Let the fun begin. Below is a chart showing that gasoline on a national basis is now within 25 cents of the highest price ever in the history of gas prices. Obama is shitting his Hanes. Prices are now $1 per gallon higher than they were a year ago. This is a 35% increase in one year. But don’t worry, The Federal Reserve says you aren’t experiencing any inflation. What you don’t hear the MSM saying is that prices are actually $2 per gallon higher than they were two years ago. That is a 107% increase in two years. This means that the average household in the US has experienced a $1,000 per year increase in their costs in the last year and a $2,000 increase over two years. Half the households in this country have income less than $48,000. We know this increase barely registers on the troglodites from Wall Street filling their stretch Hummers, but to the working middle class, this hurts bad. Obama knows it and sees his visions of a 2nd term slipping away unless he does something. Maybe if we give everyone a Chevy Volt, through a new government program funded by your taxes, we can beat these high prices.
The clueless, corrupt, contemptable Washington elite are acting their parts for the big show. We will now get to witness the great Washington Kabuki Dance. Here is what you are seeing and will see in the coming weeks and months:
- Obama has already called for investigations, prosecution, and tar and feathering of the dreaded oil speculators who have caused this unconscionable rise in gas prices.
- Obama blames Big Oil and their dreaded profits for all the woes of the American driver.
- Obama declares that all the billions in subsidies be stripped away from these evil doers. In the meantime, subsidies for ethanol, solar, agriculture, studying the mating habits of brown breasted warblers, and the migration patterns of the spotted owl are just fine.
- Democrats in Congress will declare a national emergency because vacation season is approaching and the millions of clueless Americans that have leased 15 mpg super SUVs will be in danger of not making it to Yosemite this year. The STRATEGIC OIL RESERVE must be tapped to save the American driver.
- Democrats will call for Congressional Hearings so they can posture and yell at the CEOs of the Big Oil companies along with the dreaded speculators.
- Obama will declare that electric cars and green energy are the solution. No need to pull out the Hirsch Report from 2005 to see that this was all predictable. No need to assess that the Dept of Energy was created in 1979 to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and we are twice as dependent today. No need to assess the impact of not building a new nuclear power plant or oil refinery since 1979. This would be a real inconvenient truth.
- Republicans will blame the entire increase in prices on Obama’s ban on new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Republicans will tell Americans that if we could just drill off the east coast, west coast and in Alaska, all would be well. We would be self sufficient and could tell the Arabs to fuck off. No need to point out that American production peaked in 1970 and will relentlessly decline no matter what new drilling occurs.
- There will be stories on the MSM about Americans coming to their senses and buying fuel efficent vehicles just like in 2008. Of course actual vehicle sales figures will show that 70% of sales are still SUVs, Pickups, and big luxury cars. Never underestimate the stupidity and cluelessness of Americans.
The Kabuki theatre will play out before our very eyes. The truth will not be bothered with. Countries in the Middle East are paid for their oil with USD. The more Bennie prints, the less valuable they become. Therefore, the oil producers require more USD just to stay even. The USD has fallen 16% versus a basket of world currencies since June of 2010. You can conclude that at least half of the rise in gas prices is directly related to Ben Bernanke’s printing press.
The US foreign policy of backing despots and dictators in the Middle East is now biting us in the ass. World oil supply and world oil demand have been very closely aligned. The revolutions in the Middle East have taken 2 to 3 million barrels per day out of production. Amazingly, supply and demand were no longer aligned and the result is prices go up. I guess Obama skipped his Econ 101 class at Yale.
Lastly, peak oil is real. No one in the MSM even discusses this issue. The Saudis have been lying for decades about their reserves. Demand from China and India is rising exponentially. Supply topped in 2005. Even though US demand has been flat, it doesn’t matter. Prices may occasionally collapse when the world goes into recession, but the long-term trend will be higher. No one can change that fact. President Hopey McChange is about to get more change than he bargained for.
The Obama administration created a working group to explore whether oil and gasoline prices are being driven higher by illegal manipulation, the Justice Department said.
The working group, which includes representatives of federal agencies and state attorneys general, will check for fraud, collusion or misrepresentation at the retail and wholesale level, the department said in a statement today. The group also will examine investor practices and the role of speculators and index traders in oil futures markets.
“Rapidly rising gasoline prices are pinching the pockets of consumers across the country,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in the statement. “We will be vigilant in monitoring the oil and gas markets for any wrongdoing so that consumers can be confident they are not paying higher prices as a result of illegal activity.”
With a presidential election 19 months away, President Barack Obama faces increasing political pressure over rising gasoline prices. Crude oil futures have increased 22 percent and gasoline surged 34 percent this year as Middle East unrest reduced supply and the global economic rebound bolstered fuel demand. Both futures contracts touched the highest levels this month since the records reached in 2008.
Click here to see the price in your state:
http://fuelgaugereport.opisnet.com/sbsavg.html
eugend66 says:
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24th April 2011 at 9:55 am
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
This would be side-splittingly funny if it wasn’t so heartbreakingly true.
In times of growth and prosperity, you can govern like a crack head on meth, surrounding yourself with your toady lickspittle posse, mistaking your bling and a pimped-out ride for true achievement and value. It doesn’t matter that you actually produce nothing but chaos and destruction, the sugar daddy taxpayer will be there to pick up the tab!
That is why I have always maintained that there is nothing fundamentally different between the folks on the 30 Blocks and the fed.gov in Wash DC.
Now we have a hollowed out manufacturing base, a bankrupt financial system and a energy industry crippled wth delusional hopey changey green schemes. Oh, and the rest of the world is either on fire or organizing against us.
There is No Way Out this time, my friends.
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24th April 2011 at 10:27 am
Kill Bill says:
Has demand increased by 35% in the last year?
Global product demand remains unchanged for 2010 and 2011, at 87.9 mb/d (+2.9 mb/d year-on-year) and 89.4 mb/d (+1.4 mb/d) respectively. Higher anticipated post-earthquake Japanese oil use for power generation and reconstruction offsets downward non-OECD adjustments. Preliminary January and February data suggest that high prices are already starting to dent demand growth.
http://omrpublic.iea.org/
Bassturds.
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24th April 2011 at 1:30 pm
Terry says:
The US consumes over 20 percent of the world’s oil. We have slightly less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if more reserves are discovered, the change will be slight; even if we cut our consumption by 25 percent (doubtful), we are totally screwed. For the US, this will not end well and we are seeing the effects now. Oil prices may well crash once again, but the trend will be nothing but up.
[Disclosure: I am employed in the oil production support sector.]
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24th April 2011 at 3:23 pm
flash says:
“The working group, which includes representatives of federal agencies and state attorneys general, will check for fraud, collusion or misrepresentation at the retail and wholesale level, the department said in a statement today.’
So the Bonanno family is investigating the Gambino family to see if any laws were broken?
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24th April 2011 at 3:31 pm
mikeinaz says:
We are fine, Mayor Bloomberg was on TV today saying how the economy is recovering and if we just trust more in illegal immigrants everything will be great.
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24th April 2011 at 3:32 pm
Administrator says:
RE
Why is gas so expensive in Alaska? Is it lack of refinery facilities?
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24th April 2011 at 4:32 pm
Reverse Engineer says:
@Admin
As AKanon indicated, there is a refinery in North Pole that provides the gas for Fairbanks and for all the diesel for the Ice Road Truckers, and there is also another refinery I believe on one of the Aleutian Islands that provides refined fuel for the military bases here.
The North Pole refinery is obviously in a monopoly situation, its very expensive to get gas up there any other way. Anchorage and the rest of the state gets its gas shipped up already refined from refineries on the West Coast. Shipping refined gasoline is pretty expensive, it takes specialized tankers because gas is so volatile. Besides this again, the gas providers up here are in a virtual monoopoly situation. Third, the market is exceedingly small obviously.
So, all of these circumstances cause the refined gasoline and diesel to be expensive here despite the fact the raw oil gets produced here. It would not make it any cheaper to build another refinery in the Anchorage area or Mat-Su Valley, although that would make the area less susceptible to disruptions in the oil supply chain.
My guess would be that if push came to shove, the two current refineries could probably provide enough refined fuel for the whole state under a rationing program. As it is though, we mostly can afford the high prices of gas here because the wages are also higher here, at least if you are still employed either by Big Oil or Alaska Goobermint or the Military. Or like me, you sieve off of all of these local income generators by serving the people working in those jobs.
When (not if) the Fedral Goobermint collapses, Alaska is likely to be part of a Regional economic unit iincluding the Northwest of the FSofA and Western Canada. Some economic model will get generated out of that.
RE
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24th April 2011 at 5:01 pm
bigargon says:
you’ve got to wonder where was Obama when the Banks pillaged America blind? where is the outrage with forged bank documents??
the scary part is most america will believe this, its all the evil oil companies. While i have no great love for the oil companies (they are evil), it another case of smoke and mirrors.
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24th April 2011 at 9:03 pm
Opinionated Bloviator says:
The only solution to the price of oil is STOP PRINTING and end ZIRP. Yet another side effect of the democrats (and republicans) “serve the banks” slave mentality. If you give infinite free money to TBTF banks (and allow them to manipulate markets) then of course the price of oil will rise, their prop desk has placed bets that it will and they want to collect, after all, if they are wrong the worst that can happen is ANOTHER BAILOUT…
Fascism – now’s that working out for you…
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24th April 2011 at 9:11 pm
Dammit-to-Hell! says:
For some entertainment, Google “Toyota Eco Spirit”. Here’s a working concept car made from off-the-shelf technology that got 104 mpg. Where the fuck is it? Honda had a model, the Civic VX made somewhere between ’92 and ’95 that is reported to have gotten ~50 – 55 mpg. Where the fuck is it? What the fuck is going on here?
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24th April 2011 at 12:15 am