time to panic? gas $4 a gallon by spring.

[RiversideGator]

BTW, peak oil, while it is a grand conspiracy theory and urban legend, is absolute bunk.

[gatorback]

law #1  no noncommercial diesel usage.  however, i do think that market forces will take care of this.

How would this help?

Desiel used to cost less then gas if you ever remember. Now desiel cost more. Did desiel just all of a sudden just cost more to make? No. Is it to many people chasing to little fuel? Yes.

Get ride of some consumers of deisel and the price will come down. It's call ECO101. This is so studied that it has it's own curve. Price v Demand. Look into it.

[Midway ®]

BTW, peak oil, while it is a grand conspiracy theory and urban legend, is absolute bunk.

Yes, everything that you disagree with is a "grand conspiracy". the issues of climate change, energy prices, and peak oil are extraordinarily complex issues that make great Fox news and Rush Limbaugh talking points. Unfortunately, those talking points are almost universally incorrect by virtue of the talkers complete lack of knowledge on those subjects. However, they are emotionally persuasive.


Anyhow, I will now stay on topic, because I know how you hate it when I don't---the Fed to the rescue, cuts the prime .75% yesterday, and the market is up 400 points!!! Hurrah!!! The markets are saved!!! Long live the Fed!!!

Uh oh, it only lasted one day, the market closes 300 points down today. Oh heck, Joe investor is still down 10% for the year. But don't worry, everything is cyclical, the market will come roaring back soon, so keep buying those stocks.


At this pace the Fed will soon be paying banks to borrow money, as there is not too far down left to go in the prime rate. Then what happens when they run out of those bullets?

This is just as bad an idea as Nixon era price controls. Artificially manipulate the markets as pressure builds, then when there are no more alternatives or involute fixes, all hell breaks loose all at once.

[Midway ®]

law #1  no noncommercial diesel usage.  however, i do think that market forces will take care of this.

How would this help?

Desiel used to cost less then gas if you ever remember. Now desiel cost more. Did desiel just all of a sudden just cost more to make? No. Is it to many people chasing to little fuel? Yes.

Get ride of some consumers of deisel and the price will come down. It's call ECO101. This is so studied that it has it's own curve. Price v Demand. Look into it.

No, I think that you are completely wrong on this one. Petroleum pricing is much more complex than that.

Not to nitpick, but maybe if you shop for Diesel fuel, which can be found everywhere, instead of Deisel fuel which seems to be very rare, you might find that it will cost less because it is more readily available. Sometimes asking for the wrong product winds up being more expensive.

[Midway ®]

An old article, but nonetheless prescient.

The Death of American Manufacturing
December 15, 2005 | From theTrumpet.com
America’s middle class rose on the back of massive industrial output during the 20th century. But this engine of prosperity is being hammered, and the economy is hurting as a result. By Robert Morley


For the past 50 years, American manufacturing has dominated the globe. It turned the tide in World War ii, and hastened the defeat of Nazi Germany; it subsequently helped rebuild Europe and Japan; and it enabled the United States to outlast the Soviet empire in a Cold War. Concurrently, it met all the material needs of the American people.

During this time period, many American icons were born. Companies like General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Maytag and Levi Strauss became household names. American manufacturing became synonymous with quality and ingenuity.

On the back of this industrial output, rose America’s middle class. High-paying manufacturing jobs in turn helped spur a robust and growing economy that had little dependence on foreign nations for manufactured goods and armaments.

However, manufacturing, as a share of the economy, has been plummeting. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent of the economy. By 1988 it only accounted for 39 percent of the economy, and in 2004, it accounted for just 9 percent. In fact, economists are warning that the U.S. is facing the “gutting, hollowing out and closing down of American manufacturing forever” (Benson’s Economic & Market Trends, Feb. 27, 2004).

The loss of the manufacturing industry manifests itself most clearly in job losses. During the 1970s, approximately 25 percent of American workers were in manufacturing (Economist, October 1). From 1990 to present, manufacturing jobs have decreased every single year; since 1996, they have plummeted by almost one fifth.

Most recently, manufacturing job losses, and the “hollowing” out of American manufacturing, have been evidenced in the auto industry.

On November 21, as has been well-publicized, General Motors Corporation (GM) announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close nine manufacturing plants across North America. But Ford, another American icon, has been slashing jobs too. This past year Ford announced its most recent plan, which called for 7,500 job cuts in 2006. These cuts were on top of the 20,000 layoffs that were announced just four years ago (Wall Street Journal, December 2).

Egan-Jones Rating Co, an independent firm, is predicting that “This is the beginning of the end of the U.S. auto industry as most people have come to know it” (TheStreet.com, May 5).

However, the auto industry is just one example of the overall decline in American industrial might over the past couple of decades. Other U.S. manufacturing giants are failing too; in fact, the U.S. has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs overall since 1998 alone (Seattle Times, April 17).

In 2003, industrial giant Bethlehem Steel folded causing thousands of employees and retirees to lose their pensions (Wards Auto World, November 1). Any Pittsburg resident will be able to tell you how unprofitable the steel industry has been over the last couple of decades. According to the 2004 “Economic Report of the President,” between 1950 and 2000 the U.S. lost more than 491,000 jobs from the primary metals industry alone, and most of those since 1980. Then, from 2000 to 2003, an additional 149,000 jobs were lost.

In 2004, Levi Strauss closed the last of its more than 60 American factories. “It was like a death in the family,” says Emma Rice, of Morrilton, Arkansas, who worked for Levi Strauss for 32 years (Times, London, Jan. 10, 2004). Unfortunately, the former Levi-employed majority of Morrilton tell the same tale as those from thousands of towns across America that have also experienced the loss of manufacturing jobs.

But why is this happening?

Manufacturing loss is occurring because of globalization and outsourcing. At the dawn of globalization, the elimination of trade barriers opened up access to foreign markets for American manufacturersâ€"in return for building factories abroad. In due course, more and more manufacturers set up shop overseas, producing goods to be sold to Americans.

Over time, outsourcing makes Americans poorer, because America’s wealth and technology are being transferred to other nations.

“Historically, manufacturing, exporting, and direct investment produced prosperity through income creation” (Daily Reckoning, April 4, 2003). The wealth of America was created when the profits from domestic manufacturing were diverted into investment in buildings, machinery and technological change. But now outsourcing is providing that income to foreigners.

America may gain access to cheaper products through outsourcing, but it also comes with attendant problems, including a downward pressure on wages. “In the U.S. last year, average employee compensation (pay and benefits) actually fell for the first time in 14 years” (ibid., August 5). Laid-off manufacturers are switching into lower paying jobs in the service industry (Seattle Times, op. cit.). Before, where they made on average $51,000 annually, they now make $16,000 in leisure and hospitality, or $33,000 in health care, or $39,000 in construction (ibid.).

If America does not manufacture and sell goods, then money only leaves the country. The U.S. now imports twice as much as it exports. This has resulted in a trade deficit that has become an unprecedented $800 billion on an annualized basis (Newsweek, December 2). Unfortunately, this trend is showing no signs of abating. In actuality, U.S. exports are declining versus imports right across the board. Even the agricultural trade was in a deficit this past year, for the first time in living memory (ibid.).

Every time an American manufacturer closes and then reopens elsewhere, the foreign country gains American technology. Not having to spend resources developing technology, foreigners can focus on improving it or beating it.

What does this mean for Americans? Does the decline in manufacturing mean an end of the American dream?

First, America as a whole will eventually become poorer, so be prepared to downgrade your standard of living. As progressively more manufacturers move abroad, the flow of money out of the country will exceed the benefits of cheap imports. At some point, America’s trade deficit will overwhelm us. If this trend continues, eventually Americans will not be producing enough to pay for the standard of living post-World War ii America has become used to.

Second, if you are not among the rich, and you rely on a job, be prepared to be faced with job-security issues. In plain language, if you are working in the manufacturing industry, expect wage growth to be poor and expect to be confronted with having your job “outsourced.”

What’s more, by building factories overseas, manufacturers are sowing the seeds of their own long-term destruction by slowly reducing the wealth of Americans, who are their primary customers.

Be warned and remember the old adage, “as GM goes, so goes the nation.”

[gatorback]

LOL you are funny n wrong on so many levels.  If the truckers didn't have to compete with jim bob and daisey for diesil then the price would come down. On a related note, if cities did Not use deesle then the price would come down.

[gatorback]

look dude a fact is a fact from where I come from.  Billi widay, Dddemand is why one cost more then anuthur.

[Midway ®]

Ok, you are advocating the simple EC101 price model. I do not agree with you on that. Especially since the demand created by "Jim Bob" with his Diesel powered 4 X 4 F-350 monster outfit is probably negligible as compared with demand for similar product by the following, in ADDITION to demand from truckers:

1. Armed Forces in the form of jet fuel, motor fuel heating oil, stationary turbine fuel, etc,etc,etc.
2. Airlines, in the form of jet fuel and motor fuel.
3. Railroads in the form of Diesel locomotive fuel.
4. Home heating oil in the form of #2 oil.
5. Chemical feedstocks in the form of kerosene.
6. Municipalities in the form of motor fuel and heating oil.

I am sure that you will find that "Jim Bob's" overall contribution to diesel fuel consumption is a negligible percentage of the total overall consumption.

But, then again, maybe I'm wrong. maybe all of the above have figured out some other liquid fuel source.

BTW, looks like you are losing consciousness. Shall we call 911?

[Midway ®]

look dude a fact is a fact from where I come from.  Billi widay, Dddemand is why one cost more then anuthur.

Hey, Dude, what is a fact and where do you come from?

[gatorback]

No no no. After katrina we switch to refinining more gas.  Given capacity did not increase ....it hasn't for 30 years ... There is a what??? as proof by the price, a shortage of fuel oil.

[gatorback]

so the all are competing for what kind of fuel? Out law the noncommerial use and how many of those competitors are gone from "my" demand curve?

[gatorback]

all in good fun...free market forces will resolve this  b-bob will NOT be drinking and driving her 4x4 quad cab twin turbo dueley to just get some smokes trust me

[gatorback]

Will b-bob and daisey take here ford truck with a fifth wheel and the 4 horses to Ga for the show? Yes they will because its what my family does.

[Midway ®]

Wow! 4 posts to my 2. 

By the law of averages, that makes you right.


Have you been reading "You might be a redneck if..." ??

[gatorback]

I feel I'm talking to my kid. Yes look at my screen name yes univ of Florida yes 4x4 yes to gold horse shoe men's solitare ring yes to it all. You got a problem with that?