Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
United States Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Obama sneers at man mentioning high gas prices, and suggests that he buy a new car
Zhang Fei    4/9/2011 7:47:41 PM
Check out the youtube video referred to in the following account:
A man asked the President about gas prices and wondered if there was anything we could do to bring them down. While trying to explain three steps to lowering the prices, Obama said this, after saying cars is where most of our oil is used: Now, I noticed some folks clapped, but I know some of these big guys, they’re still all driving their big SUV’s they got their big monster trucks and everything, (pointing to man who asked him the question) You’re one of them? Now, here’s my point, you know, if you’re complaining about the price of gas, and you only gettin’ 8 miles a gallon, (looks around for support, chuckles some more) you know, you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big, (laughs some more) so, how many do you have, ten kids you say, ten kids? (Big smile, looks incredulous, disbelieving, long pause) Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then. (laughs in crowd, guffaws)
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: PREV  1 2 3   NEXT
AThousandYoung       4/10/2011 10:09:10 PM
A lot of people buy SUVs so they are safer in a car accident.
 
Quote    Reply

YelliChink       4/10/2011 10:41:26 PM

You might do well to remember, Yelli, that it was the English who just held the entire parliamentry system to an absurd level of scrutiny regarding expenses claims of really quite paltry and insignificant sums, when you compare that to the routine lobbyist graft that openly takes place in the US electoral system it really is chump change..


 

You seem to have a very idealistic view of the US - I'm not going to go in to the pros and cons of each system but I think it's fair to say each has a healthy share of both. The amount of transparency demanded over here of politicians most especially in terms of campaign funding and lobbyist graft is something I would never give up.


 

And the "hard working guy" buying a bucket back from work etc doesn't wash either, my observation was made in terms of  those living in urban areas who have purchased a needlessly large and hungry vehicle to make a daily commute that at no point requires a V8 - should these people be allowed to own and run them? YES! but it will cost more as it is less efficient.


 

If you think that the current US administration has the capacity right now to dramatically reduce the price of oil then you are mistaken, if you think there isn't a lot of room for improvements in useful work done / gallon then you are also mistaken, if you think that any economy thrives by being overly reliant on inefficient exploitation of a single resource then you are very mistaken indeed.


 

R



As an Englishman your ability to spell the word "parliamentary" is astonishingly, well...  I'd better not go there.
 
I found that speaking to you is rather pointless. NYC is not the whole USA, and I don't need to bring proof that many in the US use F-150 to haul their compressors and generators, heavy tool set, farm produce, cement bags and tonnes of 2x4s that makes the country running. Not to mention many F-150 trucks were bought by rental companies and local government as utility vehicles. When your government failed you in snow storm, we have 12" snow storm in Chicago, and guess what type of vehicles are plowing the snow? You bet, F-150 and other pick-up trucks, with many drivers on temporary contracts with municipal and county authorities. Now just imagine how rural people living in Dakota would struggle without this superb modern tool.
 
Don't need to mention the NYC last year. That problem was due to NYC public sector union working against Bloomberg.
 
The US is an idealistic country from the beginning. That's why they are crazy enough to to kick red coats out.
 
The US federal government can reduce the cost of gas by around 30%. They are not doing it. Last time when the gas price hit $4.2/Gal. was when crude price hits $150/barrel.  It is still around $100 now and the gas price should have been around $3.2 to $3.5. However, that is not the case. Gas price is not solely dependent on crude price. Refinery capacity is hampered by EPA and directorate from the White House. Drilling and exploiting has been red-taped. US domestic fuel production has not been expanded over the years, and the capacity actually dropped in the last few years. All has contributed to rising gas price at the pump. You only need to disrupt 5% of supply to drive up 30% of the price. Oh and guess where the QE2 money is going to. Since the whole point of QE2 is to prevent banks from buying and betting only on treasury bonds, the money has to go somewhere. Somewhere that the gain is surely ensured, and you can't make it better bet by triggering political turmoil and civil war.
 
Quote    Reply

buzzard       4/11/2011 9:11:43 AM
And, GM and Chrysler failed because of the UAW. You can blame the failed socialist state called Michigan as well, which has been under very liberal Democrat control for decades. Japanese and Koreans are opening factories in the US since 80s, and they don't hire union workers.
 
 There's a bit more to it than the unions, but they are a very large chunk. There is also CAFE standards, which are among the dumbest ideas of all time.
 
The idea that the government can simply make all cars more efficient, no matter the desires of the consumer nor the cost of the technology at hand, by mandating it brings one back to the spectacle of King Canute ordering the tides (which is a very appropriate morality take in this case). 
 
CAFE standards are a great example of a government (congress in particular) deciding to pursue an aim in the most politically expedient fashion with no regard to the actual economic realities. It's a perfect example of unintended consequences. Why are SUVs so popular? CAFE standards. Why did the family station wagon get replaced by those SUVs (and thus fuel economy took a hit)- again CAFE standards. 
 
I imagine everyone knows of CAFE standards, but I wonder if people know the details? 
 
CAFE standards mandate that a company's fleet of vehicles must conform to a certain average fuel economy. Thus if you sell a Corvette, you better sell a lot of Cobalts to make up for it. There are actually different requirements for the different classes of vehicles (cars, light trucks, trucks). These classes, as one might expect, lead to loopholes. Why did SUVs (and minivans which are also light trucks) replace the family station wagon? Because the SUV is a light truck, while the station wagon is a car. The latter is subject to much more stringent CAFE standards, so they could not be produced to conform to the standards economically. Hence we got a drop in road efficiency owing to the law.
 
 There's other interesting distortions which arose from CAFE standards. Did you ever wonder why the Chrysler PT Cruiser exists? It's a relic of CAFE standards. You see, under all that retro styling, you're just getting a tiny light truck with an anemic engine which helps their CAFE standards for the truck line (so those Dodge RAMs can get a bigger engine).
 
To mention an intersection of idiocy, there's even a place where CAFE standards collude with unions to make the situation worse. Because in much of the world gas costs a whole lot more due to taxes, foreign car companies make a lot better fuel efficient cars (that pesky market mechanism at work, you know, consumers buy that which suits them given the constraints). Ford and GM both have long had extensive overseas car production, and of course many of those models are very fuel efficient. It would have been logical to simply import over some of those econoboxes and do some good for their CAFE. Seems like a good idea, but no. The UAW managed to get a law approved which mandates that CAFE standards for the domestic producers can only count domestically produced vehicles. Thus, the econoboxes would have be made here at the union plants which have inflated costs of labor. People generally, and for obvious reasons, assume if they are buying a dinky little car which sips gas, it should be cheap. As a consequence, we can't actually make those econoboxes cheap enough to sell here. The Big Three make them as cheap (and crappy) as possible, and then sell them at a loss to make their CAFE standards work. 
 
Europe has traditionally had this right. They simply put a higher tax on the fuel. If you want people to consume less fuel, you make it more expensive. This is economics 101. It is also the least intrusive method to accomplish the goal. It does not require all manner of stupid regulation, as well as potential for special interest groups to game the rules.
 
Why did I say Europe traditionally had this right? Because with the formation of the EU, and their idiotic signing onto the Kyoto treaty, they got the bright idea of introducing CAFE standards to Europe. Yes, they too can now get a bunch of power hungry bureaucrats in Brussels causing havoc in their auto industries. Expect plenty of crony capitalism at work. 

 
Quote    Reply

Mikko       4/11/2011 9:43:06 AM
Obama was annoying and patronizing in that video. I've never seen him perform that bad.

Driving needlessly big cars is an image thing. It is a lifestyle statement. It has to do with safety, formidability through size, semi-flying experience through sitting so high up, theoretical possibility of moving big things, getting to hard-to-get places and pushing yourself through.

Especially pick-up trucks are a call of the wild. They turn office clerks into cowboys. They are also a statement against people who have an opinion against them. 

It's a man thing and owning one would be nice. I am more interested in the Japanese ones as they look better to my European eye but I will not buy one before I start building myself a house. Then I can justify a Toyota 4WD pick-up truck for a second car.

But as long as there is a freedom to buy what ever car I want to it is first and foremost my own responsibility to see to affording my ride.  

Btw, now that I'm at it: I remember overhearing a rant where a pretty smart fellow made a good case of US government spending enormous amounts of their taxpayer's money - through supporting stability in the ME and patrolling the transport routes with US Navy - into keeping gas prices low. He said that if the costs of oil-related use of military was added to gas prices the hybrid cars would be considered thirsty.



 
Quote    Reply

buzzard       4/11/2011 10:22:50 AM
And regarding starting new drilling operations, well it's up to the US as a nation to do that - it won't make much difference in the big scheme of things, there still ain't enough to make a big difference, the answer is not more oil, it's less reliance on a diminishing resource, especially one that has so many negatives associated with its extraction and use - one that also dictates much of your foreign policy.
 
Rubbish. People have been lecturing us on Peak Oil for 50 years if not more. Yet somehow oil production expands each year. There is a lot of oil still left in the ground. Heck, there is a lot of oil still left in 'tapped out' oil reservoirs. Better extraction technology could actually claim a lot of oil just waiting there. Then there's a whole lot of oil on the continental shelf, and in the Rockies waiting to be tapped. These numbers are appreciably larger than you appear to recognize.

On top of that, technology for coal to oil has been in existence for ages (the Germans did plenty of it in WW II), and the U.S. has completely incredible coal reserves.  This technology is also improving. With oil at $100/barrel this is actually cost effective. Oil just needs to stay around this price for long enough for plants to be built.
 
There's no near-term alternative to gasoline, but when used efficiently it will reduce demand (lowering costs) and also pave the way into the energy-dense storage mediums of the future (hybrids).

 Hybrids are not an 'energy dense storage mechanism'. They are a gimmick which really doesn't do as much as claimed. You can accomplish pretty much identical efficiency on a diesel engine without all the expensive battery nonsense at a much lower price. Those NiCad batteries are hardy environmentally friendly in the first place, and the cost differential of a hybrid over a conventional vehicle would require $10/gallon gasoline to make up for the premium you pay to feel good about yourself driving a hybrid.

A real 'energy dense storage mechanism' will require either a breakthrough in battery technology, a huge jump in high temperature superconductor maximum temperatures, or a significant price drop in fuel cell/hydrogen powered vehicles (even then hydrogen has a lousy energy density, though certainly worlds better than batteries).

 Here's the real fact of the matter. If Obama wants the U.S. to use less gasoline, he needs to jack up the tax on it. He just doesn't have the balls to make such a move because it would be political suicide. Politicians instead use the cheap out of CAFE standards where they push the burden onto the manufacturer rather than the consumer. Bush was no better about this since he also jacked up CAFE standards.
 
Quote    Reply

Reactive       4/11/2011 2:28:34 PM


And regarding starting
new drilling operations, well it's up to the US as a nation to do that -
it won't make much difference in the big scheme of things, there still
ain't enough to make a big difference, the answer is not more oil, it's
less reliance on a diminishing resource, especially one that has so many
negatives associated with its extraction and use - one that also
dictates much of your foreign policy.




Rubbish. People have been lecturing us on Peak Oil for 50 years if not more. Yet somehow oil production expands each year. There is a lot of oil still left in the ground. Heck, there is a lot of oil still left in 'tapped out' oil reservoirs. Better extraction technology could actually claim a lot of oil just waiting there. Then there's a whole lot of oil on the continental shelf, and in the Rockies waiting to be tapped. These numbers are appreciably larger than you appear to recognize.


There is a lot of oil left in the ground and there are also a lot of emerging technologies that are able to exploit this in previously capped wells, shales, tar sands etc- what differs is that the cost of extracting these reserves is increasing, - Some of my clients are in the petrochemical industry and there is a real concern especially in the firms that are tasked with exploration and analysis that many of the reserves commonly cited even in places like Saudi Arabia have been widly overstated on balance sheets - for obvious reasons.

I am not someone who has bought into peak oil but at the same time we are a rapidly expanding global population where over 2/3rds of the planet is in the process of developing, that means car ownership, heavy industry and consumerism, oil over a timeline of decades is going to steadily increase in price per barrel with a greater and greater  percentage of that cost coming from extraction itself, that's inevitable. Of course there are abundant new resources for extraction, there are huge tar sands deposits and so on, but not enough to keep the price per barrel as proportionally low as it was in the 20th century.
 
In any case, it's not just extraction, it's energy security, are you comfortable relying on Saudi Arabia to such a heavy extent?
 



On top of that, technology for coal to oil has been in existence for ages (the Germans did plenty of it in WW II), and the U.S. has completely incredible coal reserves.  This technology is also improving. With oil at $100/barrel this is actually cost effective. Oil just needs to stay around this price for long enough for plants to be built.

And guess which illinois senator advocated offering tax incentives to develop coal from oil technology in the US?




There's no near-term alternative to gasoline, but when used
efficiently it will reduce demand (lowering costs) and also pave the way
into the energy-dense storage mediums of the future (hybrids).




 Hybrids are not an 'energy dense storage mechanism'. They are a gimmick which really doesn't do as much as claimed. You can accomplish pretty much identical efficiency on a diesel engine without all the expensive battery nonsense at a much lower price. Those NiCad batteries are hardy environmentally friendly in the first place, and the cost differential of a hybrid over a conventional vehicle would require $10/gallon gasoline to make up for the premium you pa
 
Quote    Reply

Reactive       4/11/2011 2:39:41 PM

Obama was annoying and patronizing in that video. I've never seen him perform that bad.




Driving needlessly big cars is an image thing. It is a lifestyle statement. It has to do with safety, formidability through size, semi-flying experience through sitting so high up, theoretical possibility of moving big things, getting to hard-to-get places and pushing yourself through.

Yep


Especially pick-up trucks are a call of the wild. They turn office clerks into cowboys. They are also a statement against people who have an opinion against them. 

Yep, lots of pristine pickups on the road, ones whose drivers would never be seen dead risking the shiny paintwork.
 

It's a man thing and owning one would be nice. I am more interested in the Japanese ones as they look better to my European eye but I will not buy one before I start building myself a house. Then I can justify a Toyota 4WD pick-up truck for a second car.

It's something that was marketed, as so many things are, to appeal to a wide demographic, male AND female, for women it was the safety thing, for men it was exactly what you explained, it's big, powerful, masculine, just like you aren't. Create a need and then fill it, that's how advertising works. The safety argument does hold water, the V8 that does 10-15mpg doesn't, I've no problem with pickups, suv's whatsoever, I just don't see how it became fashionable to buy ones that many people can barely afford to run, not because of the price of gas but because they are ridiculously, insanely inefficent if used for nothing other than a daily commute.


But as long as there is a freedom to buy what ever car I want to it is first and foremost my own responsibility to see to affording my ride.  



Btw, now that I'm at it: I remember overhearing a rant where a pretty smart fellow made a good case of US government spending enormous amounts of their taxpayer's money - through supporting stability in the ME and patrolling the transport routes with US Navy - into keeping gas prices low. He said that if the costs of oil-related use of military was added to gas prices the hybrid cars would be considered thirsty.

If you actually took into account the lengths the US has to go to to maintain an uninterrupted supply in the middle east, it is amazing that anyone who proposes the idea of domestic energy security is branded a heathen anti-american communist. The way I see it, if the entire economy starts to implode a mere week after the tankers stop arriving you have a very serious problem. Iran has the capability to make that happen, a civil war in Saudi Arabia has the capability to make that happen, and most critically, the house of Saud itself.









 
Quote    Reply

Reactive       4/11/2011 3:11:15 PM


As an Englishman your ability to spell the word "parliamentary" is astonishingly, well...  I'd better not go there.

I do apologise YC, from the depths of my heart.

I found that speaking to you is rather pointless.
 
Yet..
 
NYC is not the whole USA,
 
Then it's lucky I wasn't talking about NYC.

 
and I don't need to bring proof that many in the US use F-150 to haul their compressors and generators, heavy tool set, farm produce, cement bags and tonnes of 2x4s that makes the country running.
 
All perfectly logical and justifiable uses for an F-150.
 
Not to mention many F-150 trucks were bought by rental companies and local government as utility vehicles. When your government failed you in snow storm, we have 12" snow storm in Chicago, and guess what type of vehicles are plowing the snow? You bet, F-150 and other pick-up trucks, with many drivers on temporary contracts with municipal and county authorities. Now just imagine how rural people living in Dakota would struggle without this superb modern tool.

As I said, perfectly logical and justifiable uses for an F-150... 

 

Don't need to mention the NYC last year. That problem was due to NYC public sector union working against Bloomberg.

I am generally anti-union, they tend to cripple the industries they become too dominant in - look at the Auto indstury itself, I find it amazing that in a nation such as the US they have so much power to the wider detriment of the economy.
 

The US is an idealistic country from the beginning. That's why they are crazy enough to to kick red coats out.

They definitely have a better national anthem.

 

The US federal government can reduce the cost of gas by around 30%. They are not doing it. Last time when the gas price hit $4.2/Gal. was when crude price hits $150/barrel.  It is still around $100 now and the gas price should have been around $3.2 to $3.5. However, that is not the case. Gas price is not solely dependent on crude price. Refinery capacity is hampered by EPA and directorate from the White House. Drilling and exploiting has been red-taped. US domestic fuel production has not been expanded over the years, and the capacity actually dropped in the last few years. All has contributed to rising gas price at the pump. You only need to disrupt 5% of supply to drive up 30% of the price. Oh and guess where the QE2 money is going to. Since the whole point of QE2 is to prevent banks from buying and betting only on treasury bonds, the money has to go somewhere. Somewhere that the gain is surely ensured, and you can't make it better bet by triggering political turmoil and civil war.
 
All very rational arguments, low oil prices help the economy - high oil reduce profit margins in industry. My point is very simply that for MANY people it would be a better decision to look at fuel efficiency even in times of cheap gas prices, when it is easily affordable to waste it does not necessarily make sense to do so, that's all.  That was what I found a bit stupid, waste for no gain, that's what the SUV boom of the early 2000's promoted, and not just in NYC, for many people across the nation, and indeed in europe and elsewhere. The knock on effect was that the auto industry was overreliant on models that are now far less popular.


 
Quote    Reply

CJH       4/15/2011 12:13:18 PM

Now, I noticed some folks clapped, but I know some of these big guys, they?re still all driving their big SUV?s they got their big monster trucks and everything, (pointing to man who asked him the question) You?re one of them? Now, here?s my point, you know, if you?re complaining about the price of gas, and you only gettin? 8 miles a gallon, (looks around for support, chuckles some more) you know, you may have a big family, but it?s probably not that big, (laughs some more) so, how many do you have, ten kids you say, ten kids? (Big smile, looks incredulous, disbelieving, long pause) Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then. (laughs in crowd, guffaws)

 

 


Ok, CJH, Suv's have a purpose, but in the US especially they are, as the antichrist said, INCREDIBLY INNEFICIENT MODES OF TRANSPORT, in fact, to complain about the price of gasoline yet willingly on a daily urban journey waste up to 10 gallons of fuel powering a needlessly inefficient powerplant is STUPID.


 

I'm sick of hearing this bullshit - As if the idea of somehow not wasting fuel needlessly for NO GAIN in any measurable ANYTHING is somehow anti fu**ing american!? 8MPG is absolutely absurd for a mode of transport, if you choose to drive that either because it is a status symbol for you (very often) or it somehow compensates for other shortcomings then that's your damn problem, you're going to PAY MORE for it.


 

The US auto industry has failed and required a big SOCIALIST bailout because it has so recklessly ignored the writing on the wall with regard to the price of oil - it pumped money into advertising the "big ol' american SUV lifestyle" to people who willingly bought into it - as a result it lost a lot of influence overseas but also found itself essentially following technological dead ends where japanese and european manufacturers were developing cars and SUV's that achieved, at no cost to performance a far better cost per gallon.


 



Why whinge about the price of oil if you are needlessly wasting it?








There are SUV's that are fuel efficient, and ones that aren't, it's become fashionable to waste as if that is just one big part of the big american dream, that leads to long term investment in the wrong areas and an infrastructural defecit that actually weakens your national security - so vast and immediate are the consequences of an oil shortage.






R










 

 



What I wonder about are the possible psychological reasons for people's reflexive hatred for SUVs.
 
I don't own one yet but it won't take a lot more leftist obsessing on them for me to break down and buy a Suburban.
 
One funny thing I have noticed is that most of the individuals I see driving Suburbans are women, in their twenties, driving to work, alone. Which candidate in the last election most likely received the most votes from this demographic?
 
Another thing is that I have seen more SUVs than economy cars driving on the road with federal government tags on. A quarter of those are Suburbans. I saw two government Suburbans this week on the interstates.
 
You don't seem to have a clue about this but people like being high up when driving so they can see a lot more. They like the relative safety of a large vehicle.
 
The thing about freedom is that people get to decide for themselves what thing is good for them and not have this decided by someone else in government who doesn't have a clue - like Obama.
 
Why whinge about the price of oil if you are needlessly wasting it?

If you think it's waste, then you should not do it. To someone else, it might not be waste. Who gave you the authority to tell other
 
Quote    Reply

CJH       4/15/2011 12:17:11 PM
And then there is Obama's irrational moratorium on drilling ion the Gulf.
 
Let's face it, Obama is an arrogant parasite. That shows in his answer.
 
Quote    Reply
PREV  1 2 3   NEXT



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics