Postitive effects of $4 Gas

Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 317

This was a really interesting article I read on time.com. Actually, some of these aspects carry some impact, some others not so much.

Check it out here. It's in slide form.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1819594_1819592,00.html

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

i'm all for compact growth and the demise of the urban sprawl that comes with the 'burbs

i really dislike the 'burbs

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

ya know

Higher gas prices might affect walmart... the supercenters are based on the idea that a large population pool will drive their gas guzzling SUVs and mini-vans there to stock up on stuff

What if the mini vans and SUVs go away and people start shopping closer to home? There could be a resurgence of the many main Streets Wal-mart killed.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

So... with WalMart having at least one "regular" store in virtually every town with a population of 15-20,000 or more, they've pretty much BECOME the "main streets" in those towns. Isn't it likely that are these places that don't have a super center will have a regular WalMart as oneof their "closer to home" choices?

In other words, if people are going to shop the stores closest to home, aren't those stores as likely to be WalMarts as anything else based on their store density levels?

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

hmm... yeah, probably

it was just a random thought... some places, like Vermont, where they have preserved the Main Streets of many towns will likely benefit from this development

i'm certainly not a fan of high gas prices, but as with everything in life, even bad events can have beneficial effects.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

Oh high gas prices are having all kinds of beneficial effects. Just for a certain small group of people. Just like the entire economic situation has beneficial effects... for that same small group.

See? There's always a silver lining. Wink

Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 317

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

Re-read my post Shake. Rolling Eyes

I didn't say anything about THOSE situations only benefiting a certain group although I do consider them a stretch if you're attempting to use them to justify the damage being done by the current economic situation.

Most of them are simplistic and a couple are downright simple minded when placed in the context of the overall picture but yeah, they can be called beneficial... just like not having enough money for food can be called "beneficial" because it makes you lose weight or being homeless because of the mortgage "bubble" can be considered beneficial because now you get more fresh air.

Those kind of statements come easily to people who have never had to do without a few of the things that they take for granted.

What I SAID was that there has been a great deal of benefit to a particular group of people due to the manipulation of oil prices and futures and that they are NOT doing it in order to see people lose weight or people start shopping on Main Street or police officers start walking beats, while the bad guys still drive cars. How often do you hear about "walk by" shootings, anyway?

If you're going to challenge something I'm saying, at least try to understand what it is I AM saying before you do so.

Joined: 04 May 2006 Posts: 238 Location: Your mom's house.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:11 am Post subject: Re: Postitive effects of $4 Gas

[quote="modelemployee"]

Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 60 Location: MPU

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/25/dubais-moving-skyscraper_n_109274.html

Plus, Dubai has this neat new building.

Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 115

Gasoline powered vehicles will continue to be the main method of transportation for the forseeable future. Tens of millions of lower income people are suffering because of the price of oil, and it's trickle down effect on our economy. This is a mobile economy. Cars simply cannot just be parked, they are our main method of transportation to our jobs, the grocery store, etc....I have to wonder, how much has the price of oil been affected, by investments by speculators, managing retirement incomes for people who probably don't even know that part of their future income will come from the misery of their neighbors, who can ill afford it....how many of you have a portion of your investments in oil related business? Do you even know whether you do, or not?

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

[quote="denimandlace_69"]

Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Posts: 1362

Increased shipping costs... could, maybe, bring jobs back to the homeland?
That's what I'm thinking.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

I think it possibly could over the long haul bring SOME jobs back and while they won't be the same jobs in regard to pay and benefits that were outsourced in the first place, low pay jobs are certainly better than no jobs.

There would also be the need to find some way to finance the rebuilding or renovation the manufacturing and processing infrastructure we once had and which has been allowed to deteriorate or vanish altogether.

But again, ANYTHING that happens will not happen until it has been determined that the same companies who have brought about the present situation will be the primary beneficiaries of any actions taken and to those at the bottom of the food chain, that means little to no change for the better in the status quo.

Joined: 11 Apr 2007 Posts: 317

Joined: 09 Feb 2008 Posts: 1292 Location: Brand Central

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 6727 Location: Central CA

Alright... Shake, try to understand because I'm not going into one of those eternal he said she said things that you guys love so much. Why I believe what I do or why you believe what you do is NOT the issue or even AN issue as far as I'm concerned.

First, ANYTHING that curbs excesses is probably good... but anything that only curbs "excesses" (we all know that the effect of the economy at the bottom end involves far more than "excesses" but I'm just attempting to look at it from the corporate propagandist viewpoint for this one paragraph) at the bottom end of the spectrum is not as good as it could be.

In terms of fuel prices at the pump... like it or not, we live in a society where EVERYTHING revolves around a person's ability to get from place to place and that includes work. We know that society was deliberately steered by the interlocked automotive/energy industries for over a century toward the concept of individual single unit transport, with Captain Commuter going to work in his private little traveling home away from home on a daily basis.

But now, even major travel (read air travel) is being affected drastically as many major airlines are threatened with insolvency or takeover and competition (and therefore the beneficial or at least benign effect of "Market forces") is being effectively stifled as the big dogs fight over not only the meat but the bones that USED to trickle downward to the rest of us.

And as always, old Joe Sixpack is once again going to pay the major price, both in terms of the increased prices and in todays reduced income due in part TO those very same price increases. The increases will be passed downward in the form of price increases all along the line, just like the proverbial turd rolling downhill, until it gets to old Joe who has nobody to pass it on to.

On the other hand, those CAUSING most of the problem don't have to worry about it because while they also have to deal with the price increases blah blah blah, their income is pretty much adjusting upward all out of proportion to the price increases anyway so they more than cover it.

It's when THAT stops happening and the situation starts nibbling at THEIR asses that we might.... MIGHT... see some kind of effort to develop a coherent energy policy that benefits EVERYBODY in the ways that make economic sense. Right now, all we're doing is shifting the wealth upward at a rate that cannot be sustained while maintaining a viable free society.

A reversal in the shipment of our major manufacturing jobs overseas to the point that manufacturing now only accounts for 12% of our GDP while Financial Services (the sector that includes commodities traders and futures speculators and that has swelled to 21% of GDP through the "bubble" era), would be a start, as Mags suggested above. It's probably the most logical "beneficial" result on that list given just the surface point itself... I remain cynical about even that, based just on what's gone before. I believe that the corporations would continue on their present inflationary course only they'd just substitute the increased costs of using American labor for whatever they were supposedly saving in fuel costs. In other words, I and the millions like me would likely remain unaffected to any measurable degree.

All I have done is weigh these "benefits" on that list against the damage being done and state that in my opinion they aren't anywhere near worth the price we're paying in other areas not only in the form of the direct effect of increased prices on individual wallets but...

the massive and record trade deficits which as of April stood at $60.9 billion and increases by an average of 2-4 billion a month.

the ongoing increases in the national debt, which five minutes ago totaled $9,475,839,712,333.94 (that's almost 10 TRILLION bucks) and which increases by $1.67 billion PER DAY...

The continuing devaluation of the dollar, based in part on requiring the taxpayer to foot the bill for the excesses of the big banks that make up the FED itself and determine economic policy for this country, all too often manipulating it (read back over the list of "bubbles over the past 20 years of which this oil/ebergy thing is just the latest) in accordance with their own corporate agendas...

And a ton of others, many of which have been brought up here before. It's just my humble opinion that those and the myriad other ways in which the current situation adversely affects the lives of any and all of us who lack the ability to readily adjust to inflation or find some way to make up for the increases at a time when everything else is being driven up also by the cost of fuel are not going to be overly impressed with some of the "benefits" on that list.

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 4780

Most sheeple muddle through life basing EVERYTHING on price and cost-"Screw the enviorment,screw the crackhead like addiction to forgien and non renewable resources,screw the outrageous debt caused by buying the guzzlers,screw the energy consumption of my new plasma".

"If can afford it I want,If I can't afford it I STILL want it" and the sheeple herders steer you into things like cc debt.

People didn't remember the gas lines of the late 70s or early 80s or pay attention to the experts saying that oil is a non-renewable resource.People didn't remember the recession of the early 90s.And the soccer moms of the late 80s and early 90s are the ones who should've been beating this crap into their kids head but how would they justify their mini-VANS which escalated into the"just slighty larger" SUVs by the late 90s.

Some will learn but as soon as most have the finances they'll go right back.

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