Fisher of Men Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 Good news: Jonesboro, AR is getting a new factory that will producing wind turbines. I guess it's a step in the right direction. You ever see one of those things up close? Very impressive in size. They just installed six of them on top of the mountain ridge where I grew up. Looks like they are building 2 more right now. A lot of people see them as an eye sore on the landscape. Do I think they are great looking? No. But you know what looks even worse? My electric bill after deregulation of area companies without some form of competitive, alternative energy.... I can put up with the wind turbines, no problem. Does T. Boone Pickens own the factory perhaps? There's a big push to install 100's of them in Texas right now. Problem is that each once costs upward of $2 million a piece. Big investment now = Free energy down the road (Free for someone else, at least) But, you are right, Speed. I can put up with them to get some relief. Imagine how many of these could be put up with the buyout $$$? Quote
Super User roadwarrior Posted October 28, 2008 Author Super User Posted October 28, 2008 World Is 'Drowning in Oil' (Again) After Drought Commentary by Caroline Baum Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Three months ago, the world was running out of oil. Seriously. I kid you not. Everywhere you turned, you heard whispers that the day of petroleum reckoning was at hand. Now there's too much oil, prodding OPEC to cut production targets for the first time in two years. Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, confronted with the halving of oil prices since July, announced a 1.5 million barrel-a-day cut in output. World markets greeted the news of reduced oil supply by pushing prices down further. Crude oil fell $3.69 a barrel Friday to $64.15. Yesterday, oil dropped another 93 cents to $63.22, a 17-month low. How quickly things change. Or do they? All speculative bubbles have a kernel of truth behind them to justify their existence. This time around it was China and India. These emerging Asian giants were gobbling up all the commodities the world could produce to fuel their rapid industrialization. It wasn't that the story was untrue; it was old. Growing global demand probably was the reason for the gradual rise in oil prices from $20 a barrel to $40 earlier in the decade, and even to $60 by mid-2005. It was the moon shot to $147 that took on a life, and a litany, of its own. Emerging nations didn't start gobbling up crude, coal and copper all of a sudden in the middle of 2007. Diversification Justification Yet analysts on TV and in print told us with a straight face that the doubling in oil prices from July 2007 to July 2008 was a result of fundamental demand, not speculative buying or investors, including pension funds, ''diversifying'' into ''alternative investments'' in search of ''uncorrelated returns.'' (It sounds a lot better than admitting you got suckered into buying what was going up and are now stuck with a pile of stuff that no one wants.) ''It happens in every market,'' says Michael Aronstein, president of Marketfield Asset Management in New York. ''Once it goes up an enormous amount, creating unfathomable wealth for the fortunate participants, someone makes an ex-post case as to why we are only at a beginning and it's not too late to get in.'' This advice is ''generally formulated by someone who has a vested interest in selling the stuff,'' he says. By the early 1980s, following two oil shocks in the previous decade, the running crude commentary went something like this: Oil prices couldn't go down because they were controlled by a cartel (OPEC). Banks extended credit to the Oil Patch based on -- you guessed it -- a belief that the underlying asset couldn't go down. When prices plunged to about $11 a barrel in 1986, that myth went down with them. Oil 'Peaked' The spike in crude oil earlier this year had the support of the popular theory of ''peak oil.'' In a 2005 book, ''Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,'' investment banker Matthew Simmons argued that oil production by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer, is ''at or near peak sustainable volume'' and likely to decline in the foreseeable future. Just a few years before the peak-oil theory was hot, the world was ''Drowning in Oil,'' according to the Economist magazine's March 6, 1999, cover story. Oil was trading at $13.50 a barrel at the time. ''We may be heading for $5,'' the Economist predicted. ''Consumers everywhere will rejoice at the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future.'' Oil prices took off and never looked back. Like the world of fashion, trends in markets come and go. Oil is a limited, albeit vast, resource. At some point in the future, we probably will run out of petroleum, at least as we know it. Curve Balls Man's ingenuity is equally vast. When the time comes, given all the tax incentives that will be thrown in the direction of alternative energy, I have full confidence the world will not return to travel by horse and buggy. The silliness that accompanies speculative bubbles isn't to be outdone by what passes for economic analysis. It's just over three months since commodities began their sharp, swift descent, and already the nonsense is starting: Lower oil prices are going to boost consumer demand. Whoa! The price of oil (and other raw materials) is falling because of a cutback in demand, both actual and expected. Expressed as a graph, the demand curve for oil has shifted back, to the left. Consumers demand less energy (gasoline, heating oil) at any given price than they did before. To say that lower prices will stimulate demand, a widely held misconception, confuses a movement along the demand curve (lower price, higher quantity) with a shift back in the curve (lower price, lower quantity). Cause and Effect Why this is such a hard concept to understand, I'm not sure. People imbue oil prices with all kinds of mystical powers. They see a falling price and treat it as a cause, not an effect. That oil prices are falling in the face of OPEC's announced production cuts -- a reduction in supply would tend to raise the price, not lower it -- suggests that demand is falling even faster than OPEC can reduce supply. That won't boost demand, but who knows? Maybe it will help recapitalize the banks! Quote
Super User Long Mike Posted October 31, 2008 Super User Posted October 31, 2008 $2.059 in Tulsa. Quote
Super User Hookemdown. Posted October 31, 2008 Super User Posted October 31, 2008 We're at 2.14. The company is called Nordex. Here's a link: http://www.kait8.com/Global/story.asp?s=9234109 Quote
fish-fighting-illini Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 We are at $2.19 today in places. I almost wish it would just stabilize so Opec wouldn't be quite so inclined to go nutso over it. This production cut is just plain gouging. I say a few well placed nukes is what's needed for price stabilization! As far as wind turbines they manufacture some parts (?) of those close buy as well or they assemble them. Just one blade requires and extra long extra wide semi trailer. We have hundreds of turbines dotting the country side 30mins in most directions RW we didn't bet but you win $2.19 a gallon is close enough. One question: you predicted the @2.00 / gal; do you think that that it would have happened even without the housing fiasco? Or was a financial fiasco of some sort in your prediction? FFI - AKA Matt Crum Quote
Troutfisher Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 1.99 YEAH! Send it our way! Lowest around here is $2.35 Quote
Super User roadwarrior Posted October 31, 2008 Author Super User Posted October 31, 2008 One question: you predicted the @2.00 / gal; do you think that that it would have happened even without the housing fiasco? Or was a financial fiasco of some sort in your prediction? The lowest posted price in the Memphis area is a BP station in Collierville, $1.95. I paid that last weekend, but was subsidized by a grocery store discount program (Schnucks). Otherwise, our posted prices generally range from $1.99-$2.33. Regarding, "would it have happened if..." It's like posting your score in golf: The question isn't "how", just "how many". p.s. Oil is currently $63.90 8-) Quote
Super User Bassin_Fin@tic Posted October 31, 2008 Super User Posted October 31, 2008 1.99 Your kidding right??!! I am extremely relieved to be paying 2.45.It is also mixed.Most places around here are charging 2.69-2.75 :-? Quote
Super User roadwarrior Posted October 31, 2008 Author Super User Posted October 31, 2008 The national averagte is $2.55 http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012860498 Quote
Super User fishfordollars Posted October 31, 2008 Super User Posted October 31, 2008 1.89 several places here in Houston this morning. Quote
-HAWK- Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 1.89 several places here in Houston this morning. Wow... I paid $2.63 Yesterday here in West Palm Beach!! > I cant believe how the price can vary soo much. Quote
fivesixone Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 Also in WPB, lowest I've seen so far is $2.49 which I thought was pretty darn cheap! $1.89 is crazy! Quote
tyrius. Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 Wow... I paid $2.63 Yesterday here in West Palm Beach!! > I cant believe how the price can vary soo much. Typically state and local taxes play the largest role in this. From http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp Therefore, depending on where you live in Florida, your overall gasoline tax can vary from an average of 52.9 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. Texas tax is 20 cents per gallon. That's only for state taxes too. That doesn't include the 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax. Quote
senko_77 Posted October 31, 2008 Posted October 31, 2008 Wow... I paid $2.63 Yesterday here in West Palm Beach!! > I cant believe how the price can vary soo much. Typically state and local taxes play the largest role in this. From http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp Therefore, depending on where you live in Florida, your overall gasoline tax can vary from an average of 52.9 cents per gallon to 45 cents per gallon. Texas tax is 20 cents per gallon. That's only for state taxes too. That doesn't include the 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax. Wow. I didn't know Georgia had the lowest tax in the U.S. Most stations here are between 2.25 and 2.35. I haven't seen anything lower than 2.25. Quote
Super User fishfordollars Posted October 31, 2008 Super User Posted October 31, 2008 Also in WPB, lowest I've seen so far is $2.49 which I thought was pretty darn cheap! $1.89 is crazy! Just what the Oil companies and our government want you to think. 2.49 is not cheap, but they want you to think so. Their training program is working. .79 a gallon is cheap. Quote
BassResource.com Administrator Glenn Posted November 1, 2008 BassResource.com Administrator Posted November 1, 2008 My state has the 4th highest gas tax in the country. > Quote
tyrius. Posted November 1, 2008 Posted November 1, 2008 My state has the 4th highest gas tax in the country. > Actually, the table only shows the actual cents per gallon taxes. Many states also impose sales tax on gas. For example, IL's (where I live) tax looks ok at 19 cents per gallon, but then you've got to add in 6.55% sales and other taxes. So at 2.50 the full tax assessed is just over 35 cents per gallon which beats Washington. Now THAT is lame. At least it isn't as bad as New York though! Quote
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