Back when I was young - we’ll say when I was 10, 1967 - gasoline generally cost about $0.32 per gallon.  Gas Wars would occasionally come up where there’d be a thrash over what sort of extras (glasses with a fill-up, etc.) would pull the business in - and sometimes, it was brute-force-drop-the-price.  I can remember seeing an occasional drop to say ( Read more... )

Sean Hannity, on his TV show:

I say why isn’t Iraq paying us back with oil, and paying every American family and their soldiers that lost loved ones or have injured soldiers - and why didn’t they pay for their own liberation? For the Kuwait oil minister - how short his memory is. You know, we have every right to go in there and frankly take all ( Read more... )

See http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/

I know that the Administrator was down these in the last couple of days, and that there’s a huge gearing up on this issue.

No, it’s not because of the demand, it’s because hedge funds and market speculators who drove it to $4-5 a gallon gas are going back into the market because they think that commodity is going to make money again.

Abu Dhabi and other Persian Gulf nations stick serious money into post-Oil green energy, because that oil isn’t going to be around forever for all those air conditioners, etc., etc.

“The leadership in these breakthrough technologies is a title the U.S. can lose easily,” said Peter Barker-Homek, chief executive of Taqa, Abu Dhabi’s national energy ( Read more... )

• With huge numbers of people unemployed, and more rolling into the offices, the states are running out of money to pay benefits.  Like 30 out of 50 states.
• Drill-baby-drill just went *choke*, as oil companies are suddenly unwilling to finance new exploration.   Existing wells are being shut down as uneconomical to operate, and forecasts are looking ( Read more... )

Beginning in 1992, a series of tax laws combine to create large tax credits for certain Hummer buyers. By 2002, the New York Times reports that, thanks to changes in the tax code during the Bush administration, an eligible buyer can deduct $34,912 of the $48,800 base price of the Hummer.

July 2002: The Hummer H2, a smaller and friendlier Hummer ( Read more... )

He also mooted the possibility that the Russian government would buy some of its metal products to shore up falling demand.

At under $50 a barrel, the Russian government is taking a beating, because their Big Ticket was oil and gas.   The entire economy was not based on industrial production, but in raking in petrodollars.   Their stock market has ( Read more... )

So here’s my ideas, half-baked:

• Make the deal comprehensive, and mostly a take it or leave it scenario.  This sucker has been a political football for decades, and this ends here right now.
• All three companies essentially go into a central, nationalized receivership corporation.
• The equity in these businesses is pretty much gone, in any event.  Say ( Read more... )

I’m actively interested in your poisition on this matter.  Feel free to sound off inside *politely*.

My own struggles on this:
( Read the rest of this entry » )