you are an idiot!

I love sarcasm. I’ve loved it since junior high. I became an English major with the intent of using sarcasm to build a career as a comedian.

Sarcasm can be brutal or subtle. As with anything refering to our President, you can’t be too subtle. If he reads your piece, he won’t get it!

You must be naive to think President Bush, who has a lot of fortune in the oil industry, to work hard to keep the price of crude down. Just look back the years before Bush administration, Clinton gave us the best economic and had the price of gasoline (around $1/gallon) under control.
Be realistic. It is time for Bush to pay back his big oil coporation friends. The Iraq war is the best reason to justify for the price of gas to go up.

lol, cut the taxes please

On the contrary my dear Bing, you are going about it the wrong way. You should be asking our prez to ask the arab states to increase the price of crude. Only that way will the $400 hamburger become $4,000 and drive away the Koreans and Kuwaitis from the obscene lunch table.
Oh, and raise my taxes, too. I don’t pay enough.

In the end, people deserve the leadership they get.

Bing! Kudos – I’m picking up your sarcasm. Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) had a great show on the History channel some years ago about inventions. The main point was to demonstrate that in order for an invention to come to being, you have to have available technology and a need. The second part is crucial, especially with oil. We have the technological capacity to free ourselves from oil, we just haven’t quite reached the point of truly needing to yet. We can bellyache all day long about the cost of gas and the environmental effects of oil consumption as a whole, but it probably won’t be until we see $20/gallon for gas or there just isn’t anymore readily available (think Mad Max, in the extreme) that the NEED will be there. Call me a pessimist, but look how bent over we are right now.

You forget that the REAL problem is the oil companies themselves. They own the oil coming out of the ground and they process the oil to gas etc.
If they were really paying for th oil at the price the market says it was then they would NOT be making Obscene profits.
Yes Bush is letting them keep oil tankers from reaching the US shores so that they can inflate the price of oil as a “Shortage”.
But the real kick in the pants is allowing our Energy to be placed on the Futures market to start with.
NO other country in the world allows this to happen except USA of Bush! Just for the greed of a few that cripples the US Economy.
Maybe besides getting Bush out of office we also need to revamp our thinking on how we do business in this country.

Bing gets political… I’m quivering.

You know those e-mails that suggest that you not buy gas on a certain day to protest the price? We need to start one of those for EVERY product. If we all don’t buy ANYTHING on Tuesday gosh darn it the price will HAVE to come down on Wednesday. The corporations will make more money just by the increased sales on Wednesday alone.

Hey Bing… What’s your take on Huckabee’s Flat Tax Plan? I’ll save my opinion for after so that Brandon W doesn’t accuse me of stealing your/his blog.

Gas is underpriced and has been for its entire history. The price basically assumes there’s an unlimited supply, which there isn’t. What are the prices of other limited natural resources we covet – such as diamonds and gold? And diamonds and gold aren’t even the process of being burned up.

The oil-producing countries probably aren’t all that worried about demand, as India and China alone will continue to keep them in money until the wells run dry. Demand is going up, as a limited supply continues to get burned up, as the price to extract it continues to go up…. guess what? Prices are going up, up, up!

What a complete idiot this man is. The rest of the Bush family will have to protect their oil revenue, since Dubya can’t get anything right. What sort of response did he really expect from the Saudis? After all, it is in their best interest to have their hands firmly around America’s economic neck. It is incomprehensible that the President of the United States would set himself up to be publically rebuffed by the Saudi oil minister. Why did he even go to Saudi Arabia for any reason other than to enlist their cooperation in his “peace initiative.” So far, his entire Middle East junket has been a miserable failure. So what else is new? We can say one think for Bush: he is consistent.

We do buy a lot of things we don’t really need in this country.
But for those things we do need maybe choosing to buy made in USA products when possible. Buying more fuel efficient vehicles, driving less when possible, could be a good thing to do for the economy right now.
First, we are the biggest consumers of oil but we have NO alternatives at the moment. We are working on it!
Brazil is sitting in a very nice position right now for being independent of foreign oil. They have cheap labor and a lot of land that allows them to be the biggest producer of Ethanol. Not to mention that recently they joined the OPEC.
Hugo Chavez is leading a “movement” with other nations around the world against USA. And we are buying his CITGO gas making him richer, giving him more power! Countries that don’t even like each other can agree on how much they hate us!

Yes prices are going up:
- Oil is up so is anything that depends on it like gas, airfares, UPS, shipping of the products in general.
- Dollar is going down, so imports are more expensive.
- Ethanol production using corn causes price of corn to go up so, food is more expensive.
- People haven’t gotten pay raises to adjust to new cost of living, so less money is circulating. Just like mentioned above: “that if I refuse to pay their crazy prices”
- People’s properties depreciating in value, some losing their homes.
-Lots of lay offs due to slow economy.
-War.

BING I’ve been reading your column and Fortune for years. LOVE it!
Wasn’t this all covered in Farenheit 9/11? Totally agree that this Bush trip looks like he’s on vacation, not advocating for any real geopolitical progress let alone oil price relief. One of the most interesting propositions I’ve heard in the last month is the idea of breaking up the oil companies to drive prices down much like the telco break up. Hmm… Oh the days of fiscal responsibility and economic prosperity. Oh, yeah, the Clinton’s were in office.

Whitedog, the need IS there. If we wait for gas to get to $20 a gallon our environment will be in a downward spiral of climatic changes that gas prices will be a moot point when compared to survival.

The american people and corporations in USA must implement strong action plans to reduce the consumption of electricity. Every time I go to the USA, I watch the inefficiency in lighting the hotels and companies.

A 10% reduction of electricity consumption should be the goal for the houses and corporations in order to see a dramatic fall of oil prices.

I had an idea on the way to work this morning. Like a lot of us I am so disgusted with our dependence on foreign oil and all of the other problems that go with it. It is amazing with our technology that we cannot build automobiles that run on alternative energy sources. I think the answer is that we need to quit buying new cars !!!!! It seems like the only way we will be able to get there attention. I bet we would see some new cars that do not need to run on fossile fuels in a hurry. I know alot of people including myself that would just drive what they have until we see some action by the major auto makers.

Have we checked out OPEC yet for WMD’s? I think the oil production may be down because they are diverting resources to build WMD’s. Perhaps if we take over all OPEC nations we can get the oil prices to drop…
Seriously though, even a half-hearted push to get OPEC to increase production is still better than sitting back and just paying the price. At least something is being done.
The real solution to the problem is a already underway witht he whole “Green” push. We are making progress with alternative energy and fuel economy etc. Demand will eventually drop maybe it will be all used up by then but eventually we won’t need it anymore. OPEC and the oil companies will have priced themselves out of business and will be as extinct as the Dinosaurs from which they made their fortunes…

Isn’t this just a weak attempt of Bush posturing to the public that he cares about their financial distress? The same person who does’t want any surtax on the big oil companies? I don’t think our President has much credibility and that is sad.

As sarcastic as this article is, we North Americans (I’m in Canada) seem to be living a complete lie. The accesss to readily available oil is running short (everyone should watch the Crude Awakenings movie) yet we continue to consume oil like it’s endless. Truck and SUV sales continue to grow!?? The interesting part is that when oil is exorbedently high all that cheap product from China won’t be cheap anymore. Support local business – it costs less to transport, builds the local economy and consumes less oil!

A suggestion: Don’t sit in your car with the motor running so that you can use that inefficient a/c or heater. It is pretty un-American to be that wasteful and lazy.

STOPTHEENRONLOOPHOLE.com

THIS IS A BIG PART OF OUR OIL COST

What happened to solar Power and Wind Power ? This can fix most of our Problems. The problem here is that it’s too expensive to Buy. Why you ask ? The powers that be don’t want us to Be independent from OIL. I have Lived for 7 Years on solar . I’m doing my part , what have you done ?

why should the bushes care, they have a hand in the pot anyway.

It alwasy blows my mind to read comments as on this blog. Comments like – tax the oil companies, that will fix em’. And who do you think is going to pay the higher costs – it certainly isn’t the oil company, they just pass it on to the consumer.

And as to accusing me of being lazy because I run my vehcile when its 25 degrees below here in MN, I’d like to see you sit for 5 minutes in a car that cold.

Also, just because I own a suburban doesn’t mean I am thoughtless. When the gas price goes up, I drive my SUV more carefully, making trips that count. I bet you spend more gas by thinking that your 30 mpg is better than my 15, but you drive three times as far as I do, so who is burning more.

Also, there is plenty of oil here in North America, but no one wants a refinery in their backyard, nor will anyone allow drilling here. So higher prices are the problem of the politically correct – not Bush, not OPEC. And speculation hasn’t helped either.

And in regards to windmills, a school here is trying to put one up that will run the school totally free of using public energy, but the neighbors are already hollering – not in my back yard, don’t want that ugly thing in my view of the sky.

So, rather than eating up Al Gore and his cohorts religion, study the facts. If you want to drive your tin can, go for it. But as for me and my household, I will drive something that not only will keep my family safe, but I don’thave to run 2 vehicles when family is together, and I can pull a load that would squash your roller skate.

bush leave office aheAd of time you are wasting all of our time money and space

Its time to fight back. Raise the prices (inflate to the point that they can not afford it) for the food to countries that sell us oil producing countries. Start car pooling to work. Four people in a car will reduce oile demand by 75%. Just think if everyone will carpool four to a car, we will be able to bring them to their knees in a very short time.

I have lost respect for our leaders. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. eventually when people all lose a means for survival, they will eventualy do the same but suffer 100 times what the poor & middle class did.