Gas prices fuel more politics as usual, few real solutions

[Hachiko]

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry stood in front of a row of school buses in Portland, Ore., and blamed skyrocketing gasoline prices on President Bush's failure to pressure foreign oil producers to open their spigots more.

Kerry's attack is the latest attempt by Democrats to convince voters that Bush is responsible for prices averaging $2.06 a gallon for unleaded nationwide, up 60 cents since December. Last week, a group of Democratic senators called on the administration to lower prices by releasing 1 million barrels a day from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Ten Democratic governors are demanding an investigation of oil prices, and Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe claims the White House is "in the pocket of Big Oil."

Ho-hum. Must be an election year, when the aim is to get votes, not fix the problem.

Yahoo! News

[Frank D. White]

it's all China's fault!! Made it sound like they had a heck of a nerve to be using more vehicles and a growing
industry that needs more oil. Guess they should stay in the dark ages so us Americans don't have to pay more for our gas & oil!!

Frank

[den4]

get everybody to stop using plastics.....

that would help stop oil consumption

[senseiman]

The invasion of Iraq has also played a big part in the rise in fuel prices, and Bush is very directly to blame for that.

I was reading an article the other day that said that global oil production capacity would reach its maximum level sometime before 2010 and after that it would decline. After that, you can expect oil prices to remain permanently above 50 dollars a barrel, and gas prices will rise accordingly. The biggest effects will be on third world nations, especially China, which depend heavily on imported oil. It could spell the death knell for China's rapid economic growth and the further deterioration of economic conditions in most developing countries.

Much bigger problems may lie ahead.

[stephenmunday]

It is hard to feel sympathy when I am paying 106 yen per LITER at the pumps here! That comes to $3.63 per gallon....

BTW, oil was over $40 per barrel, but is apparently coming down now, so maybe there are cheaper prices for all of us round the corner

[senseiman]

It is hard to feel sympathy when I am paying 106 yen per LITER at the pumps here! That comes to $3.63 per gallon....

BTW, oil was over $40 per barrel, but is apparently coming down now, so maybe there are cheaper prices for all of us round the corner

Don't count on prices getting any cheaper. I reccomend the article I read, it was in this month's issue of National Geographic, entitled 'The end of Cheap oil'.

Its quite alarming really. The demand for oil is on the rise pretty much everywhere, but the capacity to produce it just isn't able to keep up. The prices have no where to go over the long run but up.

[stephenmunday]

Yes, in the long term it is inevitable that the price of this fast-dwindling resource will increase. In the short-term, it seems that the sudden rise caused by the poor situation in Iraq during April and early May has abated slightly and if we do not see a similar reduction in prices at the pumps, we need to get our elected representatives on to the oil companies for gouging.

Or at least that would make sense if they were not all so closely related to oil execs :)

[nekosasori]

stephenmunday, in Ireland gasoline is 136yen a litre (1 Euro/litre), and with inadequate public transport, a lot of people are car-dependent (more so percentage-wise than in Japan, I'd guess). And prices are even higher in other European countries...

I believe the Bush "ranch" in Texas is state of the art environmentally friendly. So nice to know that the profits from fossil fuels has let the rich and powerful prepare themselves from the all-too-obvious impending crisis.