West Coast Senators probe gas prices

[Midnight Rambler]

quote:

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Originally posted by afwjam

We don't need the EPA to know that hurting someone by polluting their air is Illegal.

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And yet, that pollution went on completely unchecked for over 100 years until the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the EPA. Funny, that. Must be a total coincidence of timing.

[Midnight Rambler]

quote:

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Originally posted by afwjam

The price of gas is not rising, its the value of your money that is falling. The price of oil has been nearly flat for the last 50 years.

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Not even close - the price of oil was stable in adjusted dollars between 1946 and 1972 (though in actual dollars it doubled in that time), but it spiked during the OPEC crisis, came back down in the late 90's, then came back up with the Iraq war and has been high ever since.
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Infla..._Table.asp

quote:

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Ask the Federal Reserve why everything seems so expensive, then ask them how they claim inflation is only 2% when prices seem to rise 8% every year.

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That's extremely easy to see through - they use a misleading figure. You'll notice that they always say the inflation figure "excludes the volatile food and energy sectors". To some degree that makes sense, because they can be affected by short-term things like one-year droughts or wars that affect oil supply, but they still have some real inflation over time, and of course those are what most people spend most of their money on. Other stuff really hasn't gone up much; you can get a computer or camera of a similar level now for the same or even less than 10 years ago, and clothes are about the same too (and of course a lot of that is because they keep finding cheaper places to make things).

[rainyjim]

Wow midnight I wish I was as naive as you! Life must be pretty awesome in this fairy tale land of fairness and truths you must live in. Lol.

Cheers

rainyjim

[PaulW]

Life must be pretty scary in your paranoia fantasy land, rainyjim.

I have to chuckle when people complain about gas prices. We have about the lowest gas prices in the industrialised world. In England it's been at least $8 a gallon for the last 5 years and on mainland Europe it's even worse!

Historically, gas prices aren't that high either - as pointed out above. It certainly hasn't been a steady climb. If I'm not mistaken, gas cost more in 1918 than it does now!

[Guest]

Midnight you cannot measure the price of oil in dollars, even fake inflation number adjusted dollars. Our dollars are just pieces of paper, they have no value. $35 of our dollars used to be worth an ounce of gold and before that $25, but now its $1722. Gold is real money that holds its value because it is a limited resource that cannot be readily inflated like paper can be printed. Here is the price of oil since before 1950:

http://goldprice.org/james-turk/uploaded...780567.GIF

Notice that the price of oil in gold hardly changes while the price in dollars skyrockets, thats inflation. The fed prints the dollars and gives them to their friends in the banking and business world who use it while it is worth something, then release the money onto the open market where it devalues all the currency in circulation. It is a very effective tool of wealth transference and a tax on the middle class and fixed income earners. You will have noticed that over the past decade the costs of living have risen dramatically, while peoples wages have not. This is because the Fed under Greenspan and now Bernanke has been printing record amounts of money and loaning it to their friends. You can see a large increase in M1 money supply, which through our lax and dishonest fractional reserve banking policies has lead to an explosive growth in M3.

http://goldseek.com/news/2009/2-13mh/1.png

For now our petrodollar is the defacto reserve currency for the world and every major central bank and country treasury needs to keep petrodollars in reserve. Mostly they keep our petrodollars in reserve to buy oil from OPEC as you can guess from the name. However confidence in the petrodollar is waning quickly with our countries out of control spending and the Feds expansionist monetary policy. The Fed Interest rate will stay at 0% for the foreseeable future.... thats free money! When confidence in the petrodollar fails, the holders of petrodollar reserves will release their dollars onto the market and then we will experience the joys of hyperinflation. The costs of living have risen dramatically while wages are stagnant or falling, inflation is near 8%(real numbers,2% is BS), as confidence in the dollar continues the fade the inflation will accelerate and the costs of living will become unbearable for many.

Paul, the price of a gallon of gas in 1918 was less then 25¢, the Federal reserve has devalued our dollar by 98% since it was established in 1913. Fun fact: 1913 is also the year we got screwed over with the income tax as well.

“Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.”
-Ron Paul

[Rob Tucker]

Please keep this discussion related to Hawaii and Puna.

Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator

[rainyjim]

Tying it back to Hawaii,

It seems like for a start we need to convince our senators and representatives to start looking inward rather than outward.

We have on the big island all the means to grow our own food and all the means to provide our own power (electrical power), and yet we continue to rely on food and energy shipped in on a boat.

Why - if not to fleece the pockets of the very same senators, representatives, and their friends/families?

I don't want my children to be slaves to the debt of our generation!

I fear though, as you said dwedeking, there is nothing left for us to do to change these problems short of taking up arms - it's not something I relish saying, but after all the agencies, permits, licenses, rules, regulations, and controls...what route is left?


Cheers

rainyjim

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Some years ago, the Hawaii State legislature passed a gas cap law. This was at a time when Hawaii consumed 4% of the west coast gasoline, but provided 17-19% of the profits to the west coast oil companies. Immediately after the gas cap law went into effect, the price of gasoline dropped dramatically. Then, a few months later the price spiked due to a problem in the Middle East. Many people were livid, that this new gas cap law "caused" the price of gas to increase so much. To those who thought the gas cap caused the problem, I tried to explain that the price would be even higher without the gas cap, but all they saw was cause (gas cap) and effect (higher prices). Cause and effect did raise the price, but the cause was the Middle East, not the gas cap.

Calls were made to state senators and representatives and people demanded the gas cap be repealed. The politicians bowed to the voice of the people, and the prices went higher again. But the citizens were pleased with themselves.

To this day they still complain about the high cost of gas. But do they realize they did some of it to themselves?

I wouldn't hold out much hope for a group of west coast senators investigating market manipulation, we know the refineries do this (especially Hawaii prices). We know laws can be passed (gas cap), and we know the misinformation that then goes around can then undo any good that might come from it.