So the President has a plan, my comments are in italic;
OK so to prove I'm not one of those people who just bitches and has no original ideas to bring to the table how about this;Bush's plan
President Bush's proposals probably won't have a major immediate impact on gasoline prices.
The proposals include:
Cease filling up the nation's emergency oil reserve this summer. That would provide a little more oil to the market, which could lower crude prices slightly. - Not a bad idea considering we're only 40 million barrels short of the full 727 million, the pay back is from when the strategic reserve was used after the hurricanes last year, wait doesn't that season start soon?
Investigate whether there is price manipulation or gouging. That could spur some companies to lower prices, but oil companies have been investigated dozens of times and never charged. - Might wanna get Cheney and his energy commission in on this one, they might know something.
Open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. The Senate has blocked that several times. Even if passed, oil likely would not flow for a decade. - This is the crux of it, if people perceive a problem they'll be happy to give up ANWAR for an extra million barrels of oil a day, in a decade. Of course the Bush administration is blaming Clinton for this.
Waive fuel requirements that create a patchwork of gasoline blends throughout the United States. That could reduce prices and possibly prevent a price spike to a region unable to obtain its own blend of fuel after a pipeline rupture or refinery fire. - I appreciate that in order to save ten cents a gallon we'll all be breathing in more toxic fumes and run up further health care costs because of it, ok I can't prove that but you get the gist.
Remove $2 billion in tax incentives to oil companies to purchase equipment or drill in deepwater areas. That might save taxpayers money but it wouldn't lower gasoline prices. - hold on a minute, did the Energy Task Force approve this?
- Take the bus or car pool to work one day a week.
- Write to your elected officials asking them to support increased fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, power plants, etc.
- Get your house energy efficient to save you money, that's right, you can save money and save the world.
So my camera phone sucks for anything farther away then like 5 feet. I rant about that now because I really wanted to post a picture of the old timey bike I saw outside Starbucks this morning. Oh well, it's the second time I've seen it in the neighborhood, I'm sure you'll see a picture of it yet.
Comments
i think it's all a big conspiracy by the enviro-nazis to stop people from using gas.
here are my ideas:
1. take over iran. seriously. they are just begging us to do it.
2. take over venezuela. they're mouthy too. and gas is only $0.12 per gallon there.
And finally The Boston Globe in 2004, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/20/sky_high_gas_prices_not_really/, and the uber conservative CATO institute, quoting from the WSJ, http://www.cato.org/research/articles/taylor-040406.html also in 2004 make the note that then these weren't the highest prices on record inflation adjusted, that was 1981 during a happy fun time with Iran.
So what does this mean? Well it means we're not really paying any more than we used to. The reason it hurts more is probably because we in the President's "Ownership Society" middle class have less and less disposable income and so paying $50 a week on gas hurts more than it did 25 years ago. Of course I was two years old 25 years ago, so this is just speculation.
Any public official who would listen to my opinion on this issue (other than “hey you should look into this”) should be removed from office on the spot. I am not an expert. I do not know about economics. I do not know about natural resources. I have no way to predict the unintended consequences of any ideas I may have in this arena. Nor do I have the time, energy or money to learn these things. My representative should be listening to experts who can accurately predict what will happen if certain choices are made. That’s what they are paid to do—listen to the experts, hear all of the options and come to a decision that’s best for the country. (I am afraid most politicians don’t get this—they think their job is to ensure they get reelected.) I realize that the debate comes in when deciding what is “best” for the country. But I would hope that those who make the decision would look at the facts, not on what the protesters are saying about it.
Many people would disagree with me that our reps shouldn’t listen to us on some issues. This is a democracy and they work for us, yadda yadda yadda. While that may be true, we hire them to become informed about issues that we don’t have time to think about. It’s their job to figure this stuff out. We don’t have the information so we shouldn’t be telling them what to do.
Maybe high energy prices are the best thing for the country. People will conserve, new products will be invented that don’t require oil to run, etc. America has a huge problem of wanting things to be easy NOW, to hell with later. Just because it sucks and it’s hard now does not mean it’s a bad thing. People really need to get over the idea that everything is supposed to be easy. Sometimes things have to suck now in order to make things better. Change is hard. So if my representative listens to all the people who are unhappy about high prices, then I might be getting cheated out of a better future.
So my theory is to leave this to the people who actually have a clue about how all of this works. I have not earned the right to insert my opinion into the debate.
*disclaimer—the above does NOT apply to debates about the morality of one thing or another. For instance, if you’d like to hear my anti-death platform, I’d be happy to oblige. This really is just my philosophy about practical and economic matters of this sort.
What's the harm? Maybe Jaded is right and that some good will result from this.
PS - I'm aware they don't measure petrol by the gallon in the UK.