Argument against high gas prices

gatt wrote:

People used to defend Enron. An electrician down the road from me that
worked for PGE--whom Enron acquired--lost his $330,000 retirement
investment.

Apparently, the Enron book-cookers were just smarter and had something they
the electrician didn't have. Nobody defends Enron anymore, but, at the
same time, nobody listened when a handful of people predicted disaster.
(People did the same with the dot com industry, but as long as people were
making money hand over fist, they didn't bother to listen.)


I don't defend Enron, but am also not entirely sympathetic to those who
"lost their whole retirement nestegg". I saw a lot of news stories about
these unfortunate folks, but never heard a reporter ask them the obvious
question. "Why would a sane person invest their entire retirement nestegg in
one company's stock?". Enron employees were not required to buy Enron
stock in their retirement plans. They did so because of one reason. Greed.
They wanted to make high double and triple digit returns on their investments
and threw caution and common sense out the window.

Enron was most definitely a scam, but common sense goes a long way towards
minimizing the effect of any one bad apple on one's retirement portfolio.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

--
Message posted via AviationKB.com
http://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums...ation/200706/1

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...

All America has to do to stop Exxon from making record profits is to but
less gas.

Since the amount of discretionary driving this past Memorial Day weekend
didn't drop it seems that the American people really aren't that concerned
with the current price of gas.

Ah, yeah. All the people talking about it all the time aren't really
concerned.

How's GM doing these days? How about the airlines? Taxpayers gotta keep
bailing them out. Must be a reason nobody wants a Hummer anymore, but, I
wonder what it could be.

Fuel costs are part of the problem especially in the recreation sector I
don't think that's all of it.

Naw. $4/gallon at the boat fuel dock for gas that cost $2/gallon in 2002
at the same pump has nothing to do with why I don't put my boat in the water
anymore, and kayak instead. And, nobody's at all curious as to why the cost
of gas nearly doubled in the last two years. Fuel costs. Naaah. Gotta be
something else.

For some reason people just don't seem to won't their own airplane.
People are spending just as much on boats that burn just as much if not
more gas than aircraft do.

I don't drive my boat anymore because of the cost of gas. Nor do my wife
and I take long roadtrips in our jeep. Nor do my friends. Back during and
right after college, you'd not have caught a friend of mine buying a new
vehicle that wasn't American made. But now, they're buying Toyotas which,
you might remember, is wiping the world's ass with Ford and General Motors.
That's because the latter can't seem to deliver a fuel efficent vehicle, at
least until the Escape came along. (One of the Toyota buyers bought an
Escape hybrid and loves it.)

-c

"JGalban via AviationKB.com" u32749@uwe wrote in message
news:735c640ba893b@uwe...

I don't defend Enron, but am also not entirely sympathetic to those who
"lost their whole retirement nestegg". I saw a lot of news stories
about
these unfortunate folks, but never heard a reporter ask them the obvious
question. "Why would a sane person invest their entire retirement nestegg
in
one company's stock?".

Because they trusted the company they'd worked for for so long, before Enron
bought it, and none of them expected that the company would be acquired and
destroyed by felons.

Sort of like how my father trusted United before they furloughed him a year
before his retirement and then annihilated his pension. (But don't worry,
the taxpayers will handle that burden. )

Enron employees were not required to buy Enron stock in their retirement
plans. They did so because of one reason. Greed.

Is that why people buy XOM stock? Greed?

Enron was most definitely a scam, but common sense goes a long way
towards
minimizing the effect of any one bad apple on one's retirement portfolio.

How is that relevant to corporate corruption?

-c

"gatt" wrote

Yeah, sure doesn't work for Brazil, does it?

Brazil is not trying to squeeze alcohol from corn, either.

Big difference.
--
Jim in NC

"Ken Finney" wrote in message
...

Is that what Jesus would do? I wouldn't do it if I was making billions
while my neighbors and my nation suffered.

YOUR NATION ISN'T SUFFERING!

Ah. Okay, so everybody's hollering about the price of gasoline because
there's nothing better to do. Thanks for clearing that up.


Some people are suffering, other's aren't. If everyone had a "Mr. Fusion"
powering their cars and planes tomorrow, would that be a good thing?
Think of all the suffering of the gas station owner

You don't think gas station owners are suffering right now?

FBO, etc.

You don't think FBOs are suffering right now?

And the funny thing under such systems, is that even in an absence of
winners, there will still be losers.

The oil industry is making record profits in the history of the world. All
anybody is asking them to do is not make so much so that America isn't the
loser.
The oil industry is never the winner.

-c

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"gatt" wrote

Yeah, sure doesn't work for Brazil, does it?

Brazil is not trying to squeeze alcohol from corn, either.

Big difference.


Sugar grows really well in places like Louisiana.

-c

"gatt" wrote:
Sugar grows really well in places like Louisiana.

Corn, sugarcane, and other crops appear to be dwarfed by the energy
delivered by a family of organisms dating back nearly 3.5 billion years:

Algae.

See:
http://www.physorg.com/news89400502.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_content_of_Biofuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algacul...sel_production

"Microalgae have much faster growth-rates than terrestrial crops. The per
unit area yield of oil from algae is estimated to be from between 5,000 to
20,000 gallons per acre, per year; this is 7 to 31 times greater than the
next best crop, palm oil (635 gallons)." (From the Algaculture article.)

"Jim Logajan" wrote

Corn, sugarcane, and other crops appear to be dwarfed by the energy
delivered by a family of organisms dating back nearly 3.5 billion years:

Algae.

PLUS the added bonus that it produces massive amounts of oxygen, while
consuming carbon dioxide.

It really is a neat little solar collector of a cell.
--
Jim in NC

"Jim Logajan" wrote in message
.. .
"gatt" wrote:
Sugar grows really well in places like Louisiana.

Corn, sugarcane, and other crops appear to be dwarfed by the energy
delivered by a family of organisms dating back nearly 3.5 billion years:

Algae.

It would be spectacular if we could harvest algae for fuel.

-c

"Morgans" wrote:
"Jim Logajan" wrote

Corn, sugarcane, and other crops appear to be dwarfed by the energy
delivered by a family of organisms dating back nearly 3.5 billion years:

Algae.

PLUS the added bonus that it produces massive amounts of oxygen, while
consuming carbon dioxide.

True on both counts - but one could burn the entire biosphere and it would
not consume all the oxygen in the atmosphere. So the extra oxygen is no big
deal since no shortage is anticipated. Unless you are thinking of some
other advantage or use of the oxygen....