Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Loan Centers and Gas Stations

Every time I pull up to the pump and say fill it up, I wonder when they will combine the banks and the gas stations. It won't be long before you will have to fill out paperwork for a short term loan in order to pay for it. I still can't believe the attendant will ask if it is cash or credit. If I don't pull in with a trailer you can bet it is credit. I payed over $53 for a tank of gas yesterday. It wasn't premium either.

Most of us wonder if the price will ever level off or (God willing) go down. I keep hearing all the hoopla about big oil and profit taking but nobody seems to be discussing the key problems. The problems are pretty simple, supply, regulation, taxes and alternatives.

Supply is only a problem because governments have made it one. If we didn't have to get the majority of it from the other side of the planet we could save a large sum of money. For you environmentalists, if you collect it closer to where you use it, it reduces risk of spill and decreases the amount used to get it to destination, saving on pollution. We have many capped wells and known supply sites that could greatly reduce our costs.

Regulations or laws that have been passed by our government have done the most to increase the cost. As long as we regulate and tax the industry to death we are going to pay for it at the pump. We need to stop cutting American business and production and start pumping oil. I keep hearing people demand self sufficiency but I don't see any laws coming out of Congress that would give us a shot at it.

Taxes are another big bite at the pump. For every $1 the oil companies make Uncle Sam and his family of taxers make $2.41. That is almost 2.5 times more then the oil companies. Here we have the pot calling the kettle black as they look to further tax this industry.

Alternative energy has once again come to the fore front of conversation. Has anyone noticed a major tax incentive that would encourage this. We have seen the ethanol debacle and I can't wait to see how this will turn out. We already know its going to be bad.

Nobody is talking about bringing nuclear back. Hey, Europe has been doing it successfully for years. You keep telling me how we need to be more like Europe. Start passing some laws to get more nuclear plants on line.

I keep seeing windmills going up. I really don't see this penciling out over the long haul. There are so few places that have a sustained wind.

Thomas D. Segel wrote a great article titled High Oil Prices - Blame The Government You Elected! Seems we are finally starting to get it.

Unfortunately, none of those getting it are in power or able to do anything that will help. This isn't going to be solved tomorrow but with our current crop of politicians we won't even get it started.

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2 Comments:

Blogger TexasFred said...

E-85 is a joke, corn is food, not fuel, unless you're making 'shine, then it's a recreational foodstuff...

We MUST find some viable alternative, oh, like maybe drilling for the BILLIONS of barrels of oil that we KNOW we have maybe...

Thanks tree huggers...

11:32 AM, April 29, 2008  
Blogger Collin Williams said...

I wrote about this the other day... the environmentalists (And AL Gore in his globalization movement and when he was president of congress)are just screaming so loudly (and irrationally) that they are a threat to humanity... it's unbelievable.

Collin
rejectsociety.com

2:21 PM, April 30, 2008  

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