Solar plants are cheaper than fossil fuel plants--will conservative coal huggers please shut up now?? (via @io9.com)

via Instagram http://instagram.com/p/jPaTWAyrgI/

From the io9 post, a Minnesota judge sums up his findings in why a solar-based plan for energy generation in Minnesota should move forward:

"[T]hese proposals offer competitively-priced energy generation; at firm prices; the fewest new environmental impacts; and significant protections against the imposition of project cancellation costs....[I]t bears mentioning that this procurement represents an important turning point in Minnesota's energy resource planning process. Since 1991, Minnesota has had a statutory preference in favor of renewable energy sources. Yet, that preference is overridden when the nonrenewable source has a lower total cost. Notwithstanding the statutory preference, it seemed that nonrenewable energy sources always won the head-to-head cost comparisons. Not anymore. Geronimo entered this bidding process as the sole renewable technology and beat competing offerors on total life-cycle costs."

The fact that the sun is a giant ball of never ending energy that is hurling insane amounts of said energy at us all day long yet all rich energy companies can do is keep digging in the ground (presumably where they hide their heads) tells us that these rich companies have entirely too much power and our politically leaders are entirely corrupt. The fact that we still need to have this conversation in the 21st century is absurd. The sun is a source of essentially limitless energy. Why the fuck do we still let these asshole oil companies tell us where we'll get our energy from? Wars are fought in the Middle East for oil. Terrorism is used to fight corrupt governments in Africa because of oil. So much death and pain, all for oil. All the sun has ever done is cause some skin cancer. Meanwhile, it's thes ource of all life. But no, lets keep digging for oil.

But why do we keep digging for oil? Simple. Our political leaders let it happen. They take money from corporations to keep the old ways going. Well here is proof that the old ways are the wrong ways. At least, when it comes to energy production.

Read the whole io9 post: http://io9.com/why-solar-power-is-more-cost-effective-than-natural-gas-1497305827

Ballpoint Adventures for July 9, 2012: Mr. Alien explains just how he'll threaten America

You rarely hear about Saddam switching to the Euro, but it happened--right in the middle of the mess with the Bush/Gore "election." Yeah, that's why we didn't notice. Oops.

Without Oil We Wouldn't have had 911?

Posted this to my main blog by accident:

Recently wrenthekwack on Tumblr posted the below graphic:

The caption he added to it was “Because how would a plane fly without oil? :)”

Very cute. :)  Of course, without oil we wouldn’t have most of our world without oil, including planes and skyscrapers to fly them into (or the computers to create and view this graphic).

Obviously, this is a very complex issue and the doctoring seen above was done on a graphic that originally suggested religion was the key to 911.  But which is it? Oil or religion that, if removed, would scatter the terrorism equation into the wind?

Well, FriendlyAtheist, one of my favorite atheists on Tumblr, took great issue with the idea that it was oil and not religion.  In short, he made some wild stabs at wrenthekwack graphic, 1) sarcastically suggesting that perhaps the hijackers were yelling “Oil Akbar” instead of “Allah Akbar,” 2) that somehow the graphic puts forward the idea that the USG was behind 911 (like I said, wild stabs), 3) the weirdest statement of all:

Last option would be to say that somehow the need for oil by the US made it worthy of attacking by these “atheistic” terrorists (since religion has nothing to do with it per the cartoon). Sure, whatever. Like the US is the only country that uses middle east oil.

Crossing religion out of that graphic doesn’t mean religion has nothing to do with 911.  So, that’s a very odd, extreme assumption to make.  And then the claim about the US not being the only consumer of Middle East oil?? As if America wasn’t the big kid on the block??  Who else would terrorists go after?  Seriously, FA, I’m thinking you banged this reply out in 30 seconds rather than thinking it through. Seems like such behavior is going around.

FA also added that it’s not about the money, either.  He quotes a study that says “The evidence we have assembled and reviewed suggests there is little direct connection between poverty, education and participation in terrorism.”

The suggestion of poverty being a part of it reminded me of something, so I left a waaaay too long comment on his post suggesting that, in fact, it is not about money per se, but is also not really about religion.  Here’s the comment I left:

Have you seen Thomas PM Barnett’s seminar “The Pentagon’s New Map”? (It’s on Google Video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4689061169761152025 ) I HIGHLY recommend you watch it. In it he says a LOT about how the world functions, but he puts forward the idea that the world can be divided into two sections. One section is the core and the other is the gap. The core is what we’d recognize as the “rich” section—the First World. The gap is largely the Third World. The gap is also where most of the terrorism in the world comes from. However, Barnett suggests that it’s not money that is the determining factor here, but connectivity. As in, communications. I distill this down to a simple concept: if you have a voice, you’re less likely to turn to terror. If you’re being ignored, you need to do something to get people to pay attention to you. Timothy McVeigh said as much before he was executed. Violence, he felt, was the only language the USG would respond to.

Now, most of US foreign policy tends to be determined by oil. Our involvement in the Middle East is largely about oil. So, in a sense, oil *is* a reason extremists in the Middle East are so pissed at us. If we would only find a way to replace the oil we buy in the Middle East with something we could make here in the West, we’d remove US troops from oil-rich countries (aka Muslim countries) as well as one of their main excuses. See, that’s what religion is—an excuse. A tool. ObL didn’t give a shit about Allah or 72 virgins. He was so rich while he was alive, he could have had 72 virgins any time he wanted. No, this was about power and influence. Sure, “Allah” might have been the excuse the actual hijackers had, but the guys who put the hijackers up to it are only interested power and influence. If religion didn’t exist, they’d use some other lie to convince those poor idiots to do what they did.

I’m all for atheism and spreading the idea that truth and proof are what should determine our actions and not some fictional god, but the reality is that religion is just a tool—an excuse—to do horrible things. It is not the true corruption that greed and power are. Religion is the lubricant.

Sorry for such a long comment…

I’m truly happy to see all of the new voices speaking up and against the louder voice of religion.  However, there’s been a lot of stupid-thinking on the part of my fellow atheists.  They think contradicting Believers is enough to “win.”  What good is it to make an argument against religion if it is faulty?  Remove religion from the planet and all of the religion-based strife goes away?  I don’t think so.  It won’t be religion-based anymore, but there will be other strife in its place.  We humans loooove conflict.  We’ll use nationality, race, sexual preference, gender, hair color, TV shows-preference, or some other bullshit excuse to divide ourselves up.

I’m against religion in its most common form, but to say it’s the sole thing that motivates terrorists is to adopt a rather shallow view.  If terrorists didn’t feel under attack, if they felt as though their way of life wasn’t being threatened they wouldn’t need to look for an excuse to “kill infidels.”

Religion is an excuse for everything.  Like I said, religion is the lubricant.  But fear and hate work, too.

Without Oil We Wouldn't have had 911?

Recently wrenthekwack on Tumblr posted the below graphic:



The caption he added to it was "Because how would a plane fly without oil? :)"

Very cute. :)  Of course, without oil we wouldn't have most of our world without oil, including planes and skyscrapers to fly them into (or the computers to create and view this graphic).

Obviously, this is a very complex issue and the doctoring seen above was done on a graphic that originally suggested religion was the key to 911.  But which is it? Oil or religion that, if removed, would scatter the terrorism equation into the wind?

Well, FriendlyAtheist, one of my favorite atheists on Tumblr, took great issue with the idea that it was oil and not religion.  In short, he made some wild stabs at wrenthekwack graphic, 1) sarcastically suggesting that perhaps the hijackers were yelling "Oil Akbar" instead of "Allah Akbar," 2) that somehow the graphic puts forward the idea that the USG was behind 911 (like I said, wild stabs), 3) the weirdest statement of all:

Last option would be to say that somehow the need for oil by the US made it worthy of attacking by these “atheistic” terrorists (since religion has nothing to do with it per the cartoon). Sure, whatever. Like the US is the only country that uses middle east oil.

Crossing religion out of that graphic doesn't mean religion has nothing to do with 911.  So, that's a very odd, extreme assumption to make.  And then the claim about the US not being the only consumer of Middle East oil?? As if America wasn't the big kid on the block??  Who else would terrorists go after?  Seriously, FA, I'm thinking you banged this reply out in 30 seconds rather than thinking it through. Seems like such behavior is going around.

FA also added that it's not about the money, either.  He quotes a study that says "The evidence we have assembled and reviewed suggests there is little direct connection between poverty, education and participation in terrorism."

The suggestion of poverty being a part of it reminded me of something, so I left a waaaay too long comment on his post suggesting that, in fact, it is not about money per se, but is also not really about religion.  Here's the comment I left:

Have you seen Thomas PM Barnett's seminar "The Pentagon's New Map"? (It's on Google Video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4689061169761152025 ) I HIGHLY recommend you watch it. In it he says a LOT about how the world functions, but he puts forward the idea that the world can be divided into two sections. One section is the core and the other is the gap. The core is what we'd recognize as the "rich" section--the First World. The gap is largely the Third World. The gap is also where most of the terrorism in the world comes from. However, Barnett suggests that it's not money that is the determining factor here, but connectivity. As in, communications. I distill this down to a simple concept: if you have a voice, you're less likely to turn to terror. If you're being ignored, you need to do something to get people to pay attention to you. Timothy McVeigh said as much before he was executed. Violence, he felt, was the only language the USG would respond to.

Now, most of US foreign policy tends to be determined by oil. Our involvement in the Middle East is largely about oil. So, in a sense, oil *is* a reason extremists in the Middle East are so pissed at us. If we would only find a way to replace the oil we buy in the Middle East with something we could make here in the West, we'd remove US troops from oil-rich countries (aka Muslim countries) as well as one of their main excuses. See, that's what religion is--an excuse. A tool. ObL didn't give a shit about Allah or 72 virgins. He was so rich while he was alive, he could have had 72 virgins any time he wanted. No, this was about power and influence. Sure, "Allah" might have been the excuse the actual hijackers had, but the guys who put the hijackers up to it are only interested power and influence. If religion didn't exist, they'd use some other lie to convince those poor idiots to do what they did.

I'm all for atheism and spreading the idea that truth and proof are what should determine our actions and not some fictional god, but the reality is that religion is just a tool--an excuse--to do horrible things. It is not the true corruption that greed and power are. Religion is the lubricant.

Sorry for such a long comment...

I'm truly happy to see all of the new voices speaking up and against the louder voice of religion.  However, there's been a lot of stupid-thinking on the part of my fellow atheists.  They think contradicting Believers is enough to "win."  What good is it to make an argument against religion if it is faulty?  Remove religion from the planet and all of the religion-based strife goes away?  I don't think so.  It won't be religion-based anymore, but there will be other strife in its place.  We humans loooove conflict.  We'll use nationality, race, sexual preference, gender, hair color, TV shows-preference, or some other bullshit excuse to divide ourselves up.

I'm against religion in its most common form, but to say it's the sole thing that motivates terrorists is to adopt a rather shallow view.  If terrorists didn't feel under attack, if they felt as though their way of life wasn't being threatened they wouldn't need to look for an excuse to "kill infidels."

Religion is an excuse for everything.  Like I said, religion is the lubricant.  But fear and hate work, too.

leftish:

If only Candidate Obama was President…

Indeed.

Of course, we all knew that was a lie when he was running. The real shame is that we let him get away with it.  Of course, *that* wouldn’t be a problem if only Obama would follow through on his promises rather than compromise them and himself into utter appeasement. 

Exxon spills 1000 barrels of oil into "America's last best river" (the Yellowstone River)

From DemocracyNow.org:

July 05, 2011

Montana Farmer Says Exxon Refuses to Admit Extent of Damage from Oil Spill Into Yellowstone River

Click here to see more photos of oil on Alexis Bonogofsky’s land.

Family farmer, Alexis Bonogofsky, didn’t get a phone call from ExxonMobil Pipeline Company when its pipeline ruptured Friday night beneath the Yellowstone River, leaking as much as 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the water and onto neighboring land of property owners such as herself. Instead, she discovered “globs of oil” Saturday morning while checking on the flooded pastureland where she grazes her goats. Since then she says company officials have failed to answer her questions about the health and environmental impact of the spill.

Please read more and listen to an interview with Bonogofsky (the above-mentioned farmer) at DemocracyNow.org.

What’s ironic is that the Yellowstone River is known as “America’s last best river”.  What’s even more ironic is that TransCanada is hoping to be allowed by the US State Department to pipe tar sands from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

What could go wrong?

coalspeaker:

Oilstone: Exxon oil spills in Yellowstone River and forces evacuations.. No word yet on what caused the leak .. the oil stretches for miles. Ain’t that America..

And people think we need less regulation of business! >_<

I wonder if this spill will play as well in the MSM as the BP Gulf Spill did.

Another oil-rig-related mess in the Gulf of Mexico: Completely Unsurprising

The human race is now officially the dumbest species of animal on the planet.

You don’t see monkeys spilling oil into the source of their food—MULTIPLE TIMES.

You don’t see cats selling out their friends and family for serious cash.

What’s unbelievable here is that apparently we Americans are just too lazy to do anything about it. 

Of course, what can we do?  Our government has already proven that they won’t listen to us, so…?

Finally, someone else proposes that one size will not fit all in our future energy supply system

How to Decarbonize the U.S. Power Grid

A new proposal by AMO, the thinktank arm of architect Rem Koolhaas’s firm OMA, has a plan to make the United States carbon-neutral by 2050. The plan calls for a shift to renewable energy that takes advantage of U.S. geographic diversity—solar for some areas, hydro for another—in other words, no one-size-fits-all solution. This proposal has been entered into GE’s Powering the Grid Ecomagination Challenge, which is awarding $200 million to the best ideas for a next-generation power grid.

(via Good)

via poptech.tumblr.com

YAY!  It’s like the proposal was designed by ADULTS!!  Rational ones, even!!

COOL!

Um, but I had to snicker during the part of the video where they refer to how we need a “politically agnostic” energy policy.  Yeah, right, like that will happen! 

No, what we need is a ban on lobbyists.  Return the right of free speech to individuals only. No more Chatty Cathy for corporations! (Especially since they’re so good at pulling the strings coming out of their own backs… )

What also worries me about their proposal is the excessive use of biomass.  Doesn’t the creation of biomass energy require a lot of oil-based energy first?  I need to read more about this. I also would have assumed that along the oceans we’d have wind farms. 

Regardless, I applaud their efforts for putting this proposal together.  We all need to grow up and face the reality that there won’t be a single, “one-size fits all” solution to our energy needs.  Oil doesn’t have one replacement, it has many.

I just hope we can make these changes before it’s too late (2050 for Europe? Yikes!)

I think, for that, we will need an Apollo-like program to reach our goal.

Hey, All You Believers, Maybe This is God Sending Us a Message?

Found via underpaidgenius:

paulmalouf:

Andrew Nikiforuk @ The Tyee ~ The Enbridge Dirty Dozen: Michigan disaster follows 12 other big spills or penalties this decade for giant aiming to pipe tar sands oil to Kitimat

Enbridge Inc, based in Calgary, Alberta, employs 6,000 workers and ranks 18th as one of Canada’s largest companies in revenue. It operates the world’s longest crude oil pipelines, through which it transports 12 per cent U.S. oil imports.

Between 1999 and 2008 Enbridge recorded 610 spills that released 132,000 barrels of hydrocarbons into farms, wetlands and waterways on the continent. According to the Polaris Institute, this volume of crude “amounts to approximately half of the oil that spilled from the oil tanker the Exxon Valdez after it struck a rock in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1988.” (…)

As an atheist, I hate to even play along that there might be a god, but since so very much is at stake, I’ll do it this once:

< believe >

HEY, LOOK AT ALL OF THESE OIL MISHAPS! CLEARLY, IT’S THE ALMIGHTY GOD TELLING US TO GET OFF THE OIL!

All the evidence is there. All you need to do is Accept His Will and get off the oil.  What’s your problem?  YOU’LL GO TO HELL IF YOU DON’T SUPPORT ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING!!

JUST LOOK AT THE SIGNS, IGNORE THEM AND YOU ARE A DENIER OF GOD’S WILL!! 

Look, in a moment of weakness, I, an atheist, prayed to God and asked Him: “God, do you want us to get off oil or not?”

THEN ALL OF THESE SPILLS HAPPENED.

CLEARLY, IT IS GOD’S WILL THAT WE GET OFF OIL. DO NO BLASHPHEME ANY LONGER.

OIL=SATAN THAT IS ALL.

< /Believe >

This had better work—I even learned of enough of their language to converse with them and everything!

Cheney & Energy Task Force Plotted Iraq pre911

So, as I've said recently, I'm slowly catching up on my podcasts. One podcast I don't like to miss is the audio version of "Bill Moyer's Journal" on PBS (site: http://www.pbs.org/…rs/journal podcast (audio): http://www.pbs.org/…odcast.xml podcast (video): http://feeds.feedburner.com/bmjvodcast ). I was listening to the episode from June 27, 2008 when Moyers started talking about the war in Iraq. My gut instinct was to assume he was going to go on about how it was all for the oil and run the typical blood-for-oil argument you hear from so many people. Which is pretty much what he started to do. I immediately thought to myself "Yeah, but Bill, where's your hard evidence?"

That's a question I've asked many times of anti-war folks. Usually I just get the answer "it's obvious!" or "You really think we'd be in Iraq if there wasn't oil there?"

Of course, they're right, but what really connects Cheney to a oil-motivation?

Well, for once, a person quoting the blood-for-oil argument (BOA) actually had some evidence to back it up. The above screencap is part of it. And what's really messed up about this is that the above screencap comes from a press release dated July 17, *2003* (see the original page here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/…d-pr.shtml ).

Now, maybe I missed it in the cacophony of crap the Bush Administration was puulling at the time (back in July of '03 we'd only been in Iraq for four months). Regardless, what Judicial Watch found is downright damning.

If you look at the above cap, you'll see that they say: "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org."

Yeah, that's right, *before* 911, Cheney was eyeing maps of oilfields in Iraq. Why would Cheney need to know where oil was in Iraq while planning for America's energy future? Sure, we could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just learning as much as he could about "our energy partner in the middle east," or some such crap they might spew to excuse maps being there (and not just say charts of oil output and other less visual aids), but after all that has happened, I can't imagine that he was doing anything but looking at those maps and thinking "yeah, we gotta secure that shit."

Especially considering the growing concern in 2001 that the world's peak oil limit might be approaching. "Peak Oil" is the theory that the Earth will produce more and more oil until it begins to run out--production will peak--then, we, as a planet, will start to run out and prices will climb. That last bit sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I heard about this theory for the first time in 2003, I believe. There was a December 2000 talk given by an oil expert called CJ Campbell, a guy who worked for oil companies, helping them find oil. You'd assume he'd be aware of just how much oil was left on the planet. (You can read a blog post I wrote about it here: http://thepete.com/…o-run-out/ )

So, there Cheney was, just a few months after Campbell's talk, chatting over energy policy with maps of oil fields in Iraq--before the 911 Attacks, before invading Afghanistan, before invading Iraq.

Am I reading into things? Maybe. But I can't help but wonder why Cheney and friends would withhold these maps from Judicial Watch when they first asked for them in April of 2001. Check out something else from the above screencapped press release: "Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002."

So, in 2002, a judge ruled that effectively Cheney had violated the law by keeping these documents from JW. I wonder why they would have done that.

Shades of things to come.

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This is What the End (as we know it) Looks Like

Back on July 1, 2008, the headline on Drudge reported on Saudi Arabia admitting they would NOT be raising the output of oil to allow humanity to lower the price of gas.*

Yeah, SUV sales in decline, Hummer my sell the brand, Saudi king says "deal with it."

If you don't live in a city or town with exemplary mass transit, it's time to pick up that skateboard because the end is seriously nigh.

I and many others have been watching this situation get worse and worse since 2000. High oil prices, inflation, and now high food prices all tell us it's only going to get worse because the causes of our problems (Peak Oil/Middle East wars and inflation) aren't going away and probably never will.

Just an FYI.

Now go run and hide from your responsibility. ;)

You know you wanna...

*this post was edited on 8/13/9 because Drop.io for some odd reason deleted a screencap I was using to head up this story.

Oil Surges to $109 But EVERYTHING Costs More

Mostly, these days, people are only worried about how the ever-rising oil prices will change the price of gasoline. This is a logical worry, but prices at the pump are just the first step in this new version of trickle down economics. In this case, the costs trickle down a chain-of-use.

Oil costs $109 per barrel today (http://snipurl.com/21io3 ) and that will make gasoline prices higher and then other things made with oil will cost more (like gasoline and plastics). After that, the things that we need oil-related products to get will cost more. These are things like FOOD.

See, you need gasoline and oil to farm the land. You need more to get the food to market. Every step of the way we rely on oil-products and, therefore, every step of the way will get more expensive.

In fact, food prices in the US have already started to climb. The above screencap comes from a March 9, 2008 article from Boston.com (here: http://snipurl.com/21iom ) that reports:

"After nearly two decades of low food inflation, prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates, according to the Labor Department. Milk prices, for example, increased 26 percent over the year. Egg prices jumped 40 percent.

"Escalating food costs could present a greater problem than soaring oil prices for the national economy because the average household spends three times as much for food as for gasoline. Food accounts for about 13 percent of household spending compared with about 4 percent for gas."

Of course, our gas is already more expensive. Now our food prices are going up. Those are the two most immediately important things to spend money on. This means we'll spend less on the other things we enjoy in life.

If it gets much worse, we'll only be spending money on food to keep us alive and fuel, which allows us to get to work. Work gives us money to buy food and fuel and...the circle of life continues!

I'm just glad I'm planning on moving to a city with a good public transit system!
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Oil Hits $100 A Barrel

The above screencap comes from an AP.org article at Biz.Yahoo.com (find it here: http://biz.yahoo.com/…rices.html ). The article reports some interestingly conflicting news. Mainly it says that oil prices have broken $100 a barrel despite falling demand. This kind of journalism cracks me up. According to a Bloomberg article I found (here: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news ) the *US* demand for oil has dropped a whopping (not) 1.8 percent--this is US demand only, however. So, it's odd for the AP article to point out that oil prices are rising "despite" falling demand.

The fact of the matter is that there is a finite amount of oil on this planet and since more and more people are born every day it only makes sense that, unless major cultural changes are made, demand for oil will go up and up and up, planet-wide, while supply goes down and down.

OK, so a 1.8 percent of people who were using oil in the US aren't using it now (which makes no sense in itself), big deal--what about the millions of new people using oil today in China? What about people in other developing nations that are inching their way toward 1st World status?

Of course, the main news here is that the crack-cocaine of American life just got even more expensive. This means that it'll get more expensive to:

1) fill up your tank
2) heat your home
3) cook
4) buy anything with plastic or petroleum products in it

Yep, things like computers, DVDs, make-up, and just about anything else you use has oil in it. So, as oil prices rise, eventually, that rise in price will trickle down to each of us.

Too bad we can't, oh, I don't know--find some *other* way to power our cars, heat our homes or make plastic!

Of course, we have (even vegetable-based plastic exists: http://www.sony.net/…04/01.html ), but no one wants to talk about those things.
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We Shell Out and Shell Oil Rakes in Huge Profits

The above screencap comes from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/news.html

Haha, dig that pun in the title for this post!

Anyway, so the article is pretty self-explanatory as is the headline. Just because the price of oil goes up it doesn't mean their profits should go up as well. In fact, unless they're hiking up prices even more, their profits should be going *down* not up.

See, what is happening here is that Shell is charging us more for their product--but they've increased the price of gasoline at a rate that is not commensurate to the price-increase oil has gone through.

In other words, they're getting greedy.

One of the theories of the Free Market goes like this:

You can charge as much as you like for your product so long as the market will bear it.

Another way to put this is to say: As long as people are buying, your price isn't too high.

What the Free-Market-thing doesn't really take into consideration is that sometimes people will buy something they need even if they can't afford it.

Housing is a good example. Health care is another. So what happens when you can't afford to buy those things but you need to anyway? You take out a loan.

We know how that goes. The number one reason people declare bankruptcy these days is because of health care costs. Another popular reason? Housing loans. Perhaps you've heard of the recent sub-prime mortgage mess?

So, some of us (even those of us who don't drive SUVs) are paying in excess of $30-$40 (and even $50) to fill our tanks up. A friend of mine who does drive an SUV pays $350 a month on gasoline. That's a car payment or in some areas of the country a month's rent.

So, are we going to start taking out loans just to buy gas? I'm not suggesting that--I bet we're going to end up sacrificing other things instead. That new suit for work, or the new TiVo or better car insurance, health or life insurance, those nice things you want to buy your family and friends on birthdays, nights out with your significant other--that sort of thing.

There are a lot of "little" things we can all sacrifice so that companies like Shell can keep all that cash coming in.

And we'll have to sacrifice a lot of them just to keep our cars running. What choice do we have?

Of course, companies like Shell *could* reinvest their profits into diversifying their products. They could spend some of those gobs of cash on alternative fuels--solar, wind or hydro power for cars.

They could quite easily do that--What, you don't think $28 billion would go a long way to developing other power sources for cars?

What about the profits of the other oil companies? What about car companies? Shouldn't *all* cars be hybrids or better by now?

We consumers can't change things like this--only the oil and car companies can.

I guess they're not just greedy but lazy, too.

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Will the High Cost of Oil and Low Value of the Dollar Effect Gadgets?

If you've been paying attention to the news at all, you've probably heard about how expensive the cost of a barrel of oil has gotten--topping $94 as I type this. Another thing you may have learned about on the news (though it is less likely) is that the US dollar is at it's weakest in a very, very long time. In fact, a quick check of the exchange rates (again, as I type this) at XE.com shows that the USD is still trailing the Canadian dollar by about five cents. Not a lot, but we're still weaker than the Canadian dollar!

So, what does this mean for gadgets? It could mean nothing, but then again, gadgets do contain a lot of plastic, which is a petroleum product and gadgets do cost money to buy. What this may mean eventually for us is more expensive gadgets. In fact, it's a little surprising that we haven't seen at least small price jumps in the years since oil began it's astronomical rise and the dollar's long fall. However, there are certain physical laws when it comes to money and they can't be ignored forever.

Here's how price jumps will work when they come (and they will):

Awesome! : All about Oil

Want this T-shirt--someone hire me please? Thanks! (and thanks to ohmythatsawesome.com for posting)