Well, the U.S. isn’t exactly small fish, as far as consumers go. If I’m reading this correctly (and comparing it with the numbers your cite provided), the U.S. consumes about 20% of the oil produced by OPEC. If that’s the case, then ISTM that that’s a pretty good incentive to not tell us to go to hell, right?
I was thinking along the lines of an embargo (like in 1973 and 1979). Yes, oil is fungible and can still be sent here from other countries that wouldn’t embargo us, but it wouldn’t be nearly the same volume. Shortages are expensive and the lines are long when they happen.
Do you think OPEC cares who they sell their oil to? They’ll sell to whomever is willing to pay for it, unless they want to make a point. China and India will be glad to make up the difference. That’s why it’s called the “oil weapon”, because they have the demonstrated ability to hurt us very badly. With that in mind, what the hell are they thinking in Washington?
I would assume you’d just make it two stories.
They certainly have leverage - I’ll grant you that. I just wanted to point out that they have to be careful not to shoot themselves in the foot, too.
I’m with you on that. To me, it seems like pure, unadulterated pandering. (“The people are getting restless about these gas prices. We better look like we’re doing something!”)
There are these things called stairs that take you what’s referred to as a second floor above the one at ground level. You live in a ranch house, don’t you? 
ETA: Damn, beaten by Captain_C.
And he was beaten to it by OtakuLoki a long time ago. Jesus people, I get it. I had a brainfart, sorry. Two-story house and under 1,000sqft just did not compute immediately.
A house under 1,000 sq. ft. is not rare in America. Don’t think the people building huge ones they are now losing got rid of all the previous ones people have been living in. They built them on the farmer’s fields, and around every lake so that all the lakes are now stinky algae pools.
We have an 800 sq ft house for 2 people, but are making plans to tear it down and replace it with one that is about half as big again [final sq footage isnt firmed up quite yet.] My particular needs require it to be one floor, NO steps or level changes anywhere and that cute litttle 5 foot passage/wheelchair movment space in and around things, even though I tend to use a cane right now I will be in a chair in the fairly close future. Only way I can do a 2 storey is if there will be a chair lift or elevator in it. An elevator in a 1000 sq ft house is silly.
They’ll do it very politely, I’m certain.
(Mostly because certain individual OPEC member countries don’t want to create a fuss, particularly since EU/NATO/US alliances are already so fragile)
Petrol comes at €1,55 per liter here, which corresponds to nearly $9/gallon or something. There’s an estimate out now that it might be €2,- by the end of the year. You do the math. People complain and whine a lot but the country is not falling apart. Of course, it’s true that prices were upped incrementally, but in the end, it looks to me that people in the US are going to have to come to terms with the fact that their lifestyle might not be sustainable and might have to change a bit. You know, you can live a long and happy life driving a car that doesn’t guzzle gas, taking a bus or train every once in a while, or, hell, even walking someplace.
In 1979 I was working in a gas station. The price hit $1/gallon and everybody was amazed. Right about then we were still getting used to “front wheel drive” cars and Honda et al were starting to make progress—the idea that a Japanese car could be anything but junk had been a novel idea till then. People continued buying American (slam the door, listen to the rattling inside, and pick up the pieces of chrome that fell off).
Cars are more expensive but they have a lot more safety equipment on them, so that is more apples to oranges. But if you had a list of what everything cost in those days—consumable things that haven’t really changed in their nature like a gallon of milk, a box of bandaids, a Hershey bar, etc.—and compared then v. now, I don’t think you’d find gas is really that different. If anything we enjoyed a reprieve but that has probably passed forever. Take into account inflation and the beating that the dollar is taking overseas and yeah, seems about right.
FWD is of course the norm now but the “build it smaller and more economical” thing isn’t in full force. Hummer, anyone? If gas suddenly drops to $1/gallon again, you’ll see even bigger hogs on the road. If it goes to $10/gallon, not as many.
Here in DFW there’s a public transit system that serves a lot of people. If gas goes up, it will expand and flourish even more. But I think initially it was primarily appealing to those who wanted to avoid the horrendous traffic jams.
I’m as ready as I can be – I started working from home in February, so instead of filling up twice a week I fill up twice a month. I live in a small town, so almost all my errands can be run on foot or bike.
There is the little matter of home heating oil, however. If the price of gas goes up 250%, that will too. If it’s a cold winter, things could get ugly.
Bring it on.
We chose are houses, our cars, our cities and our jobs. Some of us made choices that were dependent on a substance controlled by some of the nastiest people on Earth, and I’m not surprised that it isn’t working out well. Who is really surprised that was a bad choice?
The sooner we begin building the infrastructure for transit-friendly communities, the easier this transition is going to be. But instead we are choosing to pretend like it will never happen, and thus when it does it’s gonna kick our asses.
Did anyone else see the article, I think on CNN, about people paying premium prices, up to $7K, for old Geo Metros (which get ~40mpg) I did, yesterday, and my new car buying experience of the previous week was put into perspective.
The salesman ran me two numbers, one on a Kia Rio and another on a Kia Spectra. Despite having disparate MSRPs, the relatively tooled-out Spectra was only a couple hundred more than the more baseline Rio (which is one class down from the Spectra, even.) I thought the salesman was playing games with me to make the Spectra look good, and that still might be part of it, but part of the reason is also that more people are preferring the Kia with 35 mpg! (The Spectra gets 32 mpg, which is pretty close, but I suspect it really will get around 32 mpg since it has some get up and go vs the Rio, whereas the Rio, which I owned previously, can get up to 40 mpg.)
Nothing but political posturing. Smells like flag burning to me.
I’m just gonna start riding my damn bike to work…three miles isn’t that far is it? Might do me some good, but I can see rainy days as being a royal pain in the ass. Maybe get a scooter, that could work. Bah, I’ll figure something out.
MT
Or in our case, three. I foresee a lot of climbing in the future.
I cut my effective cost of gasoline by $0.50/gallon simply driving the speed limit, which is 65 mph on the roads I drive on instead of 75mph which had been my usual practice. It takes me an extra 2.4 minutes on my 20 mile one way commute.
It looks like I’m not alone. Early on people were blowing by me constantly with maybe 90% of the traffic going faster than me, but now I’m a lot closer to the median speed.
It would be bad, but we would deal, eventually.
So when is the gubmint going to sue our oil companies for artificially making prices high?
I’m slightly confused on how, exactly, our laws apply to OPEC anyway. They don’t produce or actually sell things here. They get it from their sources abroad and sell to American companies, or lease their lands to American companies. Which makes our legal power pretty much nil.