Gas Price Outrage!

[GreatCarouser]

$2.54 for Premium in Claremont today......$2.30 for Reg Unl.

[piqaboo]

Milk and gas cost about the same....Coca Cola costs more.

[GreatCarouser]

Milk and gas cost about the same....Coca Cola costs more.

Yes but Coke tastes better than either and gives you gas!

[BigJon]

Umm, no. The function of speculators is to try to make money.

I meant economic function. What function are you referring to?

I'm pretty sure I'm in full agreement with you on the outcome, but I still wouldn't call it a function, more like an unintended consequence. I doubt anybody gets into trading by saying; "Hmm, let's see, what markets can I make more liquid today."

So you don't believe that speculators behave irrationally at times and bid prices beyond all reason in the short term?

I don't know what belief has to do with it. I said we have no data and cannot know.

That's why I stated it as a question of belief, of course we can never know what goes on inside the head of a speculator, but we can certainly see trading that appears irrational, certainly ill-informed. See those late night infomercials on trading, for example.

[jamiebk]

Milk and gas cost about the same....Coca Cola costs more.

Yes...and I can still fill my tank with gas for less than it would cost for bottled water!

[Giant Communist Robot]

BigJon wrote:

I'm pretty sure I'm in full agreement with you on the outcome, but I still wouldn't call it a function, more like an unintended consequence. I doubt anybody gets into trading by saying; "Hmm, let's see, what markets can I make more liquid today."

I suppose another way of saying economic function would be would be to answer 'what is the participant's role in the market?'. This is distinct from motivation. And unitended. A description of what the participants do in terms of the market.

trading that appears irrational, certainly ill-informed

Its a mystery to me. I have no idea what anyone else is doing.

[piqaboo]

When I'm really going to have to learn to ride a bike is when a gallon of gas costs more than a Starbucks Grande Venti Latte (or whatever the heck they are called).

[Shapley]

There's a place online that sells tuk-tuks from Thailand. Discounts for volume buying. Perhaps a bunch of us can get together and order a container load of them. Be the first in your neighborhood to own an authentic tuk-tuk.

If you decide you don't like it, you can probably unload it on the nearest Thai restaurant. It'd be a great gimmick for delivering Thai food!

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

There's a place online that sells tuk-tuks from Thailand. Discounts for volume buying. Perhaps a bunch of us can get together and order a container load of them. Be the first in your neighborhood to own an authentic tuk-tuk.

If you decide you don't like it, you can probably unload it on the nearest Thai restaurant. It'd be a great gimmick for delivering Thai food!

V/R
Shapley

I am surprised that we have not seen these showing up on the streets of San Francisco (Hey! wasn't that an old TV show?)

[Shapley]

I had checked on eBay for them a time or two. Here is the only current listing: tuktuks on ebay

Everytime I've found them listed, they've been in Florida. I suspect they may not meet California's stricter safety and/or environmental standards.

I can see where some resort hotels could employ them in sunnier climates, such as Florida, California, Texas, etc. They would be really nice with electric drives, sort of an over-the-road golf cart.

V/R
Shapley

[Haggis@wk]

Tuk-tuk....shudder, I can't tell you how many times my life hung in the balance riding in one of those things on the street of Bangkok (usually near Patpong, the street were too crowded for a taxi)

But that story is best saved until Nicole opens a "R" rated thread

[jamiebk]

I think that any form of energy use/consumption/generation is going to have environmental consequences. The question is, which form will have the least imact on our world with the most return of usable, clean energy? Nukes are fine, but the consequences of a disaster are...well....disasterous and extremely long lived.

Ca. gets about 25-30% of its power needs (at least accorging to our utility PG&E) from renewables like sun/water/wind. San Francisco is launching a plan to generate electricity with tidal turbines....a cool idea unless you are a fish that has been sucked through the apparatus. I just don't think there is any one answer...it will take a combination of solutions.

[Shapley]

We're sitting on top of one giant furnace. The molten layers beneath this hard crust of the Earth has enough heat output to run all the generation we need. Occasionally, it bubbles up through volcanoes, geysers, and hot springs, but most of it is deep below our feet. The waste heat could be channeled back to the Earth from whence it came. ready to be used again. Clean, natural heat, but beyond the reach of current technology. If we could just turn our attention from the sky overhead to the ground beneath us, we could harness the energy we need to drive us to the stars, and beyond.

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

But that story is best saved until Nicole opens a "R" rated thread

Y.R.H., having personally heard some of these tales, opening an 'R' rated forum would be quite entertaining.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

...But that story is best saved until Nicole opens a "R" rated thread

Considering that you already told the story about the legless piper at breakfast, I rather wonder what you hold in reserve

[Haggis@wk]

Selma,

"Considering that you already told the story about the legless piper at breakfast, I rather wonder what you hold in reserve"

Actually, if you'll recall from that story (the one I related to you live last year, not the written version) the use of several tuk-tuks (tuki?)at six in the morning contributed significantly to the legend of the phantom piper zooming down the streets of Bangkok.



The NIMBY crowd probably has as much to do with the price of gas as that mysterious cabal OT’s always going on about.

Face it, in a refinery vacuum there’s going to be someone to stand-up and fill the need, and we’ll end up paying for the additional cost of refining our gas in India

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Re the NIMBY crowd: I've seen El Paso. Odessa. Lubbock. Large sections of Kansas, eastern Colorado, whole huge chunks of Utah and Arizona, the entire Mojave, and so forth. There's nobody there to own a back yard for a refinery to be in. They're too far inland to worry about hurricanes (although snow might be a concern for part of the year in some spots) and not particularly prone to earthquakes. Where's the problem?

Actually, I think there's already a refinery or two near Odessa. It adds interest to the landscape and probably improves the view. I've seen West Texas in August, almost anything would be an improvement over flat&dusty.

[BigJon]

The NIMBY crowd probably has as much to do with the price of gas as that mysterious cabal OT’s always going on about.

Face it, in a refinery vacuum there’s going to be someone to stand-up and fill the need, and we’ll end up paying for the additional cost of refining our gas in India

NIMBY is one of the encumbrances in the gasoline market.

[Haggis@wk]

$1.95 in Plano this morning

[Haggis@wk]

Oops, $1.97, up 2 cents since Sunday. Damn George Bush's cabal!!!