Posted on 09/01/2005 11:18:35 AM PDT by AntiGuv
A brilliant guy in my school lost his college professor father to a bicycle accident. It is great in theory, but I just don't like the odds of survival.
Plus, many bicyclists seem to think they are above the normal traffic laws. They go straight through stoplights as if they only applied to cars. Many motorcyclists think that if they can fit between two cars, they have the right to squeeze through and pass them on the interstate that way.
I liked riding a bike in China back when most of the traffic was bikes. Very pleasant. But riding a bike in the US is for people who want to die healthy and young.
Well that's nuthin... EnvironMentalists have shut building any new capacity for 360 months!!!
Question: Does the Federal Energy Agency (An invention of Jima - the MoonBat - Carter) do any g*d-d*mn thing except act as a PR department for the oil companies? Sorry just asking.
Over half a century later, riggers have only improved such skills with better knowledge & high tech equipment.
This is all BS to support the gouge-fest, party on.
I don't see anyone asking for free gas, but I don't see why conservatives shouldn't complain about no new refineries being built since 1976. The fact is government regulation and taxation is driving gas prices up. What is so evil about a (at least semi) free market?
you can hug nearest evironmentalist for the lack of refining capacity that we now face. No new grassroots refinery has been built in the US since the Gulf Oil Refinery at Alliance (New Orleans), Louisiana went into operation in 1976. The same mentality prevails regarding new refineries as does drilling off the coasts of Florida and California. Not in my backyard. In a community of intelligent human beings, we should be able to absorb the loss of ten percent of the refining capacity. However, we are a confederacy of dunces. We should not have had so many eggs in one geographical basket. Perhaps the Houston area will be next. That is where the remainder of the capacity is. We still have two more months of hurricane season.
Here's one of the more complete damage assessments available in the media that I've seen:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090101602.html
Things could be better, but it also appears that the situation for the oil industry could be a whole lot worse.
We're just plain lucky that the jihadists were too dumb to figure out that America's entire economy could (can) be destroyed by hitting on its refineries - all of which seem to be in one place........ like a Pearl Harbor invitation........
While many have complained (usually in the industry), few have listened. The talking heads present this as some sign of a conspiracy or collusion between oil companies, to take the heat off of the policymakers and the Leftists who demanded the policies. Had we signed on the Kyoto Accord, the situation would be even worse.
After all, when we were complaining about excess regulation and worse, the spurious nature thereof, gasoline was cheap.
Most people cannot see farther into the future than the end of their nose, it seems.
Nick, those of us who had been in the industry a while didn't so much carp about being unemployed in '98-99 because we knew prices would rebound in about a year.
That is how long it generally takes for the downstream refinery bids and product price increases to be felt on the upstream (production) end.
(The industry's history is rife with boom/bust cycles, and frankly, the past few years have been nice because the growth was slow and steady.)
My chief complaint was that I did not have the money to feed my family and go long on $6.50/bbl oil. I would have been able to triple that in just one year, and I knew it.
What the heck, at least the kids ate.
If you work in this business, you save in the fat times, because the next lean one is just ahead. Not a question of if, but one of when. You don't hang yourself out to dry on mortgages, vehicle loans, or any other large debt, but set things up for the worst case, because you know it will happen.
I realize that, for some people, an extra $50.00/week is a hardship. For a few, it is devastating. But for most, it should be a matter of prioritizing, conserving, and really, just an inconvenience.
For many, it just means they will have to wait a little longer, not for basic necessities, but for the latest toy.
When the late '70s boom died in '82, I had always lived on a cash basis. If I didn't have the money, I waited until I did.
I watched as a multitude of friends new to the industry, who had been living as if the boom would last forever, gave it back. The house, the car, the new pickup, the motorcycles and other toys, all went to the bank when the layoffs started. Sadly, their marriages often failed as well.
For most, this is not a crash of anywhere near those proportions. Many could save enough by not buying convenience foods and actually cooking a meal to make up for the difference in fuel costs and eat better (after they get the knack of it) than they do now. As long as there is something to work with, there is the ability to improvise, trim waste, and go to it.
My basic point about the market is that it is a free market, at least within the regs. It is not a monopoly, and any group of investors with the money can buy in (production, refining, whatever), but that does not come cheap.
Crude oil prices are set by refinery bid--bid too low, and you do not get any to refine. Then you have no product, and a huge investment sitting idle while your competitors do business. This is not a question of the oil companies all getting together and price fixing, but a global auction. Ebay on steroids, only all about petroleum.
Like any business, product prices must cover the cost of production and buy the raw materials for the next batch. While the excess shows up as profit, without it you cannot refit or upgrade or even utilize your existing means of production, much less hope to build more.
Government regs, especially during the Clinton Era, were changed often enough that refineries being refit had to alter the modifications in progress to comply. Imagine having to alter a factory under construction halfway through the project because someone changes a ruling or drops a new regulation in.
That happened, and is one reason we have fewer refineries than we did twenty years ago. Also, things wear out, and must be replaced. Much maintennance is scheduled, as the MTBF is pretty well predictable, and failures, when they do occur can be catastrophic. Safety is of paramount importance, not just to avoid damage to the facility, but to keep the hands from getting injured or killed.
The MSM has long fostered the image of those in the industry as being uncaring (at best) about the environment, but that is not the case.
Next to, and perhaps ahead of "BIG tobacco" and guns, "BIG oil" is at the top of their All American Fecal Roster, in big red, white, and blue letters with stars. After all, it is an industry in which liberals are such a rarity they are considered a protected minority. Any time the media can foment hatred of a largely non-union industry which pays well when it pays, and seldom gives a rat's ass what a bunch of pencil necked talking heads have to say (and almost universally, on an individual basis, is conservative), they do. After all, to them we are the enemy.
Some people (including a poster here) even have the impression that those of us who work in the industry get our fuel free (jeeez, that WOULD be a perk!)--Not so. We fill up at the same pump as everyone else, and do not get a discount, either.
I get the impression that there is a multitude of people out there who naturally expect everything to get cheaper while they charge more for what they do and luxuriate in largesse of a steadily improving personal economy.
With rare exception, it just does not work that way. Every industry takes its knocks.
If anyone out there is leveraged to the hilt, my advice is simple: Reduce your debt. Save what you can, invest what you can afford.
LOL
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