $1.66
THAILAND BANGKOK $1.60
CHINA TIANJIN $1.54
CHINA SHANGHAI $1.48
RUSSIA MOSCOW $1.45
KAZAKHSTAN ALMATY $1.36
KAZAKHSTAN ATYRAU $1.35
TAJIKISTAN DUSHANBE $1.32
AZERBAIJAN BAKU $1.15
VENEZUELA CARACAS $0.14
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/price.html

U.S. is by far the most expensive of all since dollar is shit. And Americans drive like maniacs because of the size of the nation. All those wienerschnitzel countries are half of California size.

Dinosaur Trader said...

jsp,

You're cherry-picking your numbers.

Here's the top 10. We're #111! One-hundred and eleven...

1. Bosnia-Herzegovina $10.86
2. Eritrea $9.58
3. Norway $8.73
4. United Kingdom $8.38
5. Netherlands $8.37
6. Monaco $8.31
7. Iceland $8.28
8. Belgium $8.22
9. France $8.07
10. Germany $7.86
111. United States $3.45

Also, why do you guys keep mentioning the size of the country? Who gives a shit?

Denarii, XOM paid about 27 billion in taxes last year (and took home over 40 billion in profits) and received over 10 billion in direct subsidies. So check your math.

-DT

JakeGint said...

XOM paid $27 billion in taxes... probably ten times what the whole useless ethanol industry paid combined.

Dinosaur Trader said...

jake,

Look, our economy is built on cheap gasoline. If we were a smart country and not a country of "morons" (who I like to say, are those who voted for Bush) we'd have invested in better public transportation and not supported big box retailers like Walmart that you have to drive outside your town to access.

People like you like to talk about how weak Europe is and drive your Navigators with your little yellow ribbons on the back. Meanwhile, with $8.00 gasoline, they're doing okay. Here, people are whining for 18 cents this summer because it costs them $200 to fill their 50 gallon gas tank.

Whatever, time will tell who the morons are. Unfortunately, it's our children who will pay the price.

-DT

Unknown said...

Size does matter. Out here in California nothing can't be built because of oil lobby and sheer size of the project. It's so much more difficult to build public transits in California than build in Hong Kong or ToKyo or London. If you have lived in those cities, you understand what it would mean by size matters.

I certainly believe this gas tax is a shitty scam created by McBushClintonCan'tdo anything candidates. Shit. I save $1.5 per wk while I have ten thousand more potholes and they jack up my insurances. I am so fucking insulted that these fucking politicians pander citizens with $8B crap. Shit, it saves me $1.5. Even 5 year old will flat out reject such a shit. The sad thing is some people will actually buy into this scam.

-Insulted and want to fucking "obliterate" those politicians.

Dinosaur Trader said...

jsp,

I understand your rage towards the politicians... between them and the media, we are insulted enough.

As for the projects, I don't see why it would be easier to build in other cities. However, LA is fucked, no city should be so sprawled out... just poor "design" if you could even call it that...

$517 billion in Iraq. That could have gone a long way to building good public transportation systems in our cities.

When 44% of your taxes are going to infrastructure in Iraq, it's gonna be hard to build infrastructure here.

-DT

JakeGint said...

I'm not worried about my children, they'll be well equipped in their path of life.

For one thing, they won't have the fucktarded belief that the government is the answer to everything. Simple lessons in economics, history and economic-history should take care of that.

Morons will (eventually) realize that in a big country "public transportation" save in the most concentrated (geographically) regions, is underutilized, and a subsidized resource waster. Even in large cities like L.A., their is no way to economically (ie, "efficiently") lay out a rail system that will a) cut down on traffic (and therefore pollution), and b) pay for itself.

Price determines all. As you can well see, companies are already innovating towards higher gas mileage solutions, and I've every confidence that very soon, we'll have cars that won't even use a tenth of the gasoline our current engines use -- if any at all.

All of this will be done without gummint fucktupulation (to coin a neologism), like the asstarded ethanol idiocy (which was largely graft in the first place) which is already blowing up in the idiots' faces.

(Aside -- and I can't believe how cowardly these fucks are. Asking the EPA to change it's rules w. regard to ethanol usage WHEN THEY WERE THE ONES WHO WROTE THE LAW IN THE FIRST PLACE! All because they don't want to piss off farmer joe, who's jetting down to Rio in his Lear as we speak.)