Gasoline prices in the US, a ‘windfall’ for Republicans in the coming election?

[amicus]

Gasoline prices in the US, a ‘windfall’ for Republicans in the coming election?



At first blush it appeared that the latest broadside against the Bush administration seemed to have no ‘upside’ in public opinion concerning Republicans and Democrats.

But as the morose media probes and pushes to illuminate the ‘causes’ of high gasoline prices, more and more they turn full circle and look into decades of liberal left wing attempts to limit energy exploration and development. They see warnings put forth by those who know, that the slow strangulation of the energy industries, by environmental radicals, in a hundred ways, brought about these high prices.

Investigations continue to turn up no evidence of oil company conspiracies to control or manipulate the market, no evidence of ‘price gouging’, no evidence of tampering with supply and demand. These investigations, one after another, conclude that ‘market forces’ determine pricing. Something every rational economist has known all along. Only the lascivious left fails to read the writing on the wall.

Even the ‘big guns’ of the Democrat party, blinked in disbelief as a Fox news interviewer accused the left of limiting and restriction energy production for over 30 years.

The scenario that I and many others have warned of for over a generation is now playing out in full view, for all to see. The ‘Anti-Industrial’ left is about to accomplish a primary goal, bringing not just American, but World industrial enterprises to a standstill, from high priced energy or a lack of energy at all.

For all those of you who hate the free market, hate capitalism, hate the mining industry, hate the oil and coal industry, hate nuclear energy, but love the spotted owl and the snail darters, your generation long quest has achieved its goal.

Should we expect environmentalists to celebrate in the streets, hippy style with bonfires in a field and free love everywhere flowing peace love and happiness?

Or will they finally realize that they cannot afford to buy gasoline or heat their homes or even run their computers, will they finally wake up?

I doubt it.

Amicus…

 

[elsol]

You give people too much credit.

It takes thought to arrive at ... 'it's the environmentalist's fault'.

It's much easier to arrive at 'Cheney and the Oil Companies are in bed together'.

It's also much easier to say 'The Republicans are in power NOW... so it MUST be their fault.'

And Bush didn't help by going ahead with an 'investigation' on price gouging.

But then again, you're the believer in humanity... I'm on the side of 'You can't find afghanistan on a map with country names on it, but you can vote!!!'

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[amicus]

You make a good point, ElSol, a character flaw on my part, I have always believed, well, hmmmm...'known' that humanity will prevail, since I don't 'believe' in anything, I had to qualify that...

Fortunately there are those of us who will point out the obvious.

amicus...

 

[3113]

Or will they finally realize that they cannot afford to buy gasoline or heat their homes or even run their computers, will they finally wake up?

Um, well true hippies are heating their house with solar panels and walls that maintain a certain temperature (fascinating actual. There are ways to create homes with certain stone/mud walls where interior temperatures can remain constant winter or summer!). They're running the electricity with wind or water power, and traveling by bicycle. True hippies know that when the gas runs out and it all comes crashing down, they're going to be the only ones with heat, electricity and transportation.

 

[amicus]

3113]Um, well true hippies are heating their house with solar panels and walls that maintain a certain temperature (fascinating actual. There are ways to create homes with certain stone/mud walls where interior temperatures can remain constant winter or summer!). They're running the electricity with wind or water power, and traveling by bicycle. True hippies know that when the gas runs out and it all comes crashing down, they're going to be the only ones with heat, electricity and transportation.

[/I]

~~~~~~~~`

Thas the point, 3113, it will never 'all come crashing down', the ingenuity of man will find means to replace whatever fuel is being used with another, better than the one before.

The fundamental flaw in hippie socialism is that the fix on the present, or parts of the past, and turn it into stone, denying the ability of man to think and create and forbidding him to do so with restrictions and regulations, a strangulation of the human spirit.

A free market place, where people are free to think and create and prosper, says, 'Oh yeah! Says who!" and goes on to make a better mouse trap.

Let your philosophy set men free, my dear, they will amaze you.


amicus...

(So I am dancing with Elvira, who asked you anyway?)

 

[3113]

The fundamental flaw in hippie socialism is that the fix on the present, or parts of the past, and turn it into stone, denying the ability of man to think and create and forbidding him to do so with restrictions and regulations, a strangulation of the human spirit.

And your fundamental flaw, my dear Amicus, is that you don't know any science fiction hippies. I do. Quite a few. Engineers, physicists, MIT guys, biologists....some brilliant writers with up-to-date knowledge of science and very forward looking insight into that future.

Socialism has nothing to do with it. Now, evangalical religion that refuses to teach science, and a president that won't listen to scientists if they say what he doesn't like...that's the real danger to man's ability to think and create.

Lucky for us, other countries, including socialist countries, aren't so down on science as we Americans. They're racing ahead into the future. Too bad for us.

 

[amicus]

Just about everything you said was bullshit, kid, and I suspect you know that.

Socialism, collectivism, the sacrifice of the individual to the group, has been around forever and is a contagious disease and infects everything it touches.

It is also insidious, it arrives without warning, infects with little pain and only with climax does it do the harm.

Those who respect individual human rights are as firewatchers on a hillside, we see the smoke and warn others to prepare to defend their rights and liberties.

You don't have a clue, which does not surprise me, nor I think will you will ever, which also does not surprise me.

Your assertion that the Bush administration or 'Evangelicalism' has even a whit of influence on national politics, exposes your lack of understanding of this nation.

But then, this is, after all, a porn site, so who cares?

amicus...

 

[elsol]

Your assertion that the Bush administration or 'Evangelicalism' has even a whit of influence on national politics, exposes your lack of understanding of this nation.

Let me see if I understand this... you are saying the Executive Branch of the United States has has NOT a white of influence on national politics.

And Evangelicalism does not have its forefront several national issues with letterhead on 'How we can change America to do things our way?'

Evangelicals did not have a policy of going door-to-door to register voters of 'their kind' and getting them out there to vote.

Oh... I see you mean national political opinion... and not policy.

Okay... I can swallow that.

And yeah... Republicans haven't been looking at Bush's coattails thinking 'Uh... I don't really want to be riding those right now.'


Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Pure]

Hi ami

That's clever, the idea of a windfall, but

Just about everything you said was bullshit, kid,

There is one dumb and one smart person who do not relish such a windfall (if you look at GWB's speeches of late): GWB and Karl Rove.

Nice try, though.

 

[elsol]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12509275/

ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!

Seriously... I give up.

(But I'm still going to cash my check when it arrives.)

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Guest]

"Voters vote their pocketbook" is an axiom of politics.

For those who do consider the Right's suggestion that environmentalists are responsible, they will also ask :

1. How willing are a president & VP beholden to the oil industry to encourage alternatives?

2. Why hasn't the party in total power for the last five years stood up to the environmentalists then?

3. If environmentalists blocked domestic production, what alternatives did the party in power seek? Alternative fuels, incentives for better milage vehicles, public transportation, improve relations with producing countries etc. etc.

In business, if my boss says I want X but you can't use method Y to get it, I can't just say, "Ok, I don't have to do it then." Instead, I have to find a way other than Y if I'm going to do my job. To reiterate, voters won't focus on why they are paying > $3 a gallon. There going to focus on who's in charge while they do.

What's been the Republican ideas thus far? Reduce federal gas taxes and waive emmission reducing additives. What two things do Republicans wish to reduce and/or eliminate anyway? Taxes and business regulations.

You gotta give Republicans credit; they know the recipe for lemonade.

Some cynics argue that after 9/11, they made lemonade by going for two things they wanted but were unsure how to get: Iraq regime change, and rollback of civil rights.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

The GOP is engaging in wishful thinking. After 6 years of Republican dominance of both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, the blame is clearly theirs, and voters know it. They aren't looking for less obvious scapegoats. No, they will look at Bush, Cheney, and company, and give them a swift kick in the ass at the polls. In some ways, this is good. It will be a blow that the Far Right will have a long time recovering from. By Far Right, I mean neo-cons and religious fundamentalists. Don't count on more right-wingers replacing John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, or Clarence Thomas when they go. Not likely. The right-wing Court will be a temporary reality, to be replaced by something more moderate.

 

[Vincent E]

There was a great piece by Buckley this past week regarding this very subject.

 

[amicus]

Read the Buckley piece you linked.

I too wonder about the huge compensations some CEO's receive in somewhat the same way over salaries of ball players and movie stars.

But I do not feel a need to criticize as it is the function of a corporation to compensate their top people as they see fit.

And I am only moderately jealous of anyone who makes that kind of money.

amicus...

 

[CharleyH]

Gasoline prices in the US, a ‘windfall’ for Republicans in the coming election?

Because of oil prices, the US dollar is like nine cents to Canadian today - SUCKS for me, maybe not for you.

 

[JamesSD]

High gas prices make people unhappy.

Unhappy people vote out incumbents.

Republicans have more incumbents.

You do the math.

(I don't actually think the Dems will take the house, but they'll gain seats.)

 

[cantdog]

Amicus has a good point:

It will never 'all come crashing down'

which was buried in the personal slurs and vague spew, but it was in there, a few posts back. No, don't bother to look. Categorically, it is never worth it to read one of his posts.

We are here at the turn of a millenium, and it drives 'em nuts when that happens. The fundie nutballs and the lefties alike are prone to lose their footing on solid ground and state things in apocalyptic terms. Amicus is no exception. He is shrill about last hopes and crises, even as he says (in the same paragraph!) that there is no crisis.

Things are deteriorating, yes. But we've been screwing over the planet longer than most of us have been alive. It sucks, but rather than apocalypse, there is a crumbling effect. It is slow, slow enough to have made apocalypse become a way of life, really.

The cod gets fished out. Eh. One more thing.
Natural weather disasters quadruple from 1975 to 2005. Eh. One more thing.
Oil is so scarce they are looking at tar sands, when they dismissed those utterly (no way to extract the oil profitably, they said) when I was a kid. They used to just throw away the natural gas, but now they are converting as much as they can to use it. But eh, there's no crisis.
Ice caps melting, hundreds of major glaciers melted and gone. Eh.

We still are muddling through, when the hurricanes and droughts will let us. When scarcities in resources and water are not causing another war, we still live. But we do not any longer foresee progress and upward mobility. Our kids will not necessarily have it as good as we did, not any more. In Eisenhower's day, nearly everyone felt just the opposite, though. You grew up confidently expecting to have it as least as good as your old man did, you know, assuming no one dropped the Big One.

Apocalypse as a way of life. Diminished hopes, random disasters, work-arounds, and those in charge grabbing for the quick buck because they don't believe in a future with enough stability to plan in.

Those fellows 3113 mentions

true hippies are heating their house with solar panels and walls that maintain a certain temperature. They're running the electricity with wind or water power

are actually positioned better than those who are voting to widen the highways and planning to move into the country despite the 45-minute commute. But it will not 'all come crashing down,' not in any sudden, dramatic, satisfying way. Not any worse than it's been all your life, really.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=cantdog]Amicus has a good point: which was buried in the personal slurs and vague spew, but it was in there, a few posts back. No, don't bother to look. Categorically, it is never worth it to read one of his posts.

We are here at the turn of a millenium, and it drives 'em nuts when that happens. The fundie nutballs and the lefties alike are prone to lose their footing on solid ground and state things in apocalyptic terms. Amicus is no exception. He is shrill about last hopes and crises, even as he says (in the same paragraph!) that there is no crisis.

Things are deteriorating, yes. But we've been screwing over the planet longer than most of us have been alive. It sucks, but rather than apocalypse, there is a crumbling effect. It is slow, slow enough to have made apocalypse become a way of life, really.

The cod gets fished out. Eh. One more thing.
Natural weather disasters quadruple from 1975 to 2005. Eh. One more thing.
Oil is so scarce they are looking at tar sands, when they dismissed those utterly (no way to extract the oil profitably, they said) when I was a kid. They used to just throw away the natural gas, but now they are converting as much as they can to use it. But eh, there's no crisis.
Ice caps melting, hundreds of major glaciers melted and gone. Eh.

We still are muddling through, when the hurricanes and droughts will let us. When scarcities in resources and water are not causing another war, we still live. But we do not any longer foresee progress and upward mobility. Our kids will not necessarily have it as good as we did, not any more. In Eisenhower's day, nearly everyone felt just the opposite, though. You grew up confidently expecting to have it as least as good as your old man did, you know, assuming no one dropped the Big One.

Apocalypse as a way of life. Diminished hopes, random disasters, work-arounds, and those in charge grabbing for the quick buck because they don't believe in a future with enough stability to plan in.

Those fellows 3113 mentions are actually positioned better than those who are voting to widen the highways and planning to move into the country despite the 45-minute commute. But it will not 'all come crashing down,' not in any sudden, dramatic, satisfying way. Not any worse than it's been all your life, really.[/QUOTE]

~~~~~~~~~

It is seldom pleasant to exchange thoughts with Cantdog as exemplified by the content of paragraph one, and seldom productive, nor will it most likely be this go around either.

Most anyone who can read knows that the 'weather disasters' mentioned above are cyclical and that not a smidgen of proof existists to implicate the doings of man has any influence at all. Das da fact jackt.

That 'the Cod got fished out' or trees get cut or the buffalo herds thinned out, much to Cant's chagrin, are just natural resources to be used and replenished.

Whale oil was replaced by electric lights and petroleum products will be replaced by other source materials, like everything else, as time goes by.

While the 'left' often claims to be 'progressive' seeking new ways, they are also very often conservative, not wanting to change from a pastoral horse and buggy day to a new future.

It should surprise no one that the 'glaciers are melting' if in fact they are, there is some disagreement and certainly disagreement over the rate, but there should be neither surprise nor alarm as we are in the waning millenia of the last ice age and the planet is usually and naturally a lot warmer than it is today.

"...We still are muddling through, when the hurricanes and droughts will let us. When scarcities in resources and water are not causing another war, we still live. But we do not any longer foresee progress and upward mobility. Our kids will not necessarily have it as good as we did, not any more. In Eisenhower's day, nearly everyone felt just the opposite, though. You grew up confidently expecting to have it as least as good as your old man did, you know, assuming no one dropped the Big One...."

None of the above is truth or fact, just opinion, and biased, bitter, cynical opinion at that. My kids kids live better than their parents, have more opportunities, live in a healthier and more prosperous society than my kids have and certainly better than mine was.

So there is progress, tons of it, more so in the past 50 years than ever before in in history and it is all thanks to capitalism, the free market and the industrial society we live in.

"...Apocalypse as a way of life. Diminished hopes, random disasters, work-arounds, and those in charge grabbing for the quick buck because they don't believe in a future with enough stability to plan in...."

Cantdog may believe that and has every right to do so, but again that is just the extreme left, pinko anti industrial anti man faction whining about modern times and wishing for a nice safe communist dictatorship to tell them how to live.

The world is doing just fine thank you, and if you will just get the hell out of the way of modern man and go in a corner and wank off with your dusty Das Capital and whine over your failed socialist dreams, we will produce enough to pay your retirement check.

amicus...