http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=610122

This article is about a service station owner who has stopped selling gas. He's tired of making money for big oil.

I still remember when the "good" gas stations sold gas and had a garage with a mechanic on duty who pumped the gas. Now a good mechanic can't afford to sell gas. It's just weird to me.

Also learned how using credit cards effects prices. Not a credit card holder, so it was news to me.

It's bad enough that the consumers are being raped, but when businessmen have to close because they aren't making enough to live on, it's really sickening.

I wish there was a quick solution to this...I have no idea what it might be but know that if something isn't done soon, alot of people are going to be in major trouble financially.

I know that if it were possible, I would ride a bike to work, but unfortunately it isn't feasible. I think many are in the same boat, living 10 miles or more from work, otherwise I think a whole lot of people WOULD be riding bikes!

It seems that I remember the Democrats saying that they were going to lower gas prices when they took power. I wonder what happened? Gas prices have been getting higher and higher, and no help from the Dems.

Once again, Scotty has pinpointed the problem.

Perhaps you could explain something for me, Scotty. What happened to bush's campaign statement that, if gas prices got too high, he would "jawbone" the oil-producing nations to lower prices? He said that in 2000, I think, and for 6 of those years sincethen, it was your party in control of both the Senate and the House. (I know, I know, he's been busy, what with an unnecessary war to mismanage and lose, a military to break, tax cuts to be doled out, an environment to rape, etc.)

You should go back to blaming Clinton.

While on the campaign trail in 2000, Bush told President Bill Clinton how to handle OPEC, in public no less. “What I think the president ought to do," he said, "is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots." - http://www.countercurrents.org/po-pringle280406.htm

Showing the business acumen that allowed him to run several business into the ground, bush, like Scotty, pinpointed the problem:

And in a brilliant, highly educational follow-up comment, Bush informed the audience: "One reason why the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven up."

More from the April 2006 article -

Apparently, Bush has lost the phone numbers for OPEC members, or they are refusing to take his calls, because I think its safe to assume that he did not "jawbone" members of the OPEC cartel.

That said, if Bush is not in the mood for "jawboning," he could at least use a little pillow talk with his buddies in Saudi Arabia and get them to open the spigots.

During campaign 2000, Bush told Americans that he had an energy plan that would reduce gas prices at the pumps and here we sit 5 years later, with the highest prices in history.

The high energy costs are affecting everyone, from commuters and consumers, to public and private programs. The damage is devastating everywhere.

Since Bush took office, gas prices have increased 62.5% from $1.44 per gallon in January 2001 to $2.34 in March 2006. The average household with children will spend about $3,343 on transportation fuel costs this year, an increase of 75% since 2001, according to the Energy Information Administration, Retail Gasoline Prices, and Household Vehicle Energy Use: Latest Data and Trends, November 2005.

And gas prices are still rising. As of April 24, 2006, the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge report said, nationally, the average price for a gallon of regular gas was $2.90, or a 15.5% hike over the $2.51 price per gallon a month ago.

If only bush would have foreseen the Democratic take-over of Congress, he could have blamed the Democrats back then!

What about the Democrats promise, DG? They were going to solve the problem when in power, well they are in power, and the prices continue to rise. It seems that they cannot live up to their promises.
Perhaps, we should "blame the donkey".

All of that is in the past now, DG.
The democrats have the power now, and they said they were going to fix it. Now we want it fixed.
Prices were going down before they took power.

Iraq's oil wells — beset by equipment problems and saboteurs — are producing about 1.9 million barrels a day in net production, lower than the 2.6 million it was producing just before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES). - USAToday, 10.10.05
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With oil prices above $70 a barrel fouling the world economy, dismay is focusing on Iraq, whose exports have slipped to their lowest levels since the 2003 invasion.

"Iraq could be making a tremendous difference," said Dalton Garis, an economist at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. Instead, its shortfall is "a significant contributing factor to the high price of oil," he said.

But contrary to optimistic expectations, Iraq's oil production has slipped further and further since the U.S.-led invasion, to an average of 2 million barrels a day. It has never regained even the reduced production levels that prevailed in the 1990s, when Iraq was under tough U.N. sanctions.

Aha! So it is Clinton's fault!

In 2005, Iraq's exports averaged just 1.4 million barrels a day, which earned the country about $26 billion. This winter proved disastrous, with January exports failing to reach even 1 million barrels a day, said George Orwel, an analyst with Petroleum Intelligence Weekly in New York.

"It's a mess," he said. "At some point Iraq is going to be back in the picture, but it's been a very bad couple of years. They're missing out."

In 1990, probably its peak production year, Iraq extracted about 3.5 million barrels a day. Restoring production to that level would require years and a $30 billion investment, Orwel said, even in the "best case scenario."

Those figures suggest misplaced optimism by Iraq's oil ministry, which in 2005 predicted crude production would reach 2.5 million or even 3 million barrels a day by the end of 2006. Analysts have called that prediction a pipe dream.

The outlook for this year looks about the same as 2005, Orwel said, casting doubt even on the ministry's revised plans to raise exports to 1.8 million barrels a day by year's end. - CBS News, April 2006

Yep. It's the Dems, all right.

quote:

Yep. It's the Dems, all right.

You can certainly say that again.

Gas prices today are at an all time high.

quote:

Democrats block increasing domestic production (Increasing refineries capacity) but that is blocked because they think it would unfairly help big business and add to global warming.

As a result we have a domestic fuel production shortage that makes prices go up and we are more dependant of foreign refineries.

quote:

Democrats block opening up more of the gulf coast for oil drilling; their excuse is environmentalism

Did you complain about the high gas prices and bush's inability to get them down back in May, 2001? After all, he had the same amount to time as you are allowing the Democrats now? At tht time, he blamed Clinton, making his asinine "jawbone" comment. But wait! According to your buddy, bush, there is little that can be done.

At a meeting Monday at his Texas ranch, Mr. Bush is promising to press Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, to do more to help ease global oil prices.

Still, the president acknowledges that there is little that he or Congress can do to quickly lower gasoline prices, which have climbed past $2.20 a gallon nationwide.

Critics also claim that Mr. Bush's energy bill does little to promote conservation or alternate energy approaches, and that he has done little of the lobbying of oil-country leaders that he promised during in his first presidential campaign.

Robert Ebel, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said nothing that Mr. Bush is proposing "is going to have any immediate, or even near-term impact" on prices. - CBS News, April 23, 2005

Let me get this right: bush gets over 6 years, and gas prices soar, but now it's the Democrats fault. bush admits that there is little that he or Congress can do about gas prices, but that was when it was a Republican Congress. Now, since it's a Democratic Congress, and has been for 5 months, they should have fixed the problem already. OK, I got it.

"Jawbone" was the right word for this problem. It's a pity we just don't have a Samson around to grab it and silence the animal.

quote:

Now, since it's a Democratic Congress, and has been for 5 months, they should have fixed the problem already. OK, I got it

They said that they were going to fix it, but it continues to get higher daily. Why?
Maybe they can't deliver.
Oh well! We really didn't expect it anyway.

I doubt anyone could deliver. It's silly to think that if the oil companies were allowed to drill in the Gulf or the ANWR, or if Bush got on the phone to his Saudi buddies, the price of gas at the pumps would come down. There's a finite amount of oil left, and exponentially increasing demand.

Responsible government would involve long-range planning for the inevitable continuing increase in oil prices (invading Iraq and getting hundreds of thousands killed to secure the oil there probably isn't long-range enough; it's just a [criminal] stopgap.)