Fucking oil companies. CNN just reported the new quaterly earnings. The Government releases reserves, they complain about high barrel prices, we pay more, they make more, and still predict " We’re gonna have to fuck the public, because winter’s coming and we can get away with it." I guess that boycott a few months ago really showed them we wouldn’t take this shit anymore! I can hardly wait to see what happens if George W. becomes President! No vasiline, no kiss, maybe some sand, and a definite fucking! I really did do the boycott and even tho Gore predicts that my vote for Nader will help Bush, I’ll still express my dislike with the government status quo.
Yes, this is a generlized pssed off rant, but nothing makes me feel more helpless and abused than big business having huge profits while screwing John Q. Public. Fuck 'em, fuck’em fuck’em. Guess I’ll go fill my tank so I can drive to work again tomorrow. Maybe if I get a kiss from the cashier it will be more meaningful.
later, Tom
Hmmm…
Last time I checked, it was totally legal for you to buy crude oil, refine it, and then distribute it. If you charge just half of their margin plus the cost of making the gas, you should make a killin’. Go do that, and stop wasting our time.
When you actually learn how to drive, and your parents are making you gasp work and gasp pay for your car and gasp pay for your insurance and gasp pay for your own GAS even, you’ll be allowed to make comments like this.
For now, though, go play with your Goddamn barbies and shut the fuck up.
–Tim
I second the motion that Threemae go play with her barbi dolls.
I third it.
Over the years, many, many mechanics have told me that, with a few changes, we can have carburetors that will give us almost 70 to 100 mpg. Two people created high mileage carburetors and, for some reason, one kind of dropped out of sight, another failed the necessary tests with the prototype, because he was not allowed to adjust it after the patent office researchers banged it around. He dropped out of the news. Later, rumors surfaced that his carburetor had been purchased by the auto industry, who were sitting on it.
They have a vested interest in the fuel industries.
It’s odd how banks invest heavily in oil prices, knowing that they are subject to change over night. The higher the barrel price, the more the bank makes. You think they want low oil prices? Americans kicked Sadaam out of Kuwait, who would have eventually started in on Saudi Arabia, then we put out over 50% of the oil fires he left behind.
How are we repaid? Oil prices go up. OPEC seems to think we’re hired hands.
The great Texas oil fields were suddenly capped. Just as suddenly, our main oil supply is from over seas. Does price fixing sound familiar? There are only a few major oil companies left in the US, when once there were scores. They now dictate the oil prices. The others were bought up.
Old and automobile companies have shown over a billion in profits each year, yet the car companies complain that the have to charge more for cars that they keep finding cheaper ways to build and the oil companies blame OPEC for increased oil prices. So, here we have the oil companies showing great profits, but prices on heating oil will be going up this winter.
Fuel prices went up this summer because of increased power demands for air conditioning. The last increase was not due to OPEC, though they jumped in later. States tax the hell out of gas. Propane and natural gas, the cheapest fuels around, are more expensive per gallon than car gas. Diesel, just about as cheap, is almost as expensive as gas. (I heard that the demand on diesel, due to more diesel cars, jacked the price up, but isn’t that suppposed to work the other way? The more used, the more produced and the more produced, the cheaper it is by volume?)
Already we’re reading reports of major companies getting caught screwing the public through merges, price fixing, dirty deals and restriction. Like all magazines are now distributed by only 4 companies. They’ve been caught cutting up the US into routes and territories to prevent competition and freeze anyone else out.
Companies make deals with major food chains by selling them goods dirt cheap if they will not carry the competition. (Coke and Pepsi got caught doing that. Has anyone seen Shasta soda in major supermarkets lately? It’s only sold in Dollar stores around here.)
Delorian produced a magnificent car. Safe, solid, economic, sporty, and was run nearly out of business by the Big 3 auto makers, who screwed with his suppliers and then, with no previous history, he magically gets caught selling cocaine. His company went under. Notice, no one bought it up to produce that excellent car. The Delorians which are still left are still running.
The oil companies funded the smear campaign against nuclear power plants because if those had worked out, their drop in revenue would have been massive. Almost all power plants in the US are fuel oil driven. The few that aren’t are fed by coal, and being forced out by the EPA.
Just think of how many billion gallons a year go into producing power! Just think what would have happened if Nuclear power had caught on. It almost did. We would have had cheaper power. (Maybe. Cities get a chunk of the power bill payments as revenue.) It’s known that oil companies started promoting anti-nukes almost as soon as the concept proved workable.
I’m willing to state that once we get to a cheaper power source, like electric, the oil companies and the car makers will have both invested heavily in the technology, which by the time we get it, will no longer be all that cheap.
They’ll see to that.
It’s been done in the past. It’s being done now.
I wonder how much of a kick back OPEC secretly gives the oil companies each time they raise the barrel prices?
This is capitalism at it’s best. Communism is worse. Maybe we need to think of a better way. (Ever notice how all of our presidents lately are independently wealthy? Same with most of the congressmen and women. Whatever happened to a president of the people, from the people, who actually knows how it is to live in regular society?)
Dubya is probably the greater of two evils when it comes to protecting the American people from Big Business, but if you think Gore is going to rightously stand up for the little guy, consider this:
Gore’s family owns over $500,000 worth of stock in Occidental Petroleum Corp. Think Gore’s going to screw over them over to lower the heating bill for John Q Public?
From what I remember Gore answered similar accusations by pointing out those stocks were in a trust he did not have access to.
The government could make gas cheaper really easily. But as long as everyone blames OPEC or evil corporations (although some of them would say that that’s redundant), there’s really not going to be as much support for repealing the gas tax.
By the way, there are no 70 mpg or more carburators. That urban legend is so old it was never updated from the days before fuel injection, which is more efficient than any carburator could ever be. This has been discussed before, and I believe it was pointed out that without improving the efficiency of the engine itself, that sort of gain would be impossible to achieve with only a carburator. You could check over at http://www.snopes.com where I’m sure this is debunked as well.
There’s a fuckload of money to be made by introducing cheaper alternatives. If it were possible at the present, someone would do it. The oil industry is still subject to the basic laws of supply and demand, and is not all-powerful. Obviously, people in general don’t mind paying as much as they do for gas. Sure, they bitch and moan, but they keep buying gas-guzzling SUVs, and actions speak louder than words.
I disagree waterj2, because some years back they introduced gasohol, which is gasoline cut with alcohol. Pure alcohol can be brewed up cheaply and easily. It burns cleanly. The price of gas dropped when mixed with this stuff. Suddenly, it was bad for cars. It ate up Teflon coated injectors and pin valves. Eventually, it became hard to find as more and more people turned away from it.
No one seemed interested in finding a solution to correct the problems, like removing the Teflon coating on injectors and pin valves. Funding for alternative fuel sources seemed to dry up. Out of it all came propane powered trucks and cars, the discovery of methane fuels where fumes from garbage dumps could even be harnessed and the potential for additives to be added to alcohol to not erode modern carbs.
Gas prices dropped and research all but stopped on alternate fuels. Each time one was considered, it seemed the auto industry had reasons why it wouldn’t work.
The funny thing is, the plastics industry which uses oil by products to make their goods with was not even affected by the fuel hike. While everyone was running around and jacking prices up on anything made from oil compounds, their industry puttered along making bubble packs, tons of plastic utensils, disposable plates, cups and so one. Around about this time, disposable razors were introduced, disposable lighters showed up by the ton, and environmentalists complained about ‘over packaging’ by companies selling things like toys. Those little plastic eggs containing toys continued to be churned out by the millions.
In fact, the use of petroleum based plastics went up. The costs did not change.
Funny, the only things based on crude oil chemicals that went up were the fuels themselves, plastics used in automobiles (big surprise there), and agricultural fertilizers.
I do agree about the curious change in people buying fuel guzzlers, because the first few times the gas crunch hit, everyone switched to economy cars. However, over the years, the middle and upper class have developed a much better income base, those who survived the big cutbacks supposedly generated by rising costs of fuel for big businesses. The lower middle and lower classes have not gained as much at all.
I don’t understand it. But then again, I don’t understand how people will flood the market to buy stock in a long time, major business which ‘regroups’ by laying off 20,000 workers and closing some outlets. It used to be considered a bad sign to do that. Nor do I understand how banks can charge things like $24.95 for a $5.00 bounced check, charge $1 for every call to their automatic tellers, $0.50 for every check used on a business account and assess fees for doing anything but walking in their doors.
That was originally excused by ‘increased cost of doing business because of the increase in fuel prices’, but when the crude prices dropped, the ‘costs’ didn’t. Then the banks started investing in crude.
I’ve begun to believe that ‘evil OPEC’ might not be as ‘evil’ as we think, that we might be getting screwed by our own fuel companies. I mean, there is this major, major history of big corporations screwing the public and buying off the government in the process and getting away with it for years. I mean, people had to start dying before the government got involved with major companies dumping toxic waste in back yards. Look how long it took for the mining industries to make things safer for employees and to stop letting lethal runoff kill people miles away.
This is getting complicated. I’m starting to understand conspiracy fanatics and that’s scary so I think I’ll close now and get drunk.
Already 9:27 AM. What? Sleeping in today?
You’re right though. Government isn’t going to change companies’ actions without a call to arms from the masses. The reason is simple: the public is scattered and disorganized. They all want different things and, even those that agree rarely take the effort to try and change the system. So politicians know that if they help some people, they piss others off. They also know that those they help will most likely not care or forget come election day.
Businesses, OTOH, have a unified purpose: to make money. They’re commited to the goal and they’ll fight you on it with everything they’ve got if you stand in the way. They can reach the politicians, set up meetings with the politicians, and, if you piss them off, they won’t forget.
This, in addition to payoffs, kickbacks, bribes, whatever you want to call it, to these politicians to see that things do, in fact, go their way.
Lovely. Another conspiracy theorist. If you insist upon believing this kind of nonsense, you’re going to find this place pretty inhospitable, Copper Tears.
There have never been, nor will there ever be, 70-100 MPG carburetors. I suggest you get a new mechanic. Consider this, if you will. Toyota, General Motors and Honda have all recently intoduced an automobile that does indeed get around 70MPG. They didn’t do it with a carburetor, though; they are employing a hybrid gas-electric motor. So, if Big Business has such a huge stake in producing low mileage cars despite the possiblities of producing much higher mileage cars, where did these new models come from? Why would the major auto makers spend billions developing a new technology to produce high mileage cars when all they had to do was make a few modifications to existing carburetors. (Note: Very, very few automobile engines today even use carburetors anymore. Fuel injection is the norm. Your argument is outdated.)
I can also use your own rationale of greed against you. If an auto manufacturer wishes to increase his market share and thereby his profits, would it not make sense for him to introduce something to the market, that the public wants, and that would undercut his competition?
As for the DeLorean … an economic car? That’s ludicrous. That thing got about 22MPG at best. http://www.delorean.com
Oh yeah, one more thing. Elvis is dead.
Personally, I always find it amusing how people claim that evil corporations do all sorts of mean nasty things, and that they pay the government off for its support. So they demand that the government have more power to stop this sort of thing. The government gets more power, which is soon bought by evil corporations to do all sorts of mean nasty things. This is one of the reasons I’m a libertarian.
Unca Beer: 
The Delorian was economical for the time it was produced in.
The automobile industry refused to install piston rings for years, until management changed, knowing that without them, fuel economy went down and oil usage went up.
I can’t recall his name, but the man who created the car with 3 headlights, the center one turned with the wheels, was ahead of his time and the other companies ran him out of business.
Several oil companies got together and stopped ‘price wars’, then started running smaller ones out of business over 20 years ago.
It has been shown that when we use less gas, the price goes up. This happened in the 70s when everyone started buying up small cars. The price of gas dropped, then went back up because the oil companies were selling less.
The creators of cold fusion were debunked. Their discovery could not be reproduced, which is surprising because every scientist knows that an experiment must be able to be copied and work before it is accepted. Several researchers from the oil companies were on the examination board and, suddenly, these two scientists quietly drop out of the news. Failures. Curiously, one of the main oil researchers bought up all patents on the cold fusion process and locked it up.
The automobile industry rarely pays attention to the publics wishes since the 60s. What they produce, we buy. Not many people I know of liked the major change in car designs back in the 70s, but there was nothing else available. They removed side impact bars in cars, weakened the roof supports, removed the strong chassis, removed strong bumpers, took out wing windows and gave us no options.
Since then, they have been exposed of deliberately selling defective cars and saying nothing until forced to. Isuzu did the same, and so did Massed.
Like the beef shortage years ago, the oil companies, first stung by the fuel increase, discovered that folks will buy gas. Just like many grocery stores did with beef, when the prices dropped, the oil companies did not lower theirs back to previous levels. Greater profits.
Granted, business are made to make profits, but when your profits gained in a vital service industry start getting people killed, causes them to loose their livelihoods, their homes and to suffer, then perhaps a cap needs to be placed on such profits.
Defective cars have killed thousands. No telling how many more died before the government forced the auto industry to clean up emissions - which they knew was coming years before the laws. The oil prices have closed businesses, forced people to live without power, get laid off, get kicked out of their homes, forced them to drop insurance to pay bills, even increased food prices, raised interest rates and a whole lot of folks have died because of these and other oil related repercussions.
Carter slashed Social Service programs and created the mass of homeless on the streets. He slashed those programs because oil prices screwed up everything. In the mean time, the auto industry introduced crush zones on cars, which, interestingly enough include the drivers side.
In all of the wrecks I’ve observed over the years, I never saw so many involving the drivers side as within the last 15, since crush zones were introduced. Even mechanics I know recommend buying large cars or trucks because of this. The auto industry saves money with crush zones, and says it’s safer. Of course, they have to now install air bags and shoulder belts and have padded dashes.
The carb thing, well I’ve heard it from far too many skilled mechanics to not give it serious consideration.
I also know of the massive oil and auto lobby in congress, recall charges of attempting to fix prices by oil companies, and know of pissed off nations where American oil companies drilled wells and then left behind leaking, oil soaked messes that they refuse to clean up. Plus, like it never dawned on the oil companies that a single hulled tanker would leak if hit and it took them several major disasters to start switching to double hulled construction which costs more. Plus, the oil companies never did finish cleaning up their mess in Alaska and their fines were actually minimal in comparison to the lasting damage they have caused.
Yeah. Major, service oriented, necessary businesses are concerned about us. Not since there are now like only 4 oil companies, and only a few car companies who control the majority of the business. (Remember when the auto industry managed to get congress to levy surcharges on imported cars, because people were buying them instead of American ones?)
About the “gas boycott” alluded to the OP - wasn’t that debunked anyway? If you didn’t buy gas on a certain day I can’t see how that would affect the oil companies in any way since you’d just end up buying in on some other day. If everyone were to not drive their car on a certain day, that, I believe, would have some effect, but that’s not what you’re referring to, is it?
David
I still say Elvis is dead.
OK, first of all, the “guy who built the car with the three headlights” was Preston Tucker. He went out of business because he attracted several SEC investigations with his half-assed financing schemes (this was only a few years after the Depression, remember) and because he lost his factory land to a company building postwar pre-fab housing.
Second, the magic carburetor story is horseshit, for the reasons already mentioned. Not to mention, I’m sure the last thing domestic oil companies want is to reduce reliance on OPEC oil by making cars more fuel-efficient and therefore making their own supplies sufficient for our market. The horrors!
Third, Americans pay pretty much the lowest gas prices in the industrialized world. Travel over to the UK or Germany sometime, pay the equivalent of $5.00+ a gallon, and see how attractive $1.70 starts to look.
Fourth, you are so far off-base on the cold fusion thing it’s preposterous. The “discoverers,” Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, held a press conference announcing their work before they ever published or even attempted to publish any results (partly because they felt they were about to be scooped and because their employer, the University of Utah, needed the attention and grant money). The mainstream press got hold of the story before there was ever an opportunity for repetition or peer-review. When such experimentation was attempted at laboratories around the world, results were sporadic, contradictory, and ulimately counter-indicative regarding the reality of the phenomenon. There was no “examination board” containing “oil company researchers,” and dollars to donuts says there are no patents on cold fusion technology. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/askexpert/physics/physics6.html for more information.
Dear god in heaven. Bear with me here, Copper Tears. I’m gonna poke some holes in your “facts.”
]
The Delorean was produced in 1981 and 1982. The table on this page, derived from government figures, shows that average fuel economy for all new cars produced in 1981 was about 25MPG. This means the Delorean was a bit under the national average. It was not a highly economical automobile. You are incorrect.
Wrong again. Gas prices, until the recent increase, in constant dollars have never been lower. “Since the early 1980s, however, gasoline prices have dropped dramatically - from a peak of $2.05/gallon in 1981 to $1.15 per gallon in 1997 (both in constant 1992 dollars).” This quote is on the page linked above.
Yes, Fleischman and Pons, the perpetrators of the cold fusion fiasco made statements of their success on June 6, 1989, that could not be reproduced. The rest of your statement is false. The major figure in debunking that myth was Dr. Douglas Morrison of CERN, a European laboratory for the study of particle physics. No oil magnates were involved. Please read Voodoo Science by Robert Park. Also, the study of cold fusion, although it produces no new results, is still very much alive. Here’s the Summary Report of the Eighth International Conference on Cold Fusion. There are no patents to be locked up as there’s no useful technology on which to grant a patent.
Bullshit. The automakers want to sell you cars. That’s why they are in business. Period. There are no profits to be made in automobiles that won’t sell. If one maker won’t supply what the public wants, another surely will. Using your theory, please explain the explosion in the sales of SUV’s. You can’t do it. You’re wrong again.
Again, using your logic, please explain the hundreds and hundreds of voluntary manufacturer recalls listed here. http://www.alldata.com/consumer/TSB/yr.html
You said in an earlier paragraph, that oil price have increased. I’ve already put the lie to that statement but, it bears repeating since you are ignorant. “Since the early 1980s, however, gasoline prices have dropped dramatically - from a peak of $2.05/gallon in 1981 to $1.15 per gallon in 1997 (both in constant 1992 dollars).”
Social services spending increased greatly under Jimmy Carter. The supposed increase in the number of homeless on the streets is generally attributed to Ronald Reagan kicking the unstable out of the mental institutions. I think you are misinformed. And here I must pose another question to you. What in the name of fuck do the homeless have to do with automobile design? I’m afraid I can’t quite make your leap of “logic.”
Actually, the areas of Prince Edward Sound on which no attempt was made to restore, have fared better and returned to their pristine state more quickly than those upon which restoration attempts were made. So, maybe it’s better the job was left unfinished.
The other portions of your disillusioned spiel don’t even bear quoting. It seems to be the addlepated rant of an unbalanced conspiracy crackpot. Let me guess, you think of Oliver Stone as a modern day prophet and Ralph Nader as his acolyte, don’t you.
And Elvis is still dead.
I do pay for all of that. Even the gas and insurance. That’s why I drive a Metro.
Trust me, its hard to “pimp” around in those things, but at least it leaves me with money to senselessly waste on my climbing rack.
That will never be done.
But at least it makes me happier when I spend time with friends climbing than on a $30000 SUV with about 5 miles to the gallon, not to mention the abs.
But I still have this feeling of emptiness. If I really had the SUV, then at least I would have something to bitch about.
“I did not know that a low MPG REALLY MEANT that it was a gas guzzler.”
I just won’t stand for that blasphemy, you bastard.
To be fair, Uncle Beer, while Copper Tears is sticking mostly to conspiracy theories, some major car companies have systematicaly covered up defects in product. Voluntary recalls are worth it to the company only when the potential damages for being discovered (in lawsuits and publicity) are greater then the value of hiding the defects.
A famous recent case:
http://detnews.com/2000/autos/0008/28/autos-111042.htm
Firestone is under suspicion of the same.
http://aftermarket.theautochannel.com/news/2000/09/19/969401669.1.html
Companies can avoid lawsuits like that by engaging in voluntary recalls. Government protects the consumers. Sometimes it does act in our best interests (after all, that’s what were paying them to do)…
I agree with Unca Beer, Elvis remains dead with a very poor prognosis.