# Intersting article about gas prices..



## Instg8ter (Sep 28, 2010)

just thought i would post this as i found it interesting, and it effects our ability to drive the cars we all so enjoy.

Five Ways the U.S. Government Could Make Oil Prices Fall - DailyFinance


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

Doesn't matter whats printed, reasons why, or solutions to lower the cost, there is a guy in Washington who is salivating this crisis and will use escalating prices as a tool to push cap and trade, the need to ween us off oil and go green. He has made no secret he wants us off fossil fuels, showed his disdain for coal while still taking money from those he chastises. Higher the price the wider his smile.:shutme


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## GhostTown (Jan 25, 2011)

I hope every one waits to go green after I'm no longer around. In the mean time, I'll $4.00 bucks a gallon. Smiling Washington guy or not.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

Instg8ter said:


> just thought i would post this as i found it interesting, and it effects our ability to drive the cars we all so enjoy.
> 
> Five Ways the U.S. Government Could Make Oil Prices Fall - DailyFinance


hell yes. americans have a god given right to drive an f350 4/4 down to the market to pick up a bag of potato chips.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

My 2007 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 quad cab Hemi has multi displacement and still it gets no better mpg than the Judge. 

Just wait until these greeners go to get those prius etc, batteries serviced or replaced.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

GTO JUDGE said:


> My 2007 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 quad cab Hemi has multi displacement and still it gets no better mpg than the Judge.
> 
> Just wait until these greeners go to get those prius etc, batteries serviced or replaced.


you might be waiting a while:

Car testers at Consumer Reports put this 2002 Toyota Prius through a full testing regimen and found that it held up well, even after 207,000 miles.
The magazine recently tested a Prius with 207,000 miles on it. The car was still in the hands of its original owner so editors were confident the car had been maintained reasonably well, driven normally and, most importantly, still had its original battery pack.




Toyota Prius hits 200,000 miles keeps on going - Mar. 4, 2011


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## Thumpin455 (Feb 17, 2010)

GTO JUDGE said:


> My 2007 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 quad cab Hemi has multi displacement and still it gets no better mpg than the Judge.
> 
> Just wait until these greeners go to get those prius etc, batteries serviced or replaced.


No way in hell am I going to drive a Prius or any other hybrid. Mainly because by the time one depreciates enough I can afford it, the battery pack will need replacing and that is more than I cant to pay for a used car. Secondly they are soulless life sucking appliances, so incredibly slow and still uses gasoline that they are permanently in my why bother category.

Green doesnt have to mean slow, boring, and/or electric. Green can mean 500hp/tq and 30mpg just not using gasoline. It can mean running the 72cc heads on a 455 and it lasting forever. The cool thing is we dont have to give up our GTOs, we just have to make some small adjustments to them and we could drive them more. It wont be long and I will be able to get the new 455 out on the road, just another month or so, two at most. Then I can show you videos and pics of what it takes and what the benefits are.

I dont want gas prices to hit $4 anymore than anyone else, because of what it does to slow everything down. I do want people to start thinking about alternatives that are actually better for your car than gas, cheap/easy to produce, and make more power while being better for all of us.

Just imagine driving around every day in a car with 14:1 compression and lots of bottom end torque. If you have ever driven a 455 with small chamber heads you know what I am drooling over... You dont have to be a tree hugging hippie to enjoy the benefits of green thinking. Done right you can be healthier, have more money in savings, and be able to drive your GTO wherever you want.

Now if we are forced to use gasoline, then yeah we will all end up in a Prius or something like it just to get around. I dont want to see that any more than you guys do.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

Thumpin455 said:


> No way in hell am I going to drive a Prius or any other hybrid. Mainly because by the time one depreciates enough I can afford it, the battery pack will need replacing and that is more than I cant to pay for a used car. Secondly they are soulless life sucking appliances, so incredibly slow and still uses gasoline that they are permanently in my why bother category.
> 
> Green doesnt have to mean slow, boring, and/or electric. Green can mean 500hp/tq and 30mpg just not using gasoline. It can mean running the 72cc heads on a 455 and it lasting forever. The cool thing is we dont have to give up our GTOs, we just have to make some small adjustments to them and we could drive them more. It wont be long and I will be able to get the new 455 out on the road, just another month or so, two at most. Then I can show you videos and pics of what it takes and what the benefits are.
> 
> ...


i plan to use ethanol in my gto this summer too but i have to say there is no way ethanol is a green fuel.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

time will tell, not all is what it appears to be.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

You guys aren't paying attention... You MUST comply. Gore wouldn't lie. The polar bears are relying on you to save them. You don't want them to become extinct do you? It's your selfish attitude: driving your fossil fueled cars, joy riding, having a good time, while others are busy saving the earth. That dozen ears of corn you stopped to buy at that roadside stand, if you'd put that in your car instead of your belly you cold get an extra 50 feet of travel out of your car.
Shame on you.:willy:


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

freethinker said:


> i plan to use ethanol in my gto this summer too but i have to say there is no way ethanol is a green fuel.


Ethanol is yellow fuel unless of course you are using Indian corn. Then its a hybrid color.

I am not a politically correct person but for those of you that are...... substitute Native American Corn for Indian corn.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

GTO JUDGE said:


> You guys aren't paying attention... You MUST comply. Gore wouldn't lie. The polar bears are relying on you to save them. You don't want them to become extinct do you? It's your selfish attitude: driving your fossil fueled cars, joy riding, having a good time, while others are busy saving the earth. That dozen ears of corn you stopped to buy at that roadside stand, if you'd put that in your car instead of your belly you cold get an extra 50 feet of travel out of your car.
> Shame on you.:willy:


no i dont want the polar bears to go extinct. do you? anyways thats not the problem causing the price hikes. the problem is there are a lot more people wanting to fill up their cars now days. have you heard that gm now sells more cars in china than in the us? every one of them wants gas.


GM Selling More Cars In China Than U.S.

DETROIT — General Motors Co. sold more cars and trucks in China last year than it did in the U.S., for the first time in the company's 102-year history.


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## GTO JUDGE (May 14, 2005)

freethinker said:


> no i dont want the polar bears to go extinct. do you? anyways thats not the problem causing the price hikes. the problem is there are a lot more people wanting to fill up their cars now days. have you heard that gm now sells more cars in china than in the us? every one of them wants gas.
> 
> 
> GM Selling More Cars In China Than U.S.
> ...


That is the excuse but there is tons of gas available according to those monitoring this. Speculators are driving prices up again because what "could" happen in Hell. (mid-east). As unrest moves from one country to another so does the speculation the shut down of oil flow will happen. So the price is driven up. These prices didn't just start rising because those in China are buying more it started when unrest began in hell. 

This supply and demand BS is just that BS.


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## mikes06goat (Jan 13, 2009)

I work for a Toyota dealership and we have only ever sold one hybrid battery, and that was to the technical college so they could take it apart and study it. Yeah, they are expensive but they last a very long time.


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## Thumpin455 (Feb 17, 2010)

Its kinda clear, diesel is usually dyed green. I guess if you are unaware of the vast differences in how each is made, and you tend to believe the negatives that are shouted from the people trying to keep you using gasoline, then sure it isnt green. There is lots of money being thrown at negative information to keep you thinking the way you are now. 

5 years ago everyone argued and said it would blow up any engine you ran it in. Three years ago people started in earnest using it for high performance. This year people are asking me to build carbs and give them more information on it. If it really did cost a gallon of diesel for every half bushel of corn to be grown, there is no way we could ever afford to feed cattle. Those saying it is bad for the environment are stretching any little insignificant thing to make you believe it is as bad as oil. Last I checked a spill of alcohol was easy to clean up, just add water or sunlight and it breaks down. Ask anyone in the Gulf states how that BP spill is helping them out, or how easy it was to clean up.

Besides we dont need to make it from corn, we just have such a vast surplus of it we might as well use it for something. If people in the south would embrace ethanol, they could use the kudzu vines to make it. If you have ever been through there the kudzu is taking over huge swaths of land, it grows a foot per day, and is very hard to kill off. There is no shortage of it either. The thing is people wont start making fuel from weeds and invasive species like that until there is enough demand that corn cant cover it. Right now corn covers it easily, without any problems, and still with a huge surplus every year.

E85 in the corn states is $2.45 a gallon. Gas where I live will be $4 shortly and E85 is still under $3. Create a demand for it and people will start making it from anything that is laying around or being thrown away. With people shouting all the supposed negatives and keeping people from getting behind it, it will just take longer and the people who import oil, work the stock market, and the countries that produce oil will be making the money. I would rather give my money to people in my country. Not just the top .1% of people either, the people like you and me who are working for a living.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

GTO JUDGE said:


> That is the excuse but there is tons of gas available according to those monitoring this. Speculators are driving prices up again because what "could" happen in Hell. (mid-east). As unrest moves from one country to another so does the speculation the shut down of oil flow will happen. So the price is driven up. These prices didn't just start rising because those in China are buying more it started when unrest began in hell.
> 
> This supply and demand BS is just that BS.


i understand it is more comfortable for some to blame tree huggers,or obama or some grand conspiricy for prices rising but often that keeps us from understanding the real problem.
just in case you hadnt noticed oil isnt the only commodity at record highs. grains, metals, energy, meats and precious metal are all near record highs and they were all on the move before egypt blew up. 

now, if you can figure a way to blame all of those price rises on the environmentalists we can talk. the only commom denominator is asian demand and the value of the us dollar.


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## freethinker (Nov 14, 2009)

Thumpin455 said:


> Its kinda clear, diesel is usually dyed green. I guess if you are unaware of the vast differences in how each is made, and you tend to believe the negatives that are shouted from the people trying to keep you using gasoline, then sure it isnt green. There is lots of money being thrown at negative information to keep you thinking the way you are now.
> 
> 5 years ago everyone argued and said it would blow up any engine you ran it in. Three years ago people started in earnest using it for high performance. This year people are asking me to build carbs and give them more information on it. If it really did cost a gallon of diesel for every half bushel of corn to be grown, there is no way we could ever afford to feed cattle. Those saying it is bad for the environment are stretching any little insignificant thing to make you believe it is as bad as oil. Last I checked a spill of alcohol was easy to clean up, just add water or sunlight and it breaks down. Ask anyone in the Gulf states how that BP spill is helping them out, or how easy it was to clean up.
> 
> ...




corn ethanol has many problem that make it unsuitable for solving our energy problems.
first is a net energy loser. second it is subsidised in 3 ways. there is a direct 45 cent a gallon subsidy paid right to the oil companies. second we subsidise the farmers to grow the corn. third we subsidise the price of ethanol by putting a tariff on imported ethanol keeping cheaper surgar cane ethanol out of the us.
i wont even go into the morality of using food to power our cars causing more starvation in the world.


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## 85_SS (Jul 26, 2010)

GTO JUDGE said:


> Just wait until these greeners go to get those prius etc, batteries serviced or replaced.


Nevermind the question of how they will dispose of all these batteries if Hybrids and electric cars actually catch on (nothing says you care for the environment like a trunk full of nickel-metal hydride) - then of course the pollution that is involved with the production of batteries. As for plug in electric cars - I thought we were trying to conserve electricity? I won't even start on the effect this will have on the grid if these cars actually became commonplace - it's simply not designed to handle such loads. Also, more demand on the grid will simply mean higher electric rates (we're in for skyrocketing rates over the next several years here in Ontario thanks to government programs paying 12x the going rate under 20 year contracts for green energy).

Above all that - my 15 year old Saturn gets the same real world mileage as a Prius or Smart car at just over 40mpg. Heck, the Geo Metro and several diesel cars have gotten well over 50mpg, going back literally decades! I can't help but laugh when I see commercials bragging about 30mpg - my V8 carb'd RWD 26 year old Monte Carlo with 3.73 gears gets 24mpg stock. We have a hybrid Escape at work rated for 41/40mpg... peaks out at about 24mpg mostly putting around in town. Hybrids are a status symbol for those that have money to waste and want to look/feel like they are doing something when they really aren't.

Hybrids and electric cars are an unsustainable, heavily subsidised product that will never stand on it's own two feet. What ever happened to a product standing on it's own merits? Many of those with "green goggles" just jump on the bandwagon of whatever they are told is good, without actually looking at the whole picture.

In short - hybrids and electric cars are not the solution, they are simply shifting the problem to something else and as a result are a flash in the pan technology. Ten years from now, the government will probably be running programs to scrap your environmentally-deadly electric car. Get hydrogen cars going and you will have a solution.

Sorry for the rant, but the blindness of the green fad these days is a bit of a sore spot with me...


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## likethat (Oct 5, 2007)

The best I can say with out writing a book is. That in 79, I was in 5th grade, they swore we would run out of oil in 10 years and global warming would be out of control in 20 years. Fast forward to today 32 years later. They have found more oil in the last 10 year. Then all the oil that has every been know since oil has been in use and it still snows in the winter. The weather is the same and Russian scientist have proven oil refills the wells naturally. Fact!!!
Some one is lying to us and it isn't the weather or the oil fields. Believe what ever but living proof out weighs speculation every day all day! If you think what they are say negatively about global warming and oil shortage is true fact. Then you might as well believe that at the end of 2012. The sun is going to barbecue the whole planet, 10 miles deep into the crust at 1000deg, from solar flairs. So nothing is going to be alive and it really doesn't matter if you burn tires to heat your house and drive with open exhaust running it as rich as you can on your carb with leaded gas and letting loss ever ounce of R12 on the planet to the atmosphere.


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## likethat (Oct 5, 2007)

freethinker said:


> just in case you hadnt noticed oil isnt the only commodity at record highs. grains, metals, energy, meats and precious metal are all near record highs and they were all on the move before egypt blew up.


This is my opinion whether right or wrong. Just my view and is not to belittle anyone else.


Oil isn't the only, it is the biggest in all the world. It is so big that it over shadows everything else by miles. Oil refinement affects everything there is down to the last cent. Oil has to be at least a million times bigger then the wheel in what has gotten us to where we are in all of history. It is the root to everything. Where we can live, how many can live there, how we get there, where we can work, how we feed ourselves, clothes, storage, pluming, on and on and on. It is just huge how we use it and how it gets us evolving on the earth. It is everything. Every time it is raised in price or rationed in the last 100 years, it has made wars, financial depression, inflation, it effects everything.
Put aside any feeling good or bad for oil and look at when gas is below a dollar a gallon in the USA (take in account what that was in the late 90's and adjust that ratio to it's value for oil in the past) and compare it to what the economy at that time was like, and you will see everything running well in the world. It is the economy.

Please don't think I am against anything Freethinker or anyone else is saying pro or con on oil. All I am pointing out is to seriously go out and look at it and try to look at this as a giant picture and where does it all fit in. My opinion is no better or worst then anyone else's. It is just that, "my opinion" you are all smart people and will draw your own opinions.


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## Thumpin455 (Feb 17, 2010)

I havent heard of anyone where I grew up getting subsidies for growing corn, apparently the Nebraska farmers dont get it. Regardless, oil gets far more subsidies than all of green energy, but nobody complains about that. 

As for the tariffs, why would we want to import something we can make right here? The people pushing for that want to control the flow of it just like the do oil. Also we are EXPORTING ethanol right now, both in 10% and E85/E98 varieties. So once again why would be want to bring more in? Just to cut the throats of our own companies producing it? If you build something, lets say a car, and someone else wants to import a similar car, doesnt it make sense to make the domestic car cheaper to buy with a tariff? Dont we already do that with cars to protect our domestic manufacturers against the imports? The only reason we would import ethanol is to create a glut of it here and drive our producers out of business. As if we dont already have employment issues. 

In 09 we had record ethanol production, we fed all the livestock, exported record amounts of corn (which isnt the same corn you eat, its an industrial product), and still we had 2 billion bushels left over sitting on the ground and rotting outside. So we had a huge surplus, enough to make 4 billion gallons of ethanol, and four times the amount of distillers dried grains we need to feed the worlds cattle. 08 was similar except speculation drove up the price of corn, and we didnt make as much ethanol then. Yet the price of food went up drastically in 08/09, even food that has nothing to do with any type of corn. I wonder what could have caused all the non corn products to go up too? Could it be the cost of diesel doubled that year? Could it be the surcharges grocers had to pay for the shipping? Nah couldnt be that, it had to be the huge surplus of corn we had laying around and the ethanol we made.

The bottom line is this, ethanol is here and its getting bigger, it is growing fast and oil companies cant kill it off this time like they have in the past. There is a plant in Nevada being built that will take municipal waste and turn it into fuel. It is one of many in the works to do exactly that. Corn is only one part of the system, and to think that it is raising the cost of anything food related more than the cost of diesel and gas is just being willfully ignorant. So stamp your feet, complain all you want, let your Pontiac sit in the garage while gas goes over $4 and keeps climbing. It doesnt hurt me a bit. I get to enjoy some really fun cars with lots of power available and my fuel is dirt cheap. E85 is only how I will take long trips in them, otherwise I will be running the vodka I make from cattails and whatever else I can find.

We have pumps all across the country, and we get more installed every day. Thre must be a reason for it other than subsidies or Obama's green threat. Bush was the pres when we started building ethanol plants everywhere, so you can blame him too for working towards making us self sufficient.


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