Gas and Oil

[awip2062]

Okay, scary dire prediction here:

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
5/21/2008 3:38:13 PM

It may be the mother of all doom and gloom gas price predictions: $12 for a gallon of gas is ?inevitable.?



Robert Hirsch, Management Information Services Senior Energy Advisor, gave a dire warning about the potential future of gas prices on CNBC?s May 20 ?Squawk Box?. He told host Becky Quick there was no single thing that would solve the problem, due to the enormity of the problem.




?[T]he prices that we?re paying at the pump today are, I think, going to be ?the good old days,? because others who watch this very closely forecast that we?re going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon,? Hirsch said. ?And then, after that, when oil ? world oil production goes into decline, we?re going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, but in addition to that, we?re not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.?



Hirsch told the Business & Media Institute the $12-$15 a gallon wasn?t his prediction, but that he was citing Charles T. Maxwell, described as the ?Dean of Oil Analysts? and the senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co. Still, Hirsch admitted the high price was inevitable in his view.



?I don?t attempt to predict oil prices because it?s been impossible in the past,? Hirsch said in an e-mail. ?We?re into a new era now, and over the next roughly five years the trend will be up significantly. However, there may be dips and bumps that no one can forecast; I wouldn?t be at all surprised. To me the multi-year upswing is inevitable.?



Maxwell?s original $12-15-a-gallon prediction came in a February 5 interview with Energytechstocks.com, a Web site run by two former Wall Street Journal staffers.



?[Maxwell] expects an oil-induced financial crisis to start somewhere in the 2010 to 2015 timeframe,? Energytechstocks.com reported. ?He said that, unlike the recession the U.S. appears to be in today, ?This will not be six months of hell and then we come out of it.? Rather, Maxwell expects this financial crisis to last at least 10 or 12 years, as the world goes through a prolonged period of price-induced rationing (eg, oil up to $300 a barrel and U.S. pump prices up to $15 a gallon).?



According to associate of Maxwell at Weeden & Co., Maxwell is out of the country and currently unavailable for comment.



Maxwell?s biography on the Weeden & Co. Web site said he ?has been ranked by the U.S. financial institutions as the No. 1 oil analyst for the years 1972, 1974, 1977 and 1981-1986,? according to polls taken by Institutional Investor magazine.



?In addition, for the last 17 years he has been an active member of an Oxford-based organization comprised of OPEC and other industry executives from 30 countries who meet twice a year to discuss trends within the energy industry.?



Although Maxwell?s prediction is for the long-term, not everyone supports high-end predictions, even in the short-term. CNBC contributor and the vice president of risk management for MF Global (NYSE:MF) John Kilduff said on ?The Call? May 7that he expected gas prices to drop following the Chinese Olympics, as China?s economic boom slows down.

What do you think? Are we gonna see these insane increases soon? And how will we make our bills? Do you think that wages will go up, as fuel and therefore food and other goods go up?

[awip2062]

And just out of curiosity, I went and looked up our gas taxes. According to The Tax Foundation, taxes in states I know we have By-torians are:

CA: $0.455
CT: $0.441
FL: $0.332
IN: $0.317
NJ: $0.145
NY: $0.412
OH: $0.28
PA: $0.323
UT: $0.245
VA: $0.196
WA: $0.36

This is per gallon as of 1 January this year.

[ElfDude]

The current daily world demand for oil is higher than the current daily world production. So prices go up. And we grill our oil executives in front of the senate when we won't let them drill?

[sarcasm]Since I'm an ugly American and I don't care about the rest of the world, I'll just look at our own country here for this discussion.[/sarcasm] What are we doing about this?

We've stopped drilling.
We haven't built a refinery in 30 years.
In fact, we've reduced our refining by 50% since 1982.
We haven't built a nuclear plant since 1979 because of a Jane Fonda movie.
We have limited our natural gas exploration.

And so congress is voting to sue OPEC? I'm sure they're quaking in their turbans.

There is no single solution. But we should start doing everything we can! We should start building refineries. We should start drilling all over the place. We should start converting coal to oil (we are the Saudi Arabia of coal, after all). We should start building nuclear power plants all over the place like China is doing. We should start building wind turbine farms everywhere that it's windy! We should do whatever it takes to produce enough of our own energy to be independant. There are no valid excuses left. We need to start immediately.

[awip2062]

I know that ethanol comes with its own problems, and other sources of energy do, too, but...well, we have to try and keep trying, I believe, to find other forms of fuel. I don't know that oil is in short supply yet, but I know it will be at some time. and even if it is not yet, well, would it not be better to have more (and perhaps even better) fuels in use?

As for the wind, well, every time I've heard of someone wanting to put wind generators in anywhere near us, I've also heard people screaming, "NOT IN MY BACKYARD!" Same with nuclear energy. As for the dams making energy, well, the dams we have here that produce energy are being removed to improve salmon runs, even though other rivers that have had the dams removed did not get better salmon runs as a result.

I'd love to have a hybrid, it is a start, anyway, to changing to another form of energy use for our vehicles, but they don't make hybrids that will haul my three kids who are still at home and a friend or two, and my dog, and our stuff. Why not? How many families do you think would buy a hybrid mini-van if they were available to us?

[Big Blue Owl]

I tried, but I just couldn't resist sharing something I found out recently.

Two words; Brazil - sugar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4715332.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/ma ... ableenergy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00842.html
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817

They are 30 years ahead of us, but as Elf said; We need to start immediately.

[awip2062]

And their 30 years is something we could benefit from. We don't have to start from scratch as research can be shared.


So, what about the issues of prices going up due to our bad choices and what we will see our wages do?

[ElfDude]

I tried, but I just couldn't resist sharing something I found out recently.

Two words; Brazil - sugar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4715332.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/ma ... ableenergy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00842.html
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817

They are 30 years ahead of us, but as Elf said; We need to start immediately.

I've been eyeing that too. I'm still leary of buring our food supply. But sugar cane makes a lot more sense to me than corn.

I also have a friend working on making Butinol (spelling?) using solar energy. If he can sell that idea (which he has proved in a the lab environment) to big investors it would be huge, since no modifications would need to be made to our cars to use it.

[awip2062]

That idea probably scares the heck out of oil investors, eh?

[ElfDude]

So, what about the issues of prices going up due to our bad choices and what we will see our wages do?

I remain an optimist. After all, what is the mother of invention?
When we really do need alternatives they will present themselves. And they will come from the free market, not from the government.

However, I expect a tough transition. When the price of gas quadrupled in the 1970's Americans didn't want their standard of living to change, so a whole bunch of mom's went to work to make up the difference. The household incomes was increased.

Today... I don't know what we can do to increase our household incomes.

[awip2062]

Do you know that in many cases a mother staying at home increases the household income?

Think about this: in order for the mother to work, she must pay for the gas to get to work, the gas to get the kids to and from day care, day care, her work clothes, the food the she will eat at work (so often working mothers do not pack lunches that would be as inexpensive as if she ate at home with her children), the food the kids will eat while at day care (not always provided as a part of the day care package), the family will eat out more as a result (in most cases) because mom will not feel like cooking when she does get home at the end of the day and dad doesn't either,...

What if we went back to a simpler lifestyle where more moms stayed home with the kids, gardens and canning were common, et cetera? I wonder would that help? Then again, would a significant exodus of women from the workforce cause problems, or would that give the unemployed men in our nation work?

*sigh* I don't know.

[CygnusX1]

Do you know that in many cases a mother staying at home increases the household income?

Think about this: in order for the mother to work, she must pay for the gas to get to work, the gas to get the kids to and from day care, day care, her work clothes, the food the she will eat at work (so often working mothers do not pack lunches that would be as inexpensive as if she ate at home with her children), the food the kids will eat while at day care (not always provided as a part of the day care package), the family will eat out more as a result (in most cases) because mom will not feel like cooking when she does get home at the end of the day and dad doesn't either,...

What if we went back to a simpler lifestyle where more moms stayed home with the kids, gardens and canning were common, et cetera? I wonder would that help? Then again, would a significant exodus of women from the workforce cause problems, or would that give the unemployed men in our nation work?

*sigh* I don't know.

From CNN.com


Survey: Moms' work would bring in $138,095 a year

POSTED: 9:47 a.m. EDT, May 3, 2007

Story Highlights? 40,000 mothers responded to survey at Salary.com

? Mothers explained what their job entailed, how many hours they worked

? Salary.com says mothers work at least 10 jobs, put in 92 hours per
week

? Company used median salaries for jobs, calculated work hours for each

(Reuters) -- When Tricia Himawan was a financial analyst, she worked 50
hours a week and earned about $75,000 a year. Now, she works, by her
estimation, about 119 hours a week doing 11 different jobs, and, for 10
of them, she makes ... nothing.

"I work nonstop as a mother," says Himawan, of West Orange, New
Jersey, as she breast-feeds her nine-month-old son Jonas and watches
over 4-year-old Juliana.

If she were paid for her work as a mother, she would be earning almost
$140,000 a year.

That is the conclusion of research conducted by Salary.com, a firm based
in Waltham, Massachusetts, that specializes in determining compensation.
Himawan was one of 40,000 mothers who responded online to
Salary.com explaining what their job entailed and how many hours they
worked. (Book urges mothers to stay in work force)

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, the company concluded,
and works at least 10 jobs. In order of hours spent on them per week,
these are: housekeeper, day-care center teacher, cook, computer
operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van
driver, chief executive officer and psychologist. By figuring out the
median salaries for each position, and calculating the average number of
hours worked at each, the firm came up with $138,095 -- three percent
higher than last year's results. (Audio Slide Show: Evolution of
motherhood)

Even mothers who work full-time jobs outside the home put in $85,939
worth of work as mothers, according to Salary.com.

"My work is my family right now, and my backbone is about to break,"
says Himawan, who now also works at home as a real-estate broker."My
baby is on my hip 24 hours a day."

CNN's Jonathan Mandell contributed to this report.

[ElfDude]

Did you catch Maxine Waters making a complete fool of herself yesterday in the hearings sayin ghtat she wasn't to socialize the oil industry?
You can see her colleagues laughing at her in the footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqjFBiPMmBE

[CygnusX1]

Did you catch Maxine Waters making a complete fool of herself yesterday in the hearings sayin ghtat she wasn't to socialize the oil industry?
You can see her colleagues laughing at her in the footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqjFBiPMmBE

I missed it, but doesn't she do that on a regular basis anyway? LOL

[ElfDude]

Did you catch Maxine Waters making a complete fool of herself yesterday in the hearings sayin ghtat she wasn't to socialize the oil industry?
You can see her colleagues laughing at her in the footage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqjFBiPMmBE

I missed it, but doesn't she do that on a regular basis anyway? LOL

It's hilarious to watch. She says the word "socialize" and then starts to stammer, realizing that she has just put her foot in her mouth. But then she puts the other foot in and says that what she wants to do is have the government take over the oil companies.

That's just facist Italy all over again. Or more recently, Hugo Chavez nationalizing all the oil companies in Venezuala.

[CygnusX1]

I'm looking for the private ethanol pump that just came out.

This thing lets you make YOUR OWN 124-OCTANE ETHANOL right outside
your home! Racing fuel!

the startup cost is high, but the payoff is huge...

it was just on the news yesterday...


AHHHH.....check THIS out!

E-Fuel says you can fill up your tank with 75% ethanol and 25% water and your car will run fine!

http://gizmodo.com/388542/microfueler-h ... pre+orders