rant

[b-diddy]

talk is that we are headed for $4 for a gallon of gas this summer. where im at in chicago, thats pretty much guaranteed. we're probably actually staring at closer to $5.... and i could honestly care less how much gas costs. i've gotten rid of my car and probably wont have another one until they all run on vegetable oil. but what does bother me is that gas prices go up, and that means all prices soon go up, and while everyone suffers, EXON and other oil companys are recording record profits. take a look at their balance sheets, its mind blowing.

but my real problem is this: why not have a windfall tax? if these guys are doing 2x or 3x better than they were a few years ago, why not take an extra big bite out of their ass? who doesnt want this?

i'll tell you who doesnt want it: exon. and what exon doesnt what, exon doesnt get. why? because the US congress and presidency is bought and paid for by big business. did you know that in 1960 there was less than 100 lobbyists in washington? fast forward 47 years and there are now 17,000 registered lobbyists in washington and likely just as many (if not more) unregistered lobbyists, all working for their own "special" (read help client/screw everyone else) interest.

and now, lets face facts. why are lobbyists successful? because our representatives rely on them for their own reelections (own benefit). why do they need them? $$$. why do they need $$$? because americans are stupid, and the key to winning every election is to define your opponent as an asshole rather than defining yourself. this is accomplished via 30 second commercials aired during american false god (american idol). which goes back to getting the bribes from exon.

now, im as big a fan of democracy as the next guy, but something tells me the genius philosphers in 400 bc athens didnt contemplate the stupifying effects of network broadcasting when they were laying out the basis of what is modern day american democracy (yes unclemxy, i know we are technically a republic).

i wont advocate the ending of our current system in favor of some sort of totalitarian regime,

but i think its goddamn obvious we need all sorts of reform. a good start would be campaign reform. too bad john mccain hopped in bed with the bad guys on that one, huh? i'd like to see a legit 3rd party system take hold by ending gov benefits to the parties (my belief in a multi party system will probably be another rant). i'd also recommend you vote obama, who is probably the least receptive to lobbyists of all the likeliest contenders. and of course, i'd like to see a windfall tax placed on coorporations that make an innordinate proffit while squeezing the little guy.

b-diddy

ps: my over/under on how expensive gas can get before society crumbles is $5.50 a gallon. i do accept alpaca wagers.

[Zip Goshboots]

diddy:
Great post, but I'll take the OVER on your gas price. The American Ego won't let a silly thing like $8.99 for a gallon of gas get them down. If they did, they would have, LONG ago, thought that $300,000 1600 square foot homes were ridiculous, and they would have long ago thought that dropping a C-note for dinner or two hickey tickets was absolutely insane. This is a challenge to the SUV or Hummer driving suburban wannabe. He's "nouveau riche"-- a French term for "Asswipe American who thinks he's something he's not". And, if the guy is gonna fill his Hummer or his double axled pickup truck, his soccer wife will demand the same for her mini van.
Oh, how about getting rid of your ONE phone at home, that we all lived with for a hundred years, in favor of five cell phones (all the family members)? Not a bad deal for the American Ego, to go from paying 45.00 a month for one phone to $250.00 per month so your wife can call you every five seconds, and your kids can call their friends all day and night. OH, but what if there's an emergency??? AND? We had 'em back then, too. A cell phone won;t stop the heart attack from happening, or stop the bleeding when your Goth kid who spends all day at home alone because both parents work two jobs to afford all the shit slashes her wrists!
You got rid of your car: Good move. I buy $1000.00 clunkers every two years and drive them until they die. I got rid of the credit cards, and any other payment I might have had. I don;t go to the theatre, or the restaurants (except MacDonalds). I refuse to support this economy any more.
But we are in the minority, and Exon and Bush and pals know it.
You're all lucky I don;t run Exon, you'd be paying 15.00 per gallon, and you'd fucking do it and shut up.
diddy: The rich are going to do what they do, you just got to insulate yourself against it the best you can. The American Dream, baby, is OVER!

[DennyMcLain]

Interesting take, Diddy.

I recently leased a new VW Rabbit. Neat car. $15000 basically gets you a car born from the Audi parts bin, which is in no way a negative.... except for the engine.

Now, the inline 5 is pretty damn torquey, and loves to be pushed. On the highway, it gains close to 32 mpg. But, in stop and go city driving, it pulls (according to my estimates) about 15 mpg, though it's billed at 22 mpg (an average, more than likely derived in a "city" like Boise). By contrast, my 1988 Suzuki Intruder 750 averages about 32 mpg OVERALL!!!

Needless to say, that piece of German engineering sits 4 days out of the week in the carport, collecting dust. It's been relegated to dates, rainy days, and hauling merchandise. I've entertained the notion of allowing LeaseSwap buy out the lease (the ride is 4 months old, and only has 1100 miles tacked on to it). What's the point? My old 1990 Hoda Civic, with an oil leak and one shot piston ring STILL managed 25 mpg!!! Sure, it's nice to have a car when necessity dictates, but I find myself naturally gravitating toward the motorcycle on a routine basis. Even when the weather teeters on the brink of inclimate, I'm still instinctivly clutching my helmet before I even look outside.

Why not get a Mazda 3 or Nissan Sentra? Simple. I prefer German automobiles. I'm also a huge fan of Audi interiors, and the VeeDub cabin is literally littered with the Audi quadring logo. I'm also a huge fan of three door hatchbacks, and I prefer the lines of the VW over the rakish Mazda and the French-ish Nissan (originally I wished to be an automobile designer, long ago when turnaround in that field was non-existant and SoCal had yet to become the design mecca of the automotive world).

Now, I wish I hadn't.

The irony of this rant is my day job -- I sell Vespa Motor Scooters. Not a bad gig when the price of gas is playing zero gravity on our pocketbooks. Pimping $5000 Italian scooters that pull 65mph top speed while sipping 65mpg is not at all a bad gig. This April was, apparently, the second best April ever for the shop, and this summer very well could be a record breaker. It's a nice barometer as to exactly HOW people here in L.A. feel about gas prices when folk who've never been on a motorized two wheeled vehicle drop six large on a Granturismo 200L, then ask us to place it off to the side so they can head off and take their written test at the DMV (motorcycle permit).

Think about that for a moment: These people WANT to voluntarily and joyously walk into a dreaded DMV branch and TAKE A TEST. They can't wait. They do not view the DMV as the bad guy, nor any kind of buraucratic hassle -- they simply see the California Department of Motor Vehicles, our version of the Three Headed Monster, as... FREEDOM?

Fine with me. I sold 13 scoots last month, and I'm currently on pace this month for 16.

I love those lobbyists.

[b-diddy]

interesting, i was walking to the train today and was actually pondering getting one of those scooter things myself. question: whats the deal with theft on them? couldnt someone just grab it off the street? i dont want to spend 5k, but i could see trying to get a cheep used one in the near future.

[Glenn]

I had one of my Honda Sprees (I've owned three) stolen 4 times when I was at MSU.

I bought it for $150, used it for four years, had it stolen and recovered four times, and when I was through with it, sold it for $200.

Filled up the tank for 50 cents twice a week, and pulled right up to the classroom door 2 minutes before class began. It was a beautiful thing, really.

[Big Swami]

I kind of see a little better these days what the real problems are in America, as opposed to the problems that everyone seems to think we have.

Everyone seems to understand that things are badly wrong, but everyone is so fixated on their own pet solutions that they're not likely to be capable of really seeing the problems for what they are.

Basically, the problem that everyone is dealing with on a day-to-day basis is that our inefficiency as a society is driving us to the poorhouse and the madhouse. But economists keep telling us that the inefficiency is good for us. Take this for example: how much do oil companies spend on marketing? That money is spent in the effort to try to compete against the other oil companies for market share. It really dwarfs the amount of money they spend on creating ways to deliver a quality product in ways that keep costs low.

The economists tell us that since the oil companies are paying branding and advertising people in their marketing efforts, this is actually good for the economy. Well, maybe. But I'm not an advertising guy. I don't shop in the same stores, I don't put my money in the same banks as advertising guys. I'm not part of that economy at all. There is no such thing as "the" economy. There are several different economic environments at work in America.

But the American state religion is the Free Market. There are no holier words than "tax cuts," "deregulation," "prosperity," "GDP," "capital," "profit," "shareholder," "competition," etc. The health of the nation is determined by numbers that reflect the stock profits gained by the very richest people. The problem is that every time people are laid off, or a family has a medical emergency, or someone has a car accident, "the economy" gets a small bump and if it happens enough, those stocks go up. A little bit. But if someone owns a million shares of some company whose stock has gone up a little bit...You can see how this works.

In our country we hold the market up as if it were God, and it's a sin to speak against it. But regular people like you and me do not benefit from the market. In fact, the market is waiting for something terrible to happen to us, so that some shithead's stock can go up an eighth of a point. Napoleon Bonaparte once commented that religion is defined as the force in the world that keeps the poor from killing and eating the rich. In our society, the religion is money.

[Uncle Mxy]

Speaking as a shithead that shuffled money into natural resources stock in the wake of 9/11, there's a few regular joes who are profiting a little bit (more than 1/8th of a point ) from the spiked up gas prices. AFAICT, two big factors are what's causing the spike:

1) We destabilized the Middle East with our Iraq invasion fuckage, and the fuckage will persist whether we stay or leave and everyone knows that.

2) We've let the dollar fall dramatically against other international currency, and oil is an international commodity.

After 9/11 and Afghanistan and before Iraq in 2002, gas went back at the same price it'd been pre-9/11 -- $1.35/gallon or so. $1.35 in 2002 dollars turns out to be over $2/gallon today just from the currency changes alone, never mind any other factors. (This is also, incidently, why the Dow Jones keeps climbing up - international concerns doing business in Euros, pounds, and Yen don't have to lift a finger to see their valuations go up.) If the dollar destabilizes too badly (and borrowing insanely to fund Iraq activities won't help at all), oil will start pricing oil with Euros or stabler currency, and that will spell the end of the U.S. as a "super power".

[b-diddy]

wasnt this a big conspiracy a few years back... except it was supposed to be in russian rubles, and all our debtors calling in on our loans, which would effectively have broken the us economy?

im pretty sure i've heard it before.

[Zip Goshboots]

That's a nice wordy explanation Moxie, but I like to simplify things: The oil companies, under Bush and the Repubs, have simply decided to fuck everyone.
They know exactly how much oil is left, how much it's going to cost to get it out, and how long it's going to last. They have been let go for so long, and now it is just time for everyone to bend over, shut up, and pay for the gas. And by the way, how about a $12.00 GOLD Standard Deluxe Car Wash with that, sir?

[Uncle Mxy]

wasnt this a big conspiracy a few years back... except it was supposed to be in russian rubles, and all our debtors calling in on our loans, which would effectively have broken the us economy?

Excluding seasonal fluctuation, the trend of oil prices correlating with perceived progress or lack thereof with Iraq should be pretty evident. The factor that's making it even worse is the decline of the dollar. And screw words... here's a nice close-to-home graph:

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/co...CAD&amt=1&t=5y
5 years ago, one U.S. dollar was worth 1.50-1.60 Canadian, and now it's around 1.10. That's not especially healthy, and there's loads of practical evidence to indicate this, like gas prices. I don't need conspiracy theories.