Boycott Big Oil?

Guys, it obvious that there is not a “one size fits all solution” to this issue. Some folks more every couple of years when they change jobs (like I did when I was younger), others are attached to where they live and will only seek jobs near their home. There are certainly some advantages to living in rural areas, but in the future people will pay more of a premium for that choice. I currently live in the suburbs, work from home and travel about 1/3 to 1/2 of my time, so I could live just about anyplace I like; however, I have kids in the local (very good) school system so I am not planning on moving for another 10 years. I will probably move further away from the city (to the mountains) and pay the difference in transportation when I do move. Hopefully, fuel costs will drive down rural real estate before I stop shopping for land.

Each person will have to evaluate their own job/personal situation and decide what works for them. If they guy with the new $600K house is really having a problem with his transportation expenses, he has much bigger problems than the price of fuel because he probably bought a house he couldn’t afford (especially if he bought a $600K house with a $520K loan in this bubble market). His total fuel expenses for the year are probably less than a single mortgage payment; he either needs a much higher income or a much cheaper house if a few $1000 worth of gasoline is significantly hurting his budget.

Good point; just yesterday a major network speculated whatt life with $200 oil would be like. One item they discussed was transportation costs, and that the cost of those Chinese imports would increase.

A containerhip burns residual oil in a very large diesel engine, this fuel literally the bottom of the barrel. This stuf is the cheapest fraction of the crude oil, and the transportation costs of high value, non-bulky items is very small. A barrel of oill from the Middle East incurs about $0.75 in shipping costs to the US East or Gulf Coast.

On the other hand, low value items occupying a lot of space will eventually have a lot of cost added, and those items, especially with low labor content will be made back in the USA again. Just today I bought a $50 plastic lounge chair, a bulky item made from extruded plastic, and it was not Chinese, for a change. I also bought a pedestal fan for $50, in a much saller container, and it was Chinese. It also has a high labor content. The chair occupies 3 times the volume on the ship and has very little labor content, so it should be made here.

Weight is unimportant when shipping manufactured goods by sea, but volume is. When we moved back from overseas, the moving company charged us by the cubic meter since our furniture weighed very little compared with an equivalent valume of water the ship displaces! Road transport tends to go by weigtht, while rail goes by volume for lightweight manufactured goods.

So, to answer your question in a roundabout way, yes higher oil prices will impact bulky, low value items, especially fresh food and refrigerated foods from overseas. Road transport costs will also increase very sharply, and those fresh tomatoes from Mexico will cost a lot in New England.

A solution to this problem in general is not drive less unless some of you are drying more than necessary. Could this be??? Some people obviously, but let’s get a grip, most of us don’t drive unless necessary. More mileage requirements from new vehicles would be a good step. Requiring SUV’s to fit into the auto category, instead of pickup trucks would be a good step. Many have suggested many solutions for many of u.

The guy with the big house also probably can’t get another mortgage or auto loan for a smaller vehicle anymore since he’s gone into a negative equity situation on the house. How did this happen? Corporate greed, out of control, no government oversight. And for those of you who keep suggesting large corporations should be able to do anything they want. Wake up America. If you can put down the prosac long enough to think clearly.

Why should they look for new oil? It’s not in their interest and who is going to force them? Let the price hit $10 a gallon. I’ll just double my prosac intake.

IMHO, the “guy with the big house” deserves most of the blame for this one. The government can’t regulate stupid, it will always be with us. However, it is unfortunate that some companies have made a lot of money by making loans to idiots; it’s probably time to start tightening up credit significantly.

If it isn’t in their interest to look for more oil, why are the oil companies pushing to drill offshore and in ANWAR?

To quote you:

If Big Oil is really running out of places to drill, they should try drilling on one of the millions of square miles for which they already hold drilling leases. "

Why haven’t they drilled on these millions of square miles for which they already hold drilling leanses?

By all means - Exxon Mobil! They fund an organization called “the Heartland Institute” that is one of the main proponents that climate change is not caused by man (another supporter is Philip Morris, and Heartland also continues to promote the idea that second hand smoke is not bad for you). That’s just so sleazy, that I don’t buy Exxon or Mobil gas anymore. I’m a state legislator, and Heartland sends this trash out every month (it goes right into the recycling bin). On top of that, Exxon-Mobil just got their fine for the Exxon-Valdez accident reduced from $2.5 Billion (originally $5B) to $500 Million (by the Bush/Cheney Supreme Court). If that isn’t enough, they get government subsidies while making $11.7 Billion in profits. Since 1998 Exxon-Mobil has spent $67 Million on lobbying Congress (roughly double the amounts put in individually by Shell, BP Amoco, Marathon, and Chevron, total of all is about $200 Million). That lobbying got them record (obscene) profits, got higher gas prices for us, paid for the election of two ex-oil executives to the White House, got us into a disastrous and costly (to us) war in Iraq, and gets them $14 Billion in federal subsidies. I’d say that’s a pretty good return on investment, except that we’re the ones that pay for the consequences. There’s no question that Exxon-Mobil deserves a boycott.

American car companies deserve a boycott too - but they’re essentially getting wiped out in the market place anyway, so why bother. I’ve been car shopping, and American cars by far have the worst gas mileage. The best mileage cars are European, Japanese, and even Korean. The thing is that the American manufacturers make nice cars with great mileage that are sold in Europe, Australia, and South America, but they won’t test them for air-quality standards in the US. European air quality standards are stricter than ours, but the manufacturers won’t issue the required certificates for use in the US. They could be building those same cars here, instead of shutting down plants for lack of sales. We could have clean diesel cars here, cars averaging 35+ MPG and small diesel station wagons, SUVs and pickup trucks, instead of the gas guzzlers we have here.

Someone already did…go to http://www.GASANSWERS.COM
According to this these guys, there are THREE MILLION solutions to high gas prices,
and it start with us; the consumer…I think this is a great way to get even
with the gas companies…I went and register my vote with them, They already have over 15,000+ signer.
They are looking for 3 Million. The site is a litte slow, because I think they are operating on the cheap…
they are looking for donations to upgrade their banwidth… I donated a few dollars.

How do you know this site isn’t a scam to make money on the gullible?

That’s not an answer to the question. Care to try again?

I also just joined. Thanks yardie!! and Whitey - they don’t require you to donate, how could it be a scam? Apparently you didn’t even take a look at the site; or did you, and are not sharing something you learned with us that lead you to your skepticism? Granted the ads for water fuel conversions don’t add a lot of credibiliity, but I wouldn’t listen to Jazz stations on the radio if I made decisions soley based on advertisers.

I am just generally unimpressed with the design of the site. It’s design scheme looks like it is meant to target un-savvy viewers. It reminds me of advertisements for payday loans. The color scheme is amateurish and there is no way to identify the owner of the site. Also, the only way to make a donation is through PayPal. I think that is so the owner can avoid the fraud restrictions credit card companies have in place. A legitimate site would also have a mailing address where you can send a check. The owner of this site is hiding.

The water conversion kits are not the only banner ads that hurt credibility. Other examples are “Find your debt solution today” and “Steriod University.” Ya gotta love it! Some of the banner ads are difficult to distinguish from the information being provided. Donations are not the only way to make money.

I will add this is yardie2091’s first post…and yardie2091 appears to be as illiterate as the creater of the site.

If “CREATING and EMPOWERING this ‘PURCHASING UNION’, and to help in lowering the price of GAS is the sole purpose of this site!!” then why have banner ads and ask for donations? Clearly one of its goals is to generate revenue. He lists two purposes for the site and calls them “the SOLE purpose.” Cute.

If the owner of the site took credit card donations directly, his phone number would show up on your credit card statement. By using PayPal, he can hide.

Agree on some of the banner ads and the lack of credibility, but donations are not required. I guess that fact that donations are asked for at all is a bad sign, as the site owner should be able to generate enough revenue via ads to pay for bandwidth. People hide for various reasons, if I was taking on big oil, I wouldn’t want them to find me or my family. Sad commentary, but it seems wars that have killed thousands were started by oil interests. The site does have some credible ads and links, like gasbuddy.com. Why the insults to yardie? I read a number of your posts, very quick with personal insults, and very biting. Very insultive in general not just on this stream. Lighten up friend. I’m sure you are a good guy. Offer suggestions if you don’t like what you hear, don’t continually insult our intellligence. We know we are stupid, how else would we end up in such a mess? We are looking for answers, not insults. We don’t need your kind of help.

I try to call it as I see it, and I don’t think anyone here is stupid. Stupid people can’t learn and I believe everyone here is capable of learning. Personally, I don’t think calling someone ignorant is an insult. Ignorance is curable. I suppose I will consider your advice, but the problem is that I am proud of my high standards. I am regularly disappointed with the apparent lack of basic grammar skills in both college students and the average Joe. Do you remember when you had to be literate to graduate from high school? Basic writing skills should not be so hard to find in everyday people. I personally consider the decline in academic standards a source of national shame. Still, I will try to tone it down. You make a good point.

I think you also might be misinterpreting some of my comments. For example, in my post that contains “Mr. Idiot, if you really want…” I am addressing the original poster of that thread, whose user name contains the word “idiot,” because I refuse to type the whole user name.

On how are you going to boycott an product we use alot from greasing our wheels to using in powering public Transit? (Oh yea, big oil might be the thing to bring people to start using public transit systems, but guess what, that Diesel powered bus/train runs on Oil. So As the ridership goes up, the service goes down.) Do you know of a small Oil company? and If so, where do we buy there oil from instead of exxon/mobile or Shell. Now I’m not for a big oil at all, I’m for the little guy, but I’m also GROUNDED IN REALITY. And That being said, the only way we can boycott big oil, well lets say its time to really start to invest in Alternative Energies sources. But Intil We’re able to use other parts of the Corn instead of the kernal, well, I’m not for biofuels, I’m for feeding people.

Sir Bikes A Lot
San Antonio, TX

OK, JimtheMechanic, I am taking deep cleansing breaths. You must admit the timing of this post is incredibly ironic!

There was a couple weeks in between I believe the original stream here and what I (cursory) saw as the beginning of flow on the other site if that is what you refer to. I think coincidence. There is a great deal of talk going around lately about the oil industry for many reasons.

As for the other subject you discussed regarding academics, one only needs to look up (back) a couple of inches if they don’t get your point on literacy.

Actually I was thinking of a label you used “Mr. Magoo”, not “Mr Idiot”.

Your pointed reply to yardie, and “it being his first posting” - you dismissing it as such, made me remember something and it hit a nerve. The first time I voted many years ago. I’d like to think my first vote counted as much as my last. When in fact, I’m quite sure my first vote counted much more than my last.