Is there really a Gas Shortage?

Gary_in_Orygun

Ex-RAF 2000 Driver
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Here's an interesting perspective from an automotive / oil writer from Texas. It's in two installments and very interesting.

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VIEWPOINT April 1, 2008, 3:41PM EST
There Is No Gas Shortage
But Washington, Wall Street, and ethanol and oil and gas companies want you to think there is, says automotive expert Ed Wallace

by Ed Wallace

"They see speculation in the market, I see decline in global inventories. I don't think this is a big surprise, that we've had a jump in price when there has been a decrease in crude inventories."—Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, Bloomberg News, Mar. 5, 2008

"It should be obvious to you all that the [gasoline] demand is outstripping supply, which causes prices to go up." — President George W. Bush, Associated Press, Mar. 5, 2008

One wonders if verifiable facts ever get in the way of this administration's statements on issues that are critical to the average American's wellbeing. After all, last time I checked, when politicians are elected to public office, or appointed, as is Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, they must take an oath to the American people before assuming their new positions. How can they forget a sacred oath so quickly? Were they daydreaming when they took it, so it never meant anything to begin with? Maybe it's just another promise you have to make to get into office: When you're securely incumbent you can ignore even solemn oaths you took.

Obviously, the two quotes that led this article came from discussions concerning the current high price for oil on the futures market. Bodman appears to be protecting the speculators in oil, as opposed to looking after the interests of all Americans. President Bush, apparently, has never talked to the Energy Dept.'s Energy Information Agency to see whether gasoline demand is actually up. More troubling, the writer of that particular Associated Press article obviously didn't look up the EIA's numbers to verify the President's assertions. They weren't accurate.

1. There Is No Shortage

Gasoline reserves on hand are at the highest levels since the early 1990s, which is remarkable considering the nation's refineries have been cutting back on the production of gasoline because their margins have declined. In fact, average gasoline reserves on hand have risen since this past October, while oil reserves in this country have gone up virtually every week this year—and only fog in the Houston Ship Channel that kept oil tankers from unloading their crude one week kept it from being every week.

In the same Bloomberg article that quotes from Bodman's CNBC appearance on Mar. 4, he also said that it was thanks to ethanol that the gasoline problem isn't even worse. He then added that the fact that making ethanol is forcing up prices of other farm commodities, including hog and chicken feed, is "nowhere near as important as trying to relieve pressure on [gasoline] supplies."

Of course, there is no pressure on gasoline supplies in this country as of today, but Bodman's statement must have made eyes roll among the executives at Pilgrim's Pride PPC; the Pittsburg, (Tex.) poultry producer announced 1,100 layoffs on Mar. 13, closing one processing plant and 6 of their 13 distribution centers because their company's outlay for chicken feed went up $600 million last fiscal year and was on track to increase by another $700 million this year.

Here's the scorecard, in case you missed it. There's no shortage of gasoline or oil in the U.S. today, and we have near-record reserves on hand. Meanwhile the Congressional mandate for ethanol has jacked up the price of chicken feed for Pilgrim's Pride, which is the U.S.'s largest processor of chickens and turkeys—by $1.3 billion. And that's for just one company processing chicken. This is what passes for acceptable to our Energy Secretary?

2. Demand Is DOWN, Yet Prices Are UP

Just so we can all get on the same page, here are the verifiable facts on oil supplies, production, and gasoline demand.

In January of this year, the U.S. used 4% less petroleum than we did a year ago. (Oil demand was down 3.2% in February.) Furthermore, demand has been falling slowly since July of last year. Ronald Bailey of Reason Online has pointed out that worldwide production of oil has risen 2.5% in the first quarter, while worldwide demand has grown by only 2%. Production is expected to increase by 3.3% in the second quarter, and by as much as 4.1% by the third quarter. The net result is that the U.S. daily buffer for oil production against demand, which was a paltry 1.5 million barrels as recently as 2005, is now up to 3 million barrels in excess capacity today.

So what is going on here? Why would our Energy Secretary say there's a supply and demand problem when none exists? Why would he say that speculators have little or nothing to do with the incredibly high price of oil and gasoline, when it's clear they do? President Bush—a former oilman—gives the ever-growing demand for gasoline as the primary reason prices are so high, yet that notion can be dispelled with one minute of research. That's the problem with rhetoric; it rarely matches the facts.

3. Speculation is Up, and the Dollar Is Down

On the same day the President and our Energy Secretary made those foolish comments, no less an authority than ExxonMobil (XOM) Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson was quoted by Marketwatch as saying, "The record run in oil prices is related more to speculation and a weakening dollar than supply and demand in the market." He added, "In terms of fundamentals, fear of supply reliability is overblown."

As for the speculators, in 2000 approximately $9 billion was invested in oil futures, while today that number has gone up to $250 billion. Now, if any publicly traded company had an additional $241 billion put into its stock in the same period, its stock would rise out of sight too—even if the company was not worth anywhere near that amount of market capitalization.

Moving on to the weak U.S. dollar as a primary cause for skyrocketing oil prices—there is "some" truth in that statement. But consider this: The dollar has depreciated 30% against the world's currencies since 2002, while the price of oil has gone up 500%. So is it the weak dollar that has caused a 500% increase in the price of oil, or is it the extra $241 billion worth of speculation? You can make the call on that one.

Possibly just to ensure oil prices don't respond to real-world market conditions, Goldman Sachs (GS) forecast on Mar. 7 that turbulence in the oil market could cause oil to spike as high as $200 a barrel. This flies in the face of all known information—but then again, Goldman Sachs is the world's biggest trader of energy derivatives, and its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index is a widely watched barometer of energy and commodities prices.

What Is Washington Thinking?

Rounding out the list of experts discussing our oil and gasoline situation is Bill Klesse, head of San Antonio (Tex.) Valero Energy (VLO). He spoke in San Diego a week after those comments from Goldman Sachs, the President, and Secretary Bodman. Believe it or not, Klesse said poor margins may cause Valero to sell one-third of its refinery operations; he stated that poor margins in recent months had caused planned refinery expansions—which would have produced 500,000 more barrels per day—to be canceled. Moreover, according to a report from Reuters on Mar. 11, 2008, Klesse recently released the information that gasoline production has been curtailed in response to slowing demand.

Imagine that: Refiners cut gasoline production, yet gasoline reserves have grown to their largest since late 1992. So much for "surging demand."

Klesse also called for the government to start imposing a tariff on imported gasoline to protect U.S. refiners' profits. Protectionism? As famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith correctly said, "In America, the only respectable form of socialism is socialism for the rich."

Which takes us back to the original question: Why is Washington doing everything it can to convince us there is a shortage when there isn't one? After all, the only people they're protecting are those heavily invested in oil futures—and that's to the detriment of all other Americans.

We're Paying for What?

When it became undeniable that poor decision-making by company executives had put a respected 85-year-old U.S. institution in financial peril, why did the Federal Reserve rush in to save investment bank Bear Stearns (BSC)? Of course, we need to restore confidence in our financial institutions, but why protect the personal assets of those who were responsible for the mess? Both the corporation's officers and its board members should contribute their personal assets toward saving the bank they put in the ditch—the bank all of us are going to pay to bail out.

Instead, the Bush administration is protecting those responsible for creating yet another speculative bubble in oil futures, and is protecting investors in the ethanol industry—much to the detriment of food-processing companies such as Pilgrim's Pride. And the net result of all this is that the prices of crude and gasoline rise ever higher thanks to a "shortage" that does not exist, while food costs are soaring thanks in part to the ethanol mandate.

The Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, but the cost of mortgages goes up six weeks in a row—and last month Bank of America (BAC) credit-card holders started being charged more than 24% interest on new purchases.

This is what they call "Republican Prosperity?" Ronald Reagan was both right and wrong when he said, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem." And government is still the problem. Instead of a fair and open market they gave us a free-for-all marketplace with no regulations at all, which lately these "bubble boys" have sent south for all of us.

One would guess that Washington missed the obvious: Protect all U.S. consumers and you're also protecting business expansion.

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VIEWPOINT April 23, 2008, 2:21PM EST
There is No Gas Shortage, Part 2
Columnist Ed Wallace argues that nothing in the real world justifies oil's current pricing—except the push for higher profits

by Ed Wallace

"Gasoline inventories are higher than the historical average at this time of the year, and gasoline fundamentals are actually weakening in the U.S., so there is really no need to worry about supply being too tight." — Purvin & Gertz Oil Analyst Victor Shum; Associated Press, Mar. 10, 2008.

"The current high oil prices are inflated by as much as 100%. The price surge is a result of excessive speculation." — Oppenheimer Oil Analyst Fadel Gheit; Congressional Testimony as reported by CNN, Dec. 11, 2007.

"The [oil] fundamentals are no problem. They are the same as they were when oil was selling for $60 a barrel, which is in itself quite a unique phenomenon." — Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive officer, Royal Dutch Shell; Washington Post, Apr. 11, 2008.

On Tuesday, Apr. 1, my column discussing the impact speculators are having on the price of oil (BusinessWeek.com, 4/1/08) was published on BusinessWeek.com. Since then, we've watched oil contract prices continue to rise, now setting an all-time historical record even when factored against inflation. In spite of the controversy my article stirred up—it generated more than 800 comments, more than 430,000 page views, and was dug at Digg.com almost 4,000 times—there was very little new or original in it; I simply compiled numerous articles and quotes from other sources to validate the claim that things aren't always what they seem—in the oil patch or at the gas pump.

More amusing was the fact that, the day after that column ran, the weekly oil report came out from the Energy Information Administration, which showed that we had put another 7.4 million barrels of oil into our reserves. And to validate my point in that column—that there is no connection between price, demand, and the supply of oil and gas—oil prices leaped almost $4 a barrel on that day. And the news kept right on coming.
THE NEW OIL REALITY: PRICES WILL ALWAYS GO UP

On Apr. 7, Reuters Online Service reported that oil had gone up another $3 a barrel, but near the end of that article came this line: "Ships along the northern end of the Houston Ship Channel, which feeds eight refineries in Houston and Texas City, were stopped by dense fog on Monday." As could have been predicted, when the second week's oil report came out from the EIA two days later, crude stocks had fallen by 3.2 million barrels. The result of Gulf Coast fog holding up oil deliveries was that on the release of the second oil report, oil prices again rose by $2.37.

This is the new oil paradigm. No matter what happens, it is used to justify the commodities market's contention that oil prices just aren't high enough: In one week we add 7.4 million barrels of oil to stock in reserve and yet the price goes up almost $4 a barrel. Then the very next week our reserves fall because of fog, and the price goes up another $2.37. But the only people who still claim to be stunned by what's happening in oil are the analysts quoted by the media that cover the industry.

Seven days after the fog report ran, Reuters reported that the EIA was forecasting gasoline demand to be down in the U.S. this summer for the first time since 1991. They mentioned, as I had in that previous column, that gasoline inventories on hand were at the highest levels in 15 years.

On Apr. 14, Automotive News ran an article showing that gasoline reserves on hand going into this year's summer driving season will be at the highest levels since 1999. In between those two stories, on Apr. 10, AP Online discussed the record prices for gasoline and diesel—but also pointed out, "Oil prices were pressured [lower] Thursday by data from tanker-tracking firm Oil Movements showing that OPEC oil shipments rose last week."

Five days later British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President George W. Bush jointly called for OPEC to further open their oil spigots. Apparently they already had.
SOMEBODY, PULL THE HAND BRAKE!

The point of the original article was that there is currently no shortage of gasoline in the U.S.—even if gas demand were normal—and by everyone's agreement, demand is falling and has been for most of this year. I would take small issue with the article in Automotive News, because the official reserves of gasoline on hand on Apr. 4 totaled 221,268,000 barrels, and you would have to go back to the same week in April of 1993 to find a higher number (228,289,000). Likewise, the amount of oil on hand sat at 316,016,000 on that date, and that was higher than it was during the same week in 2004, 2003, 2001, and 2000.

Of course, anyone discussing oil is going to get hit with the 'China Factor.' That's certainly understandable, since most articles discussing crude will bring up China's surging demand. However last year China imported 3.2 million barrels of oil per day, or something less than half of their total oil demand. It is now being estimated that China will use 7.9 million barrels of oil per day in the coming year, but that is their total oil use, imports included. (By contrast, the U.S. currently imports between 12.2 million and 13.6 million barrels per week.) In any case, the International Energy Agency is forecasting U.S. demand for crude will fall by 2%. Assuming the import component of China's oil use remains the same, the two nations' numbers cancel each other out.

If you take the "fear factor" out of the oil market, all that's left is the hard numbers—and nothing in the real world justifies oil's current pricing. In fact, on Apr. 11, a Washington Post article on the current problems with the price of oil quoted Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), estimating that the new flow of investment monies into oil rose from $450 million per week at the first of the year to $3.4 billion per week by mid-March. Once again, you've got the head of a major oil company stating that speculation—not market fundamentals—is driving the price of oil.
WHAT'S BEHIND THE AIRLINES' DEMISE?

In the first column I discussed how all U.S. refiners are not making the margins they've become accustomed to on gasoline at the moment; to blame is the high cost of oil combined with lackluster demand for gasoline. (However, by continuing to cut back on production of gasoline, refiners have improved their positions for "crack spreads"—the industry term for the difference between the price of crude oil and petroleum products extracted from it—since Apr. 1—a point not lost on motorists everywhere.) Much in the same way, ethanol isn't really profitable right now either, because the price of corn has skyrocketed to over $6 a bushel. But none of this was an attempt to explain the problems with distillates, which are heavy fuels, heating oil, aviation fuel, and diesel.

Middle distillates, such as aviation fuel, have played a big part in four airlines' having declared bankruptcy over the last 30 days, while Delta (DAL) and Northwest (NWA) have declared their intent to merge their operations.

But distillates also are killing the trucking industry in the U.S.; the price of diesel has shot up over $4 a gallon throughout the country because the stockpiles of distillates are running well below the five-year average. And yet, according to Antoine Halff with New York brokerage Newedge USA, in the first week of April the U.S. exported more distillates than it imported. Combine that with the fact that we were running our refineries at much slower rates to burn off some of our gasoline reserves, in order to push up the price of gas, and you have a mix that has hurt our ability to improve the distillate reserves. Additionally, import of distillates into the U.S. is down 38% this year, mostly because there is little surplus of these fuels in Europe.

Distillates refined in the Middle East are typically directed to Asia; governments there don't require that those fuels meet the new U.S. standards for ultra-low sulfur content.
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF GASOLINE

It gets worse. According to Tom Knight, an energy trader with TAC Energy in Texarkana, Tex., the U.S. is about tapped out on its ability to make ultra-low-sulfur diesel. In a nutshell, one of the big problems with diesel is that refineries have cut back their runs on gasoline to enhance their profits, while at the same time we've hit a brick wall in making the new EPA-required formulation for diesel from the materials available. The same holds true for aviation fuel.

So here we go again. There's no shortage of gasoline. Nor is there a shortage of oil on the world market. There is a shortage of distillates such as diesel and aviation fuel, but that is partly because refineries are trying to short gasoline supplies to improve their "pitiful" crack margins. And all of this plays out against an economic slowdown that, in any other place or time, would be forcing the prices of these commodities down rapidly.

Don't even get me started on how the ethanol mandate is helping to do the exact same thing to food prices.

Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society. The automotive expert for KDFW Fox 4 in Dallas, Wallace hosts the top-rated talk show Wheels, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 570 KLIF AM in Dallas.
 
Much of the info is accurate, but some of the conclusions are highly subjective.

The US Dollar has fallen 30 per cent since 2002 against other currencies, but that doesn't account for the simultaneous loss of buying power in other currencies. You need to hold it up against some sort of standard which can't be manipulated or damaged by government policy.

Gold was $275/oz in 2002; it was recently at $1,000/oz. Since gold didn't really change in value at all, that means the dollar was down about 75%. At today's ~ $870, it's still down something like 70 per cent, not 30.

It doesn't really matter what mechanism is behind the rise in oil prices. If we could find a way to cut consumption even 5%, supply/demand would be shaken hard, the speculators would lose their shirts, and we'd get some sanity back.
 
Problem is Gary that news takes time to disseminate and bad news tends to capture peoples attention first.

News is just that, another word for it is gossip. News and facts tend often to get separated

Facts also tend to get blurred by the perspective of whoever is passing on the 'Chinese whisper' that's doing the rounds.

General perception at the present time is that things aren't too great, and we have had plenty of negative publicity for that. The war, oil and fuel prices, banks screwing up on sub-prime lending, the climate, ozone layer, politics, food prices Uncle Tom Cobley and all. So everybody right now is a bit down in the mouth and inclined by general mood to believe the sky is falling in.

Fact is it isn't. Times are probably going to be a tad more tricky, however so far everything is progressing pretty much as it has done for the last few million years with the odd Tsunamis, extinctions, volcanoes, earthquakes floods and fires.

The human population is doing pretty much what it always did, breed prodigiously, fight each other and generally agonize about it all while pondering the meaning of life, and exactly what religion is the right one to get the green light for whatever comes next.
 
It's Global Warming I tell you .
It's all about Global Warming .
And on that note I'm going to go ride my bicycle .
I hope it doesn't snow .
 
Damn I missed that. Have a good ride.
 
US demand is down, but world demand is much higher. Nations like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia are becoming more prosperous and industrializing -- that means, they need oil. (Brazil just found a bunch, but it will be years before they get it into production).

The US, Europe and Australia aren't all alone on the oil spigot any more. That's the biggest single reason that prices are going up.

There is also a large speculative bubble. I personally believe that the bubble is, in part, an attempt to manipulate the US election and (either way the election goes) the bubble will burst in November. But prices won't go back to 2006 levels because demand won't go back to 2006 levels (in the US, demand has sunk to 2002 levels already, our oil-use peak was actually 2004 (!), but world demand rises faster than we can conserve. The Europeans are already much more efficient than we are with energy of all kinds (because it's always been much more expensive in Europe).

When something costs more, people find ways to buy less. That's all "market forces" really are, the weight of millions of individuals responding to incentives and their own wants and needs.

If government tries to dictate prices to the market, the result is invariably a two-tier market. The legal market, which is always in shortage state, and a black market, where anything can be had, but for a price. Ask anybody who lived in Russia or Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism. There was the legal way to get stuff and the way you actually had to get stuff in the real world.

Same thing in the USA during wartime rationing: there was a massive black market in fuel and other rationed products (even ladies' stockings). Britain kept food rationing going well into the fifties ('55 or '56 I think -- would have to ask relatives, before my time) and the predictable food shortages produced a baby boom generation of undernourished kids (notable for their bad teeth).

If you set a government rule between people and what they want, people find a way around it. Anyone remember the Volstead Act? (What if I call it, Prohibition?)

cheers

-=K=-
 
There is also a large speculative bubble. I personally believe that the bubble is, in part, an attempt to manipulate the US election and (either way the election goes) the bubble will burst in November. But prices won't go back to 2006 levels because demand won't go back to 2006 levels (in the US, demand has sunk to 2002 levels already, our oil-use peak was actually 2004 (!), but world demand rises faster than we can conserve. The Europeans are already much more efficient than we are with energy of all kinds (because it's always been much more expensive in Europe).

-=K=-

Kevin,

Every election we have had there was an attempt at manipulating the election by foreign countries; North Korea, Iraq, Venezuela, Cuba.
American's have a very short term memory.
 
Our Government could POP this bubble if they wanted to and make oil go down $50.00 a barrel almost over nite.
They simply announce that they are going to release a third of our US oil reserves on the open market and the speculators would loose there a**'s
They could not close get out of the oil contracts quick enough, many would be financially destroyed, then maybe they would think twice before artificially betting the oil markets up in the future. Then the government could replace that oil they dumped with oil at a cheaper price.
Think about it.
 
The main task of any politician is to perpetuate himself in office by dispensing favors to his key supporters.

This means banning drilling in the Alaska wilderness to buy the support of the Sierra Club or ethanol subsidies to buy the support of US Midwest corn growers.

In the meanwhile, blame the high price of oil on “speculators,” shoot the messenger and drive futures markets offshore. The Dubai futures exchange loves US politicians like New York’s Senator Schumer.

But in the long term, the prohibitions against US domestic oil production may not be such a bad thing. By driving up the cost of gasoline, it will force long overdue economies and encourage new technologies. In the meantime, the oil will still be underground in Alaska and offshore after the Middle East has been pumped dry.

Perhaps the political incorrectness of the Fischer-Tropsch process for synthesizing gasoline from coal, developed in Nazi Germany and refined in Apartheid South Africa will be overlooked and we’ll start making gasoline from the enormous US coal reserves.
 
China is drilling now almost within sight of Key West . If we don't secure the coasts with more than a "not to be seen line" they will be just out of sight angle drilling and "Obamma"and his "Mamma" will be there talking to them and we don't have the balls to stop any of this from going on.The U.S of A will go down the tubes in a heart beat!

WAKE UP AMERICA
 
It is not about the US!
Don´t kidd yourselves . . .you are no longer the 8 ball . . .
The page is turning, deal with it!
and live happily ever after! :D
Heron
 
According to fox news last week this was happening now. I for sure don't know but Orilley said so!
 
It doesn't matter

It doesn't matter

As long as we keep putting that dam petrochemical fuel into our cars/trucks,
It doesn't matter how much we cut back.

The oil companies/oil speculators cry oil shortage, we the consumer think cutting back will help. It does help. It helps the oil companies. Because if we
for a rude example,.... cut back 35% in terms of national consumption,... will the price fall??? Hell NO!!!! It just goes up!
These crooks will always get what they want. And if they want "X" price, they will get it. AND they will get whatever income they so desire, even if they have to produce less to get it.

In Sarnia Ontario a few years ago, the city council said they can't keep up with the demand for water in the summer months and asked residents to cut back from watering their lawns. So they did,.... so much so that the city water department had a cash flow problem!!!!! Hence,.... UP GOES THE PRICE!! They still got what they wanted, and sold less water in the process.

Same goes for oil.

The only way to get around this is when the consumer can come forward and say to BIG OIL, I don't need any of your $hit, not even one drop,....
Then they will sweat. But as long as we use even a small amount, they got us.

Just keep lots of Vaseline handy. You'll get used to it!!
My rant. Thank-you.
Jk.
 
China’s oil company, Sinopac, has conducted exploratory drilling on a lease on land in western Cuba, but is not involved in the offshore development yet! This exploration was reported by the press as drilling but it was only for exploration, no oil has been pumped! The press reported it correctly mostly but the public and some of the press actually assumed that drilling meant extracting today. China and Cuba were both saying that they were not even drilling even though the Press sent a photo of them drilling there!
Here’s the whole story:
Tim is correct although Cuba has negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources for themselves and for Cuba and has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is extracting there, today. But they own the leases and can any time they wish.
In 1977, the United States and Cuba signed a treaty that evenly divided the Florida Strait to preserve each country's economic rights. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the energy field on Cuba's side alone may have 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That much energy is equivalent to just a few months of the United States' total energy consumption. Point is we better beat them to it!!!
 
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Was it not slant drilling across borders by the Kuwaitis that pissed of Saddam so much that he invaded them??

He certainly ended up by igniting every single wellhead they owned.

That was a sight I personally witnessed from the air flying in after Kuwait's liberation by the US and Allies. It was my idea of Dante's Inferno
 
Beside all political blahblah and Wall-Street-crooks manipulating the prize to enhance their personal wealth we have to face some facts:

The World is running out of oil. Not as fast as pessimists suppose but much faster than expectations of the optimists. There ARE reserves under the soils and seas but they are much harder to explore, to access and to pump it out. That alone will make oil more and more expensive and the overall energy-bilancy less effective (You have to put in more and more energy/oil to get the oil until You have to invest as much energy as is won in the form of oil)

The World needs more and more oil, more than can be pumped out. Rising industrial nations as China, India and maybe soon Africa with their Billions of People are thirsty for oil with the same right as any other country in the world. They believe in the "American Way of Life" and that means right now: consume as much as You can and don´t give a damned sh.. ´bout environment. You have one small car ? You´re poor ! Get two big cars and show off ! THEN You are somebody ! Change the stereotype image of the average American seen in the eyes of the world - a fat slob that drives a Hummer in central NY - and You will change the World for better.

The World strikes back. There are too many people on this small ball called Earth, they have to live in coastal areas, in earthquake areas and so forth. Like with a gyro earth is safe place when flown in it´s limits. What we encounter now are earth´s first signs of blade-flapping, PIO and soon PPO. As in most gyro accs earth is piloted out of it´s limits of safe flying. We have to face a permanent pilot error.

So if still someone dreams of gas/oil related prods getting cheaper is a dreamer and the wake-up will be VERY painful.

I made my choice two years ago. I grounded my SUV (HONDA CRV, consuming 15l aon 100 kms) and bought a Toyota Aygo (5l on 100 kms) and I really feel HAPPY with it. It goes like any other car but I don´t have to carry around useless weight. (I´m making around 50.000 kms per year).

I changed the bulbs at home to energy-saving lamps and LEDs.

I installed a wood-pellet central heating in my house. No need of oil and gas any more.

The incredible amount of money I save with spending 39% less energy for daily life I invest into my hobby: gyroing :first:

Think it through ..............

Angelo
 
... Change the stereotype image of the average American seen in the eyes of the world - a fat slob that drives a Hummer in central NY - and You will change the World for better.
...

Angelo
Right on, however this is more than just a stereotype and is exacerbated by the movie industry portraying success (and happiness) as living an extravagant lifestyles which has to include at least Hummers, private jets, Motor homes, boats, War birds, gas guzzling ALL.

Most world citizens, if honest with themselves, and won the lottery would spend their money on these same toys and fuel to play with them.

Be honest if you found after working 15 years building a business and your now earning 50K a month or week are you so content that you would live as you are today and even try and spend less on fuel and toys?
Or like many in America would you start trying with each new purchase to satisfy a basic longing for peace and true happiness with the next material toy or ?. (Foolish!!)

The biggest problem is if you got the money why not attitude and it may never be frowned upon enough by society (being rich and spending it) to actually be remove from human behavior.

I don’t have enough experience to know but:
Do those that have money in your country spend less and ride a bicycle to work and live and heat a house equal to their real needs?

Seems the new wealthy in India and China are acting and spending American style, at least the ones buying real-estate and sailing here in private power yachts.

I'm afraid that as more countries citizens match US incomes that they will adopt the same lifestyle and it will just get worse.
 
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Good Post John

Your telling it like it is. Even ol Greenie All Gore spends thousands on energy while saying something else.
 
Hi John !

Course You´re right ! THAT´s the pity !

For ME personally: NO ! I won´t boast with beeing rich but I´m quite well doing. To give You an estimate of my sit: I don´t have to break my head if I can afford a new 2-seat enclosed gyro of the newest making BUT: I´ll wait and be patient ´till there is one that is also economic. In my example below I explained how I reduced my personal and my families energy-consumption not because I have to but I WANTED to for the sake of us all. In this sense I HAD to as (hopefully) quite responsible inhabitant of this world, logic and knowledge COMMANDS it.

This, now, sounds quite ridiculous but there ARE quite a number (but still many too few) of responsible rich in Europe that start to think the same way and SOMEONE has to begin with.

Funny thing is: the so called "industry leaders" worldwide try to optimize their companies economically for their own sake (NOT for the sake of the shareholders and their employees) but when it comes to them privately they stop beeing rational and economical and waste energy like hell (e.g.with big cars).

Now this is where a new role model of the USA should come in and there are innumerous things that could be done in the best sense of American marketing:

Take the big son of Austria (:rolleyes:) Arnie Schwarzenegger and make him officially ground his Hummer and make him show commercial-like that he uses a 2-gallon-car from GM or Ford (if there is any) or even better: an electric car. There are at least 3 geniouses in Cal that produced full working electric cars, one even a racer that makes 200 kph going 300 miles.

Make Las Vegas shut down 2/3 of it´s everyday light-show. The "Pyramid´s" beam is totally useless and a stupid waste ´cause there are no astronauts that could read newspaper in it in the orbit.

Make all American Cities shut down 1/2 of their light shows by ecological will and market it as the responsibility that America ows to our planet.

Make all the Mart-Chains show in their commercials that the true patriot American puts solar-collectors wherever possible and thus creating thousands of working places in America´s industry of the future: dissipated, decentralized, ecological, natural energy resources.

Get Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and whomever proudly show off their incredible wealth in NOT consuming energy but having their own fully independant solar/wind power station filling solar energy in their electric RollsRoyces and sports-cars.

We owe a lot to the ideas that make USA. The USA took over the RESPONSIBILITY to be THE leading country in the world by the free will of it´s citizens. So now it´s time for the USA to be responsible for a quick change in it´s image: not the fat slob any more babbling ´bout axes of evils but the intelligent energy saving American creating new incredible wealth with clean energy production. As a side effect most Americans will become incredible rich this way.

In this marketing drag the rest of the world will follow easily as it has always done. :whoo:

Angelo
 
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