Not sure what is wrong with the site, but I have written three posts about the same damned thing (oil prices), and they have all been eaten.
To hell with it. It is Friday and beautiful outside. You can just guess what I as going to say.
by John Cole| 81 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
Not sure what is wrong with the site, but I have written three posts about the same damned thing (oil prices), and they have all been eaten.
To hell with it. It is Friday and beautiful outside. You can just guess what I as going to say.
Comments are closed.
Zifnab
It’s a conspiracy!
Zombie Santa Claus
Which Stephen King monster/villain do you guys think would win in a championship match-up?
My money’s on Christine. She’s completely unstoppable. Then again, Pennywise might be hard for her to track down and run over. Also, theoretically I guess maybe the Tommyknockers could take her over and help her come up with better ideas on how to use her tires and some batteries to develop wings or something…
How about Pennywise versus the vampires from Salem’s Lot? What if those vampires got taken over by Tommyknockers? Has anyone around here ever thought about this stuff besides me?
Zombie Santa Claus
Also, we may need to disqualify some of the monsters. F’rinstance, if you’re using “The Stand,” should you be able to argue both the superflu AND the Walking Dude? Assuming arguendo that the Tommyknockers could design a robot that could beat the Walking Dude’s in an episode of “Battlebots,” who would win in a matchup of Walking Dude versus Wendigo? Some of these seem pretty unanswerable. Also, if you include EVERY story, some of the bad guys seem damn near unstoppable. (BTW, could Christine kill Pennywise if she had silver hubcaps, or would her tires need to have silver chains strapped to them?)
Teak111
San Diego, and its sunny here too, go figure, has some of the highest gas prices in the country. I just paid $3.51 a gal. Its killing me to pay this and it going to kill the econ too as business passes these costs to consumers, but I can’t think of another way to get people off thier asses and start pressing for fuel alternatives and other solutions. I’ve got one. telecommuting. The gov should provide incentive to big business to support teleccommuting, which would save gas. Necessity of the mother of invention. John, is that what you where going to say.
jg
I was going for Walking Dude but you ruled him out. So I choose Cujo.
I live in phoenix, its always a beautiful day and I hate guessing.
But as long as you weren’t planning to say that high gas prices are caused by liberal environmentalist or liberal EPA commie-nazis who won’t allow more refineries I’ll probably agree with whatever you were gong to say anyway.
AkaDad
I’m pretty sure John was gonna say how low gas prices are, and how we should just let free markets solve everything.
Zombie Santa Claus
How about Walking Dude versus Cujo?
Also, it doesn’t have to be a stand-up fight. Which one do you think would win a pie-eating contest? How about if those pies were filled with blood? Which one would win a spelling bee? (Allow for Christine having the ability to honk letters in Morse Code/Cujo to bark them out in Dog, etc.)
If Stephen King’s not your thing, who would win a pillow fight- the T-1000, or H.R. Giger’s Aliens?
Buck
Free markets ain’t free.
Jake
The Overlook Hotel would make all the other bad guys its beotches!
Zombie Santa Claus
How about if the Tommyknockers crashed a spaceship nearby? That’s a fight worth seeing! (Well, not that you’d really see it…)
El Cruzado
Dude, just write the posts in a text editor first (i.e. Wordpad on Windows, or TextEdit on the mac) and then copy and paste. All those years on the internet should have taught you that.
Zombie Santa Claus
How about if the Overlook Hotel and Rose Red had sex? What would their kids be like?
What about Christine and Herbie? Would their kids be goody-two-shoes Hippies like Herbie, or homicidally vain strumpets like Christine?
YellowJournalism
Carrie would kick all their asses.
Dreggas
Tell me about it’s the same here in Orange County (CA). It’s even worse when you have to have a mini-van or vehicle that can accomodate transporting someone who is disabled (my wife). It’s freaking ridiculous.
Paul L.
Calling Obama spinners. Guess he is still tired.
And in response to the “Get a Life” retort.
I’ll let it go when the democrats let go of Dan Quayle and potato.
And what is it with Democrats citing China as a environmental Panacea.
CARS SOLD
Dreggas
We let go of that a long time ago, after all bush provides much better material and makes Quayle look like a genius.
AkaDad
Paul L just happens to leave out the fact that some Japanese cars do actually get 45 mpg.
Paul L.
Did Obama say some? The sentence seems to imply all. that and he using the term average not “getting up to 45 mpg”.
Jake
Something about how you don’t care about the price of gas provided you can afford Hola Fruta.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Nah, those Tommyknockers would get her for sure.
This is the same horseshit the GOP pulled against Al Gore in 2000. Every gaffe he ever uttered was scrutinized; meanwhile, Bush got away with saying things that were 20 times as stupid.
I don’t think that trick will work this time around, spoof. But then again, it’s worth a shot.
AkaDad
Paul L
Perhaps Obama read this.
Look at the chart at the bottom of the page.
caustics
“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child”.
“You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.”
“Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.”
Sorry Paul, plenty more potatoe[s] in that goldmine. But by all means, keep humming “Barack the Magic Negro” while you guys keep stabbing each other in the back over Abortion/Guns/Gays/Iraq.
Zifnab
I’m going to have to go with the Evil Clown from IT. I mean, evil clown! Who’s not going to just piss his pants in fear and run from that?
I don’t think the word “average” means what you think it means, Paul.
Jake
Example:
I have three jackelopes. Paulell has six jackelopes. We have an average of 4.5 jackelopes.
This is also known as the Hare Splitting Theory.
Dreggas
“And so, what Gen. Petraeus is saying, some early signs, still dangerous, but give me — give my chance a plan to work.” –George W. Bush, in an interview with Charlie Rose, April 24, 2007
“One of my concerns is that the health care not be as good as it can possibly be.” –George W. Bush, on military benefits, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007
“Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and it’s a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like — or to the developed world, to people like — in the United States.” –George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2007
“I’m a strong proponent of the restoration of the wetlands, for a lot of reasons. There’s a practical reason, though, when it comes to hurricanes: The stronger the wetlands, the more likely the damage of the hurricane.” –George W. Bush, New Orleans, March 1, 2007
“And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I’m sorry it’s the case, and I’ll work hard to try to elevate it.” –George W. Bush, interview on National Public Radio, Jan. 29, 2007
Dreggas
Romney caught NOT pandering to the religious reich
ThymeZone
PaulL thinks that current political discourse is about whether Dan Quayle was fairly criticized for spelling “potato” with an “e.”
Whereas we tend to think it’s about collossal policy failures, gross incompetance, and a constant torrent of lies from the current Republican administration.
Let’s just say, Paul’s gripe just doesn’t scale very well.
Rome Again
Zifnab, that’s Pennywise, the one who was earlier in this thread placed opposite Christine.
Pennywise scared hell out of me when I read the book.
Dug Jay
I agree with Mr. Cole‘s second post that “disappeared.” Gasoline prices are too damn low.
Rome Again
Okay, I agree, Paul’s gripe just doesn’t scale very well. You are correct, sir.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
True, but I still think Pennywise would lose a pie-eating contest with Cujo.
RSA
I suspect that the lawnmower man would give both a run for their money.
Dreggas
Nah Man ya have to go with Randall Flag. He’d take em all out because unlike the others…he never dies.
For pure brutallity though you could go with George Stark aka Alexis Machine after all one of his best moments was beating someone to Death with his own prosthetic leg.
jg
Dreggas, Randall Flag is the Walking Dude we’ve already talked about.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Yeah, and it’s not like he was an especially great pie-eater, Satan or not. Shit, even those vampires from Salem’s Lot could’ve beaten him there, as long as the pies were full of fresh human blood.
The Walking Dude wouldn’t win a Final Jeopardy round against Christine, either, if the category were “50s rock songs” and Christine was permitted to play the answers in lieu of writing them by hand.
The Other Steve
It’s interesting how Obama makes a comment about Japanese fuel economy standards, and the response from the right-wing spin machine is to claim Japanese cars sold in America don’t meet that standard.
Anybody notice the difference? It’s not inconceivable to imagine that Japanese cars sold in Japan may be a different subset than Japanese cars sold in the US.
These guys are spinning so fast in order to discredit Obama’s point that the anti-nausea pharmacy companies are out of stock.
chopper
i dunno, but the greatest villian stephen king ever had to deal with was ‘writing’. (thumbs down)
The Other Steve
Man! I forgot about that one.
How about some other good quayle quotes?
“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy — but that could change.”
“I had no problem communicating with Latin American heads of state — though now I do wish I had paid more attention to Latin when I was in school.”
“Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.”
“Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact we think it is infinite.”
“A stirring victory for the forces of aggression against lawlessness.”
“The Civil War was the best war we’ve ever had because when you’re fighting with yourself, you’re always going to win.”
The Other Steve
Dan Quayle looks like a genius compared to GW Bush.
ThymeZone
Please take time today to discover Greg Palast.
Thank you.
Jake
I think Dan was trying to tell us something about Lil’ 43 and Babs.
I can’t recall the last time I’ve heard a crack, quip or snerk about DQ before PaulEll brought him up. Meanwhile, shrieking about Clinton’s BJ in the OO continues to comprise 58% of the traffic through the intertubes.
Zifnab
I haven’t heard a Dan Quayle joke since I was in Middle School. Of course, after Dick Cheney shot a 78-year-old man in the face, I haven’t heard a comedian pass on that joke yet.
Keep trying Paul.
John S.
When does anything that Paul has to gripe about scale well?
After all, he is a 28 percenter in earnest.
RSA
I first misread this as saying that Paul’s grip [e.g., of reality] doesn’t scale well, and then I thought, “Yeah, well, not much difference, is there?”
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Only if the pies had grass in ’em.
Krista
And he’s also Walter, and also the Man in Black (no relation to Johnny Cash, unfortunately.)
Leland Gaunt might also be a contender. He, like our boy RF, seems to pop back up somewhere else just when you think he’s finally bit it.
photonaton
Just a quick observation, for those who say the “real” cost of gas has been relatively flat since whenever:
Back when I first obtained my driver’s license in 1978, minimum wage was about $2.30/hour, and a gallon of gas could be obtained for 28 cents, about 7 minutes of minmum wage work (ignoring taxes).
Today, minimum wage is $5.15/hour, and a gallon of gas goes for $3.20. That represents 37 minutes of minimum wage work (again, ignoring taxes).
So the minimum wage worker today has to work about 5 times as long to obtain that gallon, vs. 1978. Maybe a bit less, given changes in taxation (I’ll leave that for others to pin down).
The price of gas may be temporally flat, but its impact is definitely not, for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Pb
photonaton,
The average price of gas back in 1978 was 65 cents ($1.60 adjusting for inflation); the federal minimum wage was $2.65 ($6.57 adjusting for inflation) — so, comparing to 1978, the price of gas has risen faster than inflation, and the minimum wage hasn’t kept up with inflation.
However, another thing to note is that the price of gas was still $1.60 or lower as recently as 2004 — so the spike in gas prices occurred relatively recently, and before that point it had been trending at or below inflation.
ThymeZone
Minimum wage is a political artifact, not an economic one.
I don’t think any conclusions can be drawn about the price of fuel from comparisons of the minimum wage with the price of gasoline.
However, it might be fair to draw some regarding the artificial suppression of the minimum wage against a rising cost of living.
The price of gasoline is sensitive mostly to the cost of oil and to supply and demand. Supply has, either deliberately or not, been “adjusted” over long periods of time to keep the price relatively flat, adjusted for inflation, for long periods. I’d argue that this is deliberate but I have no proof. Oil and fuel are a cash-only business. The people moving the products are playing with very large amounts of money in real time.
tBone
I think Blaine the Mono would win in a battle royale between SK villians. All he has to do is trick them all into getting on board, and then hope that none of them tell any shitty jokes before he can ram himself into a cliff.
ThymeZone
In addition to what I said above, we have to calculate that the price of gas can’t directly impact many people on minimum wage, since minimum wage doesn’t support owning, maintaining, insuring, or operating a motor vehicle.
On the other hand, the price of milk just went up about 30% at my grocery store in the last year. From $3.29 a gallon to $4.29 a gallon.
Demdude
The Giuliani story hits the paper in Iowa.
Couple: We weren’t rich enough for Giuliani
The Des Moines Register
ThymeZone
Wow, hard to believe that Rudy can’t connect with poor farmers out there in Iowa.
You’d think he could just put on a simple flowered dress and just get down with the folks.
Bob In Pacifica
Gas prices in my little burg have dropped from 3.60 to 3.55 this week, although I noticed a place on the El Camino that was over 4 bucks a gallon.
The Other Steve
We’ve been buying organic milk… Which is about $6/gallon.
I’m buying more and more organic, simply because it tastes better. Substantially better.
Paul L.
I remember in the late 80-90, non-stop references in the media to the Dan Quayle and potato. It seemed to go on for years. So I see it as fair to continue criticize “numbers” Obama.
AkaDad, nice chart appears the number came from the Pew center
The same guys who astroturfed campaign finance reform.
Pardon me if I do not believe them without seeing where they got the numbers.
BTW, Interesting to see that the left and media have lost interest in the DC Madam phone list.
Clinton Judge Puts Gag Order On DC Madam
ThymeZone
Has that been the prevailing price, about 50% above the factory milk?
jake
Soy milk. Buy a box of a dozen from Costco. Lasts a year or more depending on our cereal consumption.
I hate you lactose tolerant non-milk allergic bastards.
DougJ
I thought you might enjoy this letter that appeared in my local paper this morning:
Zombie Santa Claus
You wrote this, right?
The Other Steve
That’s ok, we’ll just keep laughing at you for being pathetic.
The Other Steve
Yeah, it was $5 a gallon until a few months ago when it hit $6.
It also has something to do with demand. The organic milk is frequently sold out. They don’t carry as much, I mean there may be like 20 cartons instead of the hundreds of regular stuff.
DougJ
I’m not saying I did, I’m not saying I didn’t, to quote Peyton Manning.
ThymeZone
Okay, I just watched Bill Maher’s Real Time for this week … and I gotta say, that guy is just fucking good.
Zombie Santa Claus
Persona non grata, in Wisconsin.
Hyperion
the cheap organic milk in my neck of seattle has been $3 for a year or so..which is when i switched. the half and half is twice as expensive on average.
RSA
Wingnut rants wouldn’t be wingnut rants without misspellings and creative grammatical constructs.
Andrew
I could buy a single, small box of soy milk and it would last forever, because it tastes like evil.
The Other Steve
Why do you hate Soy Farmers, Andrew?
jh
I could buy a single, small box of soy milk and it would last forever, because it tastes like
evilDIRT.Fixed.
I continuously mock my wife and her Dirt Milk.
If it’s not from a cow, ‘taint milk to me.
Zifnab
Not even goat milk? You’re missing out. That stuff tastes fantastic.
Jake
1. Signs of intelligent life in the universe?
Not here.
2. Death to the unwashed cow-milk guzzling devils. They shall be drowned in tubs of ice cream.
[Sigh.]
The Other Steve
Oh come on Jake. Staging a fake gun attack at school is good, because it teaches children sufficient amounts of fear.
Without fear, we are nothing.
Mr Furious
Screw organic milk (and related products—half and half in particular). They ultra-pastuerize all of it to increase shelf-life, and that is bad. The higher heat destroys most of the nutritional benefit from drinking milk, and changes the properties of the proteins and makes them less healthy and harder to digest. Just seek out the non-rGBH (hormone-free) milk which is also more likely to be from a local dairy, rather than trucked in from some organic conglomerate three states away.
Recently the Whole Foods here in Ann Arbor ditched the local dairy line of non-rGBH milk and replaced with their own complete line of organic. I don’t buy any milk there anymore…
Zombie Santa Claus
Those teachers shouldn’t be disciplined for staging a fake gun attack; they should be disciplined for failing to stage a fake nuclear drill (remember good ol’ “duck and cover”, folks who were born before 1987?), fake terrorist attack, fake killer bee attack, fake zombie outbreak, and fake alien invasion. Any one of those could happen to our children AT ANY MOMENT, and without them being made constantly aware of this fact, they’ll be putty in the hands of any terrorist, zombie, space alien, killer bee, or nuclear weapon that comes after them.
We have nothing to fear but things that frighten us.
Mr Furious
That non-rGBH milk I by is typically 5 bucks a gallon. I’ll often drive by stores advertising milk (as a loss-leader?) for as little as $1.99/gal, but I won’t have my daughters grow up drinking those fucking hormones and getting their periods at nine.
And another thing…the requirement that dairies that don’t treat cows with rGBH and tout that fact on their labels are required by law to add a disclaimer that “hormones haven’t been proven unhealthy (yet)” is fucking outrageous.
Details on the landmark Monsanto vs. small Maine dairy that refused to add the disclaimer here.
Jake
Do I want to make a Mark Foley joke?
Magic 8-Ball says ‘Shut up.’
But I’m going to start teaching just so I can stage mock fRight Wing Evangelical attacks. I shall all so teach them to shun those who suckle of the vile bovine secretions.
mrmobi
To paraphrase Lewis Black, there is no soy milk because there is no soy tit.
Mr Furious
Just paid $3.39/gallon for regular unleaded at the cheapest gas station in the Ann Arbor area. That is $1.50 more than I paid in January. Has anybody even offered an explanation for this latest hike?
Notice I didn’t say “filled up”. I never fill up anymore. Ten bucks here, fifteen there…I never want to drop forty on a fill-up to have gas suddenly drop ten cents because it’s Tuesday or a full moon (or whatever). Though it looks like the chances of that happening are getting more and more remote.
Jake
Wrong. It comes from women who eat Soylent Green.
photonaton
Pb said:
My mistake, wrong year (don’t ask what I was smoking when I wrote that, and I won’t tell). I do remember paying 28 cents/gallon for gas, but the year was 1974, not 1978.
At any rate, you are correct. There are two trends worth noting here.
True.
………….
TZ said:
Yes, your statement more completely encompasses the problem.
My remark was only meant to encourage broader thinking from those who answer complaints about the recent surge with statements that current oil/gasoline prices in “real” dollars are not all that much out of line with some earlier data points from the historical chart.
At the lower income levels, gasoline prices relative to income may well be their highest in many, many years, even in “real” terms.
Although minimum wage workers are less likely to have a car, quite a few nevertheless do. Many must, unless they live where public transportation is practical. For some, it is an attempt to obtain some sense of independence or sense of belonging to a society which has largely left them hanging. It may be a beater, may only have one headlight and plastic taped over a broken side window, may only run intermittently before being retired to rust heaven, and they may go without insurance until caught, but many min wage earners do have cars. Although it is true that fewer will as the operating costs increase.
In addition, as increases in transportation costs permeate into the economy at large, the poor, even those without autos, feel the pinch…more deeply than those above them.
Actually, my beef with this recent surge is four-fold. The elevated impact on those at the bottom. The fact that the price we pay for energy does not cover future damage to the environment. That the price we pay at the pump also does not cover for lives lost and bombs dropped in order to protect access. And the fourth point: with each of these oil/gas surges, we (as a nation) vow to do something about it but then do nothing of substance.
We have been fortunate so far. Increasing prices have spurred development of improved petroleum recovery and processing efficiency, have made it more cost-effective to pick the higher-hanging fruit, and have attracted more investment dollars from those chasing the higher return. Up to now, each surge eventually led to a return to lower prices in real terms. That may prove true this time, maybe next time too. But, as the expression goes, it will continue to prove true until it does not. Eventually, there will be no more blood to squeeze from the turnip (or, as my petroleum engineer cousin, says, “they ain’t burying any more dinosaurs”). Eventually, the polar ice caps will all melt. Eventually, we may have larger wars or more severe economic disruption.
…(on the other hand, to paraphrase our dear leader, eventually we will all be dead, so maybe we should all just accept it blithely).
Virtually none of the “windfall” profits from these surges goes toward permanent resolution of the problem. In some cases, that little which does is spent partially on a few token efforts, with the rest spent publicizing those token efforts to assuage the public. Keep ’em happy and keep ’em hooked. In other cases, those efforts are mainly preemptive and defensive. Conduct some R&D, patent the most promising alternatives to your own product, and then sit on them.
What is called for is some leadership to put forth a real, meaningful national energy policy. And that is something the private sector will never do, perhaps unless they wake up one morning and find the barbarians at their gates. That is what government is for, to tackle problems the private sector is either unable or unwilling to deal with.