Gas Prices and Amtrak

[RobertF]

In my not-so-humble opinion, gas SHOULD be expensive. People will think twice before hopping into the Hummer to drive around the block for a quart of milk, and the potential benefits of reduced consumption are too numerous to list here.

I gather that Hummer owners generally fall into one of two categories:

1) Those who could easily afford to buy $10/gallon diesel fuel for their hypothetical trips around the block for a quart of milk.

2) Those who have a habit of buying things they can't actually afford.

I'm not sure either group will be deterred by high fuel costs.

I also think that lots and lots of wind power needs to go with lots and lots of trains in addressing oil consumption.

The funny thing is.... the PRICE of oil is not reflective of it's availability or the availability of reserves. There is TON's of oil available, both on the market and waiting to be drilled. We have created an artificial market by limiting supply artificially. Pump up refining capacity, you would see the price go down. Deal with the middle east, you would see the price go down, DRILL HERE and you would see the price go way down. At about $50 BBL there is plenty of sustainable oil for a very very long time. There are just a number of artificial curbs in the market that inflate the price.

While I don't own a Hummer, I do own a suburban, a mustang and two airplanes. I happily fly and drive them all over creation and fill them to the brim with fuel! I'm able to do this because from the beginning of my life I had vision, I had drive and I had personal goals. I never graduated from college, never asked my folks for anything, didn't inherit a large sum of money (I did a very small sum), and struggled with a wife, 5 kids and 17k a year when I was 22. I'm 43, I've now written 12 books, speak regularly to various groups in my profession and have built a financial life where I was able to take a 9-5 job at my church at a significantly reduced salary from what I was making before just so I could make a difference in the lives of people.

Anyone (excepting the obvious folks who are handicapped in such a way that they can not) can CHOOSE to make a better life for themselves. Most people instead choose to let life lead them around. If kids would turn off the IPods and turn on the brains.... we would all be better off. Humankind has to learn to throw the shackles off that bind us in our lives. I fear most will never figure that out.

I could go on....

 

[RobertF]

""Surf and Turf" relates to a little thing called "morale" if our troops "
This is in reference to the idea that troops should be moved by highways and airlines while trains are excluded from the group. The board has already had numerous discussions about the declining ontime performance of airlines. I've sat in a major airport USO lounge and noticed the troops sleeping in there for hours on end for a flight home while Amtrak is going in their direction NOW. Requiring the freights to honor their agreements with Amtrak would increase the ontime performance of Amtrak. I seriously doubt that Amtrak was ever considered as an option. In addition, military members are probably lugging over the weight limits for airlines. Mine does. Ching ching for the airlines. Who says that the government doesn't subsidize the airlines? Airlines can't carry injured troops as well as trains can...

The Surf and Turf ticks off the wives as do the cheerleaders being sexually suggestive in front of their husbands. When the wives are annoyed the servicemembers are distracted and get given the choice later of their family or the service. Guess which is a greater morale buster. As another wife said, where's my Chippendale dancer and MY babysitter so I can eat like that. (For the record, I've never seen a Chippendale and don't want to.) We now have a generation of people (soldiers included) that believe certain things are their right (unlimited gasoline- wasn't this rationed during WWII?) and not a blessing. The American people have been very supportive of the troops in sending them stuff. On some FOBs it sits in piles where soldiers walk by and pick out what has been discarded by other soldiers. Nothing wrong with that although I have a feeling that the soldiers on the farflung FOBs facing the most danger are missing some of these morale builders. Weren't the Vietnam soldiers still eating the equivalent of spam and c-rats. On drill weekends the troops may be put up in shared rooms (or single) at the local hotel instead of bunk beds in the armory. I know of at least one run down small town Best Western that has benefitted from this. Armories typically contain bathrooms and shower facilities. Young people have gotten so accustomed to space around them (large homes, rooms, etc) that the military has had to accomodate this tendacy by building accomodations more akin to apartments than to barracks. The point is that the waste is phenomenal and to fund these excesses while starving Amtrak is not right. I've seen it (the waste) over the course of 24 years. It stands to reason that if servicemembers are pulled from a population accustomed to excesses (credit included) that these habits will follow them. I crossed rank lines and spent the deployment counseling the young wife on financial matters. She lives about 101 miles from me. The Commander's wife who lived near to her stayed hidden. As a result the young marriage didn't fall apart and her husband came home to money in the bank and a more financially astute wife. They live in a housing project. He was the only member in his unit that did not earn a CIB. He stayed focused. No one in his squad was as fortunate. Consider the number of higher-ranked individuals who found the loophole to make their month's pay nontaxable by staying 1 day in the combat zone, that "combat zone" being the generally non-hostile Kuwait (where hostile fire pay is paid)... On another occasion my airline ticket cost $300. His cost $900 through the official channels. We are near a base with MAC flights as well, but commercial connections are used. The C130s fly overhead every night like clockwork. I know the drone... A bus was chartered to take the soldiers in the direction of their homes. To pick him up I (and others) still had to drive over 6 hours one way. Amtrak would have had him near 10 miles of our home within 8 hours at far less cost. The military maintains a travel agency contract or agency that could deal with these issues that is at the service of the leaders. Commanders are charged with the well-being of the families (hence the check-the-block Family Readiness Groups which seem to act more as a means to keep the families quiet or punish soldiers whose wives do speak) as well as the soldiers (which generally insures that we keep quiet)... There really is no rational excuse for side by side golf courses on adjoining military installations and when you hear defense of it you know you're hitting a personal perk. Run the retirees off of them and see exactly how many lower ranked/paid active service members are using them. The lower enlisted try to get away from uniforms and the ever present requirement to acknowledge their superiors in their spare time (morale building time). People speak about funding sources being separate. Years ago, the services were told to get their equipment to operate in conjunction with each other (it seems there was a major malfunction that cost lives- perhaps the Iranian hostage crisis or somewhere else) so that they could communicate with each other and cut down costs. Even though it is a law, they still maintain their turf, including golf courses.

I can identify family members that fought in most every war going back to the Revolutionary War. This includes the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, this one and those other squabbles that occurred (Spanish-American, etc), so this isn't a case of being anti-military. I've also been attendant at the unloading of a front line soldier's body and will never forget that and hope to live long enough to witness to his children about the honor that was given their father. I'm very much anti-waste in government spending while Amtrak remains underfunded. To the ex-servicemember member officers, gentlemen, please remember that the family members (1) did not sign on the dotted line and (2) do not sign away their 1st Amendment rights. You know that what I have written on here is true.

Money exists to fund Amtrak or can be found in the same manner as is found to fund these excesses.

Love troops.

Hate winers.

Sigh...

 

[RobertF]

(as an aside, a huge "THANK YOU" to the folks responsible for this site, for allowing discussions such as this to ramble and prosper - a HUGE contrast to the first train forum I found, seemingly overrun with grumpy old timers and mods that lock threads like they get paid hundreds of dollars per locked thread)

I second this. I really enjoyed all the various points of view and ramblings in this post. Thanks moderator...by the way, who is the moderator? Alan?

Well first let me say on behalf of the staff, THANKS! Your thanks is the only pay that anyone on the staff gets.

Turning to the question at hand, it goes like this.

Anthony and I are the administrators of the board. It's up to us to ensure that backups are made to protect the information posted here, to create new forums, approve new members, perform other routine maintenance tasks, as well as to moderate the board too. Plus of course we often throw our own 2 cents in many times, especially me.

I should also point out that Anthony owns the board and aside from a small amount of revenue from the ads at the top of the forum, pays the costs of keeping things running. So if you click on one of the ads every once in a while, even if you don't buy anything, you still help to contribute financially to the board.

Then we have three moderators, Joe (AmtrakWPK), Eric (GG-1), and Tom (MrFSS). There duties include pretty much what one might expect, deleting any spam, on rare occasions deleting a topic or a post that either used foul language or was a direct insult to someone, moving topics to the correct forum, keeping the peace when occasionally necessary, and of course contributing their own 2 cents too.

Administrator names show up in red, moderators' show up in blue, both in their posts and at the bottom of the main forum page where the current active users are listed.

Wondering what database this board uses? SQL Server? MySQL? Oracle?

 

[AlanB]

Wondering what database this board uses? SQL Server? MySQL? Oracle?

The programming is PHP, the database is MySQL.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I have been looking at electric scooters and the like for my approx. 3 mile commute to the church, which I do probably 8 - 12 times a week.

If that's three miles each way, the worst case week with 12 round trips has 72 miles of that 3 mile commute. An automobile that only gets 18 MPH (probably below average) would only burn 4 gallons a week, which is probably less than $15/week, which works out to less than $800/year (for just the fuel cost, ignoring the wear and tear on the automobile). And if your automobile gets better than 18 MPH and/or I'm overestimating the price of gasoline, you won't even save that much.

How much do electric scooters cost?

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

While I don't own a Hummer, I do own a suburban, a mustang and two airplanes. I happily fly and drive them all over creation and fill them to the brim with fuel! I'm able to do this because from the beginning of my life I had vision, I had drive and I had personal goals. I never graduated from college, never asked my folks for anything, didn't inherit a large sum of money (I did a very small sum), and struggled with a wife, 5 kids and 17k a year when I was 22. I'm 43, I've now written 12 books, speak regularly to various groups in my profession and have built a financial life where I was able to take a 9-5 job at my church at a significantly reduced salary from what I was making before just so I could make a difference in the lives of people.

Are those planes under the gross maximum takeoff weight when you fill all of their seats with family members _and_ fill the tanks to the top?

 

[Guest]

"Love troops.

Hate winers.

Sigh... "

So do I, sweetheart. I'm married to one (troop) and count numerous others as friends or relatives. The objective truth is the objective truth.

Just as you once could keep people quiet by calling them racist, now, if you wish to squash discussion about this subject, you say it's for the "morale of the troops", or you attack the speaker. The guilt left over from the treatment of the troops returning from Vietnam prevents the "morale of the troops" argument from being subjected to scrutiny. Troops have their free speech rights restricted by contract. The observation of one was that he felt he was risking his life escorting popcorn across the desert. He's not a whiner. It's his 2nd deployment... and he rightfully deserved hostile fire pay- both times.

Amtrak will still be underfunded and waste will still exist in defense spending that needn't be.... In the meantime oil/gas pushes higher. With a hurricane season yet to come and the seasonal changeover in gas blending at the refineries who wants to take a bet on $7.50/gal? A few minutes ago an airline announced reduced flights or routes. If it's from your city, how are you going to get around?

 

[GG-1]

Gas for my first car was .25 cents a gallon, now 45 years later at some of or stations it is 5.83 compare that to other increases and fuel is out of whack.

Aloha

 

[RobertF]

Gas for my first car was .25 cents a gallon, now 45 years later at some of or stations it is 5.83 compare that to other increases and fuel is out of whack.
Aloha

According to one inflation adjustment calculator, what cost $.25 in 1952 would cost $1.98 in 2007. I don't know how accurate that particular calculator is to be honest. I don't know what the actual price of oil was when your fuel was $.25. I don't know where you are seeing $5 gas.... The highest we have around here is like 3.50 to 3.60. If you are in Hawaii (hence the Aloha) then I'd certainly expect to see gas much higher there.

I'll say it again though, there are a number of things that WE have done to make this price as high as it is. Everything from refusing to add new refining capacity (there is more to the cost of fuel than the price of oil, a lot more) to refusing to drill locally (that $100 BBL oil also has shipping costs affixed to it, and storage costs, etc...). If anything is out of wack, it is things we have had control over for years and have done nothing about.

Let's not just go blame the big pockets because they are an easy target, oh and by the way they have lots of money which we can STEAL in the form of taxes. Let's blame those in Washington and in our local state government... let's blame environmental extremists who have no sense or understanding of economy (and dare I say, who have some belief in collectivism and Marxism). Or, how about we all just be human and find some reasonable solutions that don't hurt anyone. The solutions are there and viable, thats what I believe.

Nahhh... that makes too much sense.

 

[Ryan]

"Love troops.Hate winers.

Sigh... "

So do I, sweetheart. I'm married to one (troop) and count numerous others as friends or relatives. The objective truth is the objective truth.

Just as you once could keep people quiet by calling them racist, now, if you wish to squash discussion about this subject, you say it's for the "morale of the troops", or you attack the speaker. The guilt left over from the treatment of the troops returning from Vietnam prevents the "morale of the troops" argument from being subjected to scrutiny.

Obviously, the two are not mutually exclusive. Instead of responding to any of the factual or reality based points of contention, you instead decide to sidestep the argument entirely.

Yes, Amtrak is underfunded. No, that money is not going to come from our military. You should really take up the remaining points with your husband, as they are not really relevant to the discussion at hand.

 

[GG-1]

Gas for my first car was .25 cents a gallon, now 45 years later at some of or stations it is 5.83 compare that to other increases and fuel is out of whack.
Aloha

According to one inflation adjustment calculator, what cost $.25 in 1952 would cost $1.98 in 2007. I don't know how accurate that particular calculator is to be honest. I don't know what the actual price of oil was when your fuel was $.25. I don't know where you are seeing $5 gas.... The highest we have around here is like 3.50 to 3.60. If you are in Hawaii (hence the Aloha) then I'd certainly expect to see gas much higher there.

Yes I am in Hawaii, and my comment is/was distorted, like when my parents used to say when ???? it was a nickel, My first car was in Connecticut. What is annoying to Islanders is most our fuel comes from China and is refined localy, yet the state allows it to be priced same as NOL refineries, I also did not include the range here which goes from a low of 4.85 to the 5.83. again I was trying to show the point that fuel pricing is messed up.

I'll say it again though, there are a number of things that WE have done to make this price as high as it is. Everything from refusing to add new refining capacity (there is more to the cost of fuel than the price of oil, a lot more) to refusing to drill locally (that $100 BBL oil also has shipping costs affixed to it, and storage costs, etc...). If anything is out of wack, it is things we have had control over for years and have done nothing about.
Let's not just go blame the big pockets because they are an easy target, oh and by the way they have lots of money which we can STEAL in the form of taxes. Let's blame those in Washington and in our local state government... let's blame environmental extremists who have no sense or understanding of economy (and dare I say, who have some belief in collectivism and Marxism). Or, how about we all just be human and find some reasonable solutions that don't hurt anyone. The solutions are there and viable, thats what I believe.

Nahhh... that makes too much sense.

Please understand that I believe you are correct, to blame ourselves, but "WE" include government and Corporate in that statement. "WE" all have to grow up and be responsible for ourselves.

<Getting off Soap box :lol: >

 

[Green Maned Lion]

In my not-so-humble opinion, gas SHOULD be expensive. People will think twice before hopping into the Hummer to drive around the block for a quart of milk, and the potential benefits of reduced consumption are too numerous to list here.

I gather that Hummer owners generally fall into one of two categories:

1) Those who could easily afford to buy $10/gallon diesel fuel for their hypothetical trips around the block for a quart of milk.

2) Those who have a habit of buying things they can't actually afford.

I'm not sure either group will be deterred by high fuel costs.

I also think that lots and lots of wind power needs to go with lots and lots of trains in addressing oil consumption.

The funny thing is.... the PRICE of oil is not reflective of it's availability or the availability of reserves. There is TON's of oil available, both on the market and waiting to be drilled. We have created an artificial market by limiting supply artificially. Pump up refining capacity, you would see the price go down. Deal with the middle east, you would see the price go down, DRILL HERE and you would see the price go way down. At about $50 BBL there is plenty of sustainable oil for a very very long time. There are just a number of artificial curbs in the market that inflate the price.

While I don't own a Hummer, I do own a suburban, a mustang and two airplanes. I happily fly and drive them all over creation and fill them to the brim with fuel! I'm able to do this because from the beginning of my life I had vision, I had drive and I had personal goals. I never graduated from college, never asked my folks for anything, didn't inherit a large sum of money (I did a very small sum), and struggled with a wife, 5 kids and 17k a year when I was 22. I'm 43, I've now written 12 books, speak regularly to various groups in my profession and have built a financial life where I was able to take a 9-5 job at my church at a significantly reduced salary from what I was making before just so I could make a difference in the lives of people.

Anyone (excepting the obvious folks who are handicapped in such a way that they can not) can CHOOSE to make a better life for themselves. Most people instead choose to let life lead them around. If kids would turn off the IPods and turn on the brains.... we would all be better off. Humankind has to learn to throw the shackles off that bind us in our lives. I fear most will never figure that out.

I could go on....

American knowledge of oil economics is so limited its almost laughable. Increasing production is not as simple as turning a valve and watching more shoot up. It involves drilling for more fuel deeper down in more expensive places, assuming you can find them. Most of the oil producing nations want to produce more oil, trust me! You make more money selling 3 million barrels of oil for $100 than 2 million for $120. The capacity for producing it, and the ability to upgrade that capacity profitably, is simply not there.

And that fails to point out that previous oil prices were largely related to highway robbery of third world countries by the United States of Cheapskates. In addition to the fact that, running full speed ahead and playing it Farragut, production is going down, demand is skyrocketing. If you don't think that is going to increase prices relative to inflation, please report down the hall to Economics 101.

 

[JxGx78]

Congress held hearings today into the run-up in crude oil, Michael Masters (a portfolio manager) give some very interesting testimony where he blamed some, not all, of the run-up in crude oil on 'Index Speculators'. CNBC covered the story today, and here is a link to the testimony if anyone is interested. Personally I think a lot of the current run-up is a speculative bubble, while there are some real underlying reasons why oil became more expensive, there is a lot of hot money rushing in to drive prices higher.

This is the quote CNBC talked about the most:

In the popular press the explanation given most often for rising oil prices is the
increased demand for oil from China. According to the DOE, annual Chinese demand
for petroleum has increased over the last five years from 1.88 billion barrels to 2.8 billion
barrels, an increase of 920 million barrels. Over the same five-year period, Index
Speculatorsʼ demand for petroleum futures has increased by 848 million barrels. The
increase in demand from Index Speculators is almost equal to the increase in demand
from China!

 

[Guest]

"No, that money is not going to come from our military"

You're not rational, but you do sound bureaucratic. On a personal basis when you're short in one area you take it from the unnecessaries of your life or you borrow. Amtrak is short or we wouldn't have duct tape on the "take" list. The government should do the same and has the obligation to be an even greater steward of the money taken from its citizens (or borrowed on their behalf).

I recall (on the $300 vs $900 trip) flying to the other end of the country so that an interaction could occur between 2 services to reserve equipment (pre 2001) and schmooze. It seemed odd at the time because it was something that could have been accomplished in a conference telephone call. I've participated in a call-in conferences with a national organization using equipment and computers which showed graphically how many were in attendance and other information. We had the ability to interact with each other live from across the country. There are other examples in other committees with other equipment. The military can do the same.

The increase in the price of oil has several underlying causes, one that isn't mentioned too heavily here is the devaluation of the dollar causing the use of greater dollars to purchase the same amount of oil. I'm not an economist, but am a financial professional who studies the markets, and understand that contributing to the oil cost is the amount of debt being incurred by our country for its purposes, including military spending and Amtrak. Multiply my own observations and experiences and its easy to see that diligence is lacking.

I have nothing to take up with my husband and Alan and the other moderators have the ability to deep 6 this as they deem. Servicemembers don't focus on these issues and mine doesn't take an opinion on it one way or the other- nor on Amtrak (I drag him along.)

As the young lady said before the deployment, "stick a fork in this turkey (war)and call it done".

Separately,I encourage each of you to go to the AICPA website and begin the financial literacy course offered there free. Most states' CPA societies are promoting this on their web sites.