Yikes! Diesel $4.50/gallon

At this point it may be worth swinging down to Costco to see how much the soybean oil is. When I was buying it new it was running around $15 for a 35lb jug, and Google tells me that soybean oil runs around 7.5# per gallon which led me to compute them as 4.5-4.7 gallons. When I started down this path I'd pour one or two jugs in before heading down to the fuel station, and ran ~50% mix of veggie oil. (and wow, did the fuel filters turn black quick those first few weeks!)

However, since so much petroleum goes into the production of soybeans, the cost is likely fairly rigidly linked to the price of fuel, so it may be up to $18 now; haven't checked since I started dragging it away from some of the restaurants I frequent. I could say pretty certainly though that doing that is not enormously cost effective given the time I spend dealing with fueling my car, but my reasons for doing it are other than money. An hour or so a week dealing with it, plus filters and general mess to deal with, plus a garage that smells like a fryer to displace maybe $50 or $60 (also weekly, between the two cars&drivers) of hassle-free pumping at the station. On the flip side, the cars run smooth as silk, entirely unaffected by the removal of sulfur from petrodiesel.

-tom!

"-->> T.G. Lambach

I don't care to hear any moaning about fuel prices from you UK people, as long as your government uses fuel taxes to fund their socialist polices you will pay exorbitant amounts for fuel, crude oil prices are the same around the world, the differences in prices is the taxes governments impose. __________________________________________ Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:26:08 -0700, -->> T.G. Lambach Premium gas at $4.10/gallon. And I bought a diesel for economy???

Well, out here in the land of soybeans and corn (Midwest) diesel is going for $4.25/gal. Probable differences betwixt here and your AO are likely taxes. And it's unlikely to change for the better in our lifetimes.

Rant as much as you like, you're the one moaning. I posted the prices (without adding any comments) purely to inform people. No moaning.

The US, in contrast, doesn't tax enough (or spends too much) Bush having run a budget deficit for years to "finance" his imperialistic military policy.

Tom - what system do you have and what car?

I've been investegating this - more for the fact that I *can* do it than the money.

In message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, edward ohare burned some brain cells writing:

The US had a balanced budget and eschewed imperialism prior to Bush? News to me.

In message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, jdoe burned some brain cells writing:

So you prefer a $500,000,000,000.00 "off-budget" war, a $10,000,000,000,000.00 national debt and $55,000,000,000,000.00 in unfunded future obligations?

In message news:fuv48a$9ja$ snipped-for-privacy@registered.motzarella.org, Kurt Steinhauser burned some brain cells writing:

B..b..b..but ... ETHANOL is supposed to Save The World (TM).

The US had a balance budget prior to Bush.

The US had imperialistic policy prior to Bush but not blatant militaristic imperialism.

The bankers whose friends and associates profit from lending the U.S. government the money when the budget runs a deficit were panicked (Alan Greenspan has written about this) that the Clinton era tax and spending levels, if continued, would result in ZERO debt, something Greenspan saw as potentially disastrous. Yeah - disastrous for all his buddies who make enormous profits loaning our government the same money they should be paying in taxes.

The Republicans have had a policy of devaluing the dollar for decades. They want the currency to be worth less. I will leave it to a Republican to explain why, but I think the theory is that our products will then be cheaper when exported. Unfortunately the robber baron free trade agreements have resulted in most manufacturing moving off shore, so there are few products left to sell. In addition, we import 4 million barrels of oil a day or something, so at $120 a barrel we are going in the hole fast. No way are cheaper prices going to make up that kind of profligate spending. The fact that the dollar is still the preferred reserve currency and that the oil trade is based on the dollar are about the only things keeping us afloat, and if the downward trend in the dollar continues it is only a matter of time until exporters of oil will no longer accept dollars.

Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, EXPORTS about 4 million barrels per day, each day, making now, at $120 a barrel, half a billion dollars a day in profits.

By the way, it isn't quite true that oil sells for the same price everywhere. In Venezuela I think gas is $0.12, twelve cents, per gallon. In Iraq, before the U.S. occupation, gas was $0.04, four cents, per gallon at the pump. It was up to $1.26, I read, a couple of weeks ago. I don't know what the price of gas is in Russia, but as an exporting nation they may have lower prices than we are forced to pay in oil importing nations.

The U.S. is still one of the world's largest producers of oil, but we waste so much that we have to import huge amounts besides what is domestically produced. If we nationalized our oil here, had fuel efficient vehicles, and greater use of mass transit, we could have cheap oil here too. If we eliminated wasteful gas guzzlers and implemented maximum alternative energy like wind and solar we could live as well or better than we do now on only domestically produced oil.

"-->> T.G. Lambach

And the evidence of this, beyond your own wild speculation, is? I'd love to see a reference for the remark attributed to Greenspan. BTW, spending rose dramatically during Clinton's years, as it has for decades, regardless of who was in charge. That the budget was briefly balanced came from a very strong economy and the stock market boom, which everyone knew from history couldn't last for ever, filled the coffers with tax money. You think that stock market boom would have occurred had we instead had your policies of high taxes and govt intervention? How great was the economy back in the 70's when the top tax rate was twice what it was today? Even Clinton recognized that capital gains cuts were good and they were cut again under his administration.

Yeah - disastrous for all

Last time I checked, the top 5% of income earners are paying around

50% of the total federal income taxes paid. So, the rich are paying a huge amount of taxes, just not enough for socialists like you, who would like to confiscate all wealth and turn it over to the govt so they can decide how to piss it away. The ash heap of history is filled with countries where they've tried that with disasterous results.

Reference please.

=A0They want the currency to be worth less. =A0I will leave it to

The explanation won't be forthcoming, because the their is no such policy.

Unfortunately the robber

And the point to this is? How many Boeing aircraft do they export? How many semiconductors, computers, or similar high tech gear?

Yes, but the same truth to the argument holds. It's government intervention in the oil markets that produced those idiotic prices in Venezuela and Iraq. It's easy to set the price of oil at anything you want when you're a dictator and forcefully seize power and steal private property. And look at the wonderful results for the countries. What is the standard of living and economic power of those countries? See anyone rushing to invest in those countries? No.

Yes, just like Fidel, it's obvious that's your goal. Strange thing. I look at govt and see massive waste and inability to do most things anywhere close to efficiently. Just last week there was a story of how the IRS outsourced collection of back taxes owed and the net result was is cost them $50mil more than what was recovered. How good of a job did FEMA do with Katrina? Yet, you want the same geniuses to run the oil business. I wonder who's more capable of finding oil? Exxon and Boon Pickens, or some political hack?

had fuel

If wind and solar can compete competively with other energy at today's prices, then why aren't these rich and greedy bastard entrepenuers all jumping on it? Hmmm? And don't give us some far fetched conspiracy theories, where they're sitting in a room with the same guys from 40 years ago that were supposed to be sitting on the 100MPG carburetor. The simple fact is, we're only starting to get to prices where alternatives can make viable economical sense. It's part of the process that will make it happen. As the prices rise, the free market will result in alternate solutions. But left to be free, those solutions will be economically viable. Unlike govt solutions. Remember the billions Carter sank into extracting oil from shale? How much oil did the govt produce? Answer: Not one barrel.

In message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, edward ohare burned some brain cells writing:

Care to document that? And without needing to steal Social Security Trust Fund money to mask a deficit?

The people of Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Viet Nam, El Salvador, Panama, Korea, etc. etc. etc. etc. would beg to differ.

On Apr 25, 7:26 pm, "-->> T.G. Lambach

Europe, with high taxes, thrives, with ever-increasing prosperity. The Euro is the most stable of the world's significant currencies.

Meanwhile, the USA, with low taxes, is on its knees, and the dollar is in freefall.

Seems like the USA is on the ash heap!

In message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Bruce burned some brain cells writing:

Americans work into mid-May to pay taxes. The US is NOT a low-tax country, and in fact it is its high taxes that have decimated its manufacturing.

Hi jdoe,

You know that nobody in Europe is ever bankrupted by medical expenses, unlike the US where hundreds of thousands do each year.

Let me know when you run into medical problems and bankruptcy so that I can have a good laugh.

If your ilk had their way there would be no schools, no libraries, no trains, no buses etc. Do us all a favor, crawl down into a hole somewhere and die.