Gas to hit $4 a gallon in August

Yes. We cannot handle your truth. So we mock your intelligence. You'll be proven right, in the end.

 

All the conservatives on here who are making fun of "Lumpadumpa squirrels" and saying with authority that all under-30s eat at Red Lobster each meal should understand what one of the major items people are going to cut out of their budgets as these prices soar ever higher - newspapers.

Meaning further circulation drops.

Meaning further cuts, often with some of us paying with our jobs.

 

And how long will that take? That doesn't solve the problem immediately either.

Automakers need to innovate. That's not even debatable. They've needed to do it for decades.

But it's also not debatable that we will be dependent on oil for a long, long time and that we've needed to expand refinery capacity in this country for just about as long. We also need to get away from clustering refineries in areas where one storm can wipe out the gas supply for half the country.

 

A_QB --
As long as we match, dollar for dollar, money spent on increasing capacity with money spent on infrastructure and innovation, I'm cool with that.
Unfortunately, I fear increasing capacity at this point will only cause people to put off the necessary lifestyle changes -- and, more importantly, allow the governemnt to backburner the REALLY necessary infrastructure changes.
Agree completely on the geographical point, but that's an even tougher nut to crack.

 

And that still isn't a good argument for something like a windfall tax. Does anyone believe that gas prices are going to go down because of a windfall tax? A windfall tax doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that the oil companies are paying $78/barrel for crude and Exxon is not a non-profit...they are going to pass those prices on to us. There are only three workable solutions: find a way to get the people who are charging that much for crude to lower their prices, start conserving or find a different energy source. Right now, consumers are violating pretty much every law of economics when it comes to gasoline. In response to higher prices, our consumption has not changed. Almost every other product you can think of follows the supply and demand curve, but for gasoline, we don't respond with lowered demand in response to higher prices. Until we do (or achieve one of the other two solutions), we can continue to live in a pound-me-in-the-ass gasoline prison of our own making.

I'm all for building more refineries, but drilling in Alaska is the preeminent symbol of a society-wide desire for instant gratification. Putting any ecological issues aside (and there is a legitimate dispute about the impact the drilling would have), we would be giving away one of the few places we could find oil in case of national emergency (i.e. WWIII) in exchange for paying 10 cents lower at the pump. If Alaska was the magical bottomless pit of oil that would forever erase our dependence on foreign oil, then lets have a serious discussion. But it isn't. It has a limited supply and I'm not willing to give that up for the privilege of paying 2.67 a gallon.

 

I agree with trounced on something -- the 'windfall tax' idea seems socialist.

Why not do a luxury tax on SUVs and other gas guzzlers, same way we tax cigarettes.

It's possible for the government to make hybrids more affordable than SUVs-- give tax breaks to both automakers for making hybrids and consumers for buying them.

Then tax the hell out of automakers for making SUVs and tax consumers for buying them.

 

Sure, Lugs, pass the taxes off to the middle and lower class people.

You see, the manufacturers can control what kind of cars they make, much more so than lower-to-middle class people can control what they drive. And the glut of SUV's will mean there are going to be cheap used SUVs.

so maybe not so much on that...

 

There was a very good Al Gore interview in the most recent Rolling Stone (Johnny Depp cover) where some of the oil and environmental issues were addressed. Gore said that people who worry about oil running out are missing the point - if we use all of our oil, essentially, we'll have reached the point of no return where global warming is concerned.

He said there is a 10-year window to begin cutting down on our usage. But he also said that he isn't worried about what might happen if the GOP won in '08. He said within two minutes after Bush-Cheney leave office, the new administration's policy will be 180 degrees different, regardless of party.

 

Nope. I'm suggesting passing the taxes off to anybody who wants to buy a new SUV.

 

Cool. But I think it needs to be combined with much higher mandatory mileage minimums.