| | Bush warns of 'tough summer'
| theresident 
User ID: 84630
4/23/2006 2:09 AM
Report abusive post | Bush warns of 'tough summer'
| Quote |
US President George W. Bush has warned rising oil prices will mean a "tough summer" for US consumers as the high cost of gasoline (petrol) showed signs of becoming a big political issue.
But even as more Americans expressed discontent over the price of filling up their gas tanks, Bush suggested there was little his government could do in the short term about the problem.
"We're going to have a tough summer because people are beginning to drive now during tight supply," Bush said as he toured a California facility developing hydrogen-powered vehicles.
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here."
Bush spoke after a week of unremitting rises in prices in global crude oil markets and at gasoline (petrol) pumps across the country. Crude topped a record 75 dollars per barrel in New York trading Friday, five dollars up from a week earlier.
At the same time, US retail pump prices were topping an average three dollars a gallon (3.8 liters) in many places in the country, up 60 cents -- 33 percent -- from a year ago.
The sharp rises on the eve of the US summer, during which millions of people fly or drive on holiday, showed signs of becoming a major political issue for the struggling Bush administration ahead of November mid-term elections.
But even as the president stressed Saturday that the government was making efforts to protect consumers from price-gouging, he said there was little he could do in the short term to alleviate the impact of higher oil prices.
"We've got a real problem when it comes to oil. We're addicted, and it's harmful for the economy, and it's harmful for our national security," he said.
"I understand the folks here, as well as other places in the country, are paying high gas prices.
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here," he said, referring to skyrocketing oil demand in the booming economies of India and China.
Bush also blamed the higher prices on a shortage of refinery capacity in the United States, and also on an ongoing shift in fuel additives and mixes that has caused supply hiccups in certain areas.
"When that price of gasoline goes up, it hurts working people. It hurts our small businesses. And it's a serious problem we've got to do something about. The federal government has a responsibility, by the way, to make sure ... there is no price gouging," he added.
The political importance of gasoline prices before the summer break was clear as both opposition Democrat and Republican lawmakers spent the week taking the administration to task over the issue and asking if oil companies were exploiting the situation.
Senator Bill Nelson called Friday for "more dramatic steps" to lessen US dependence on foreign oil.
Dennis Hastert, the Republican head of the House of Representatives, and Senate Republican majority chief Bill Frist said they planned to write Bush a letter calling for an investigation into possibly price manipulation by oil companies.
While the oil companies deny any manipulation, public confidence was eroded at the recent report that exiting Exxon Mobil executive Lee Raymond was getting a 400 million dollar retirement package.
[link to www.breitbart.com] |
| Redheaded Stepchild nli
User ID: 64391
4/23/2006 2:31 AM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
Bush sez:
"...We've got a real problem when it comes to oil. We're addicted, and it's harmful for the economy, and it's harmful for our national security," he said. ..."
Addicted? Yeah, no sheet, Batman! Biggest user of oil is the US military.
““Military fuel consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities makes the DoD the single largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S.” [link to www.energybulletin.net]
With careful conservation, there might be enough oil to run the nation's business and economy IF we didn't have Iraqnam.
Redhead
 |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 84678
4/23/2006 2:34 AM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
this 'Peak Oil' is a lot of crap, so they can gouge us consumers-for as much as they want
Just like 'Peak Electricity' was used by ENRON to gouge the old ladies in California-while they laughed about it! |
| Atma
User ID: 74028
4/23/2006 7:58 AM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
Bush should talk to his family friends in the Gulf.
Sat Apr 22, 7:38 PM ET [link to news.yahoo.com]
KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Energy-rich Gulf Arab states have reaped the fruits of high crude prices, posting record oil revenues of about 300 billion dollars last year, and are set to increase their windfall in 2006.
Last year's oil income of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which holds at least 45 percent of proven global crude reserves, is double the earnings in 2003 and more than three times the level of revenues in 2001.
The GCC, which groups OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and non-OPEC Oman and Bahrain, have earned more than 800 billion dollars from oil in the past five years.
Economic reports forecast that oil revenues in 2006 would swell by up to 50 billion dollars over last year. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 84740
4/23/2006 8:20 AM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
"The American people have got to understand what happens elsewhere in the world affects the price of gasoline you pay here."
The idiot in the white house has to understand that its him that causes whats happen elsewhere in the world...
He won't probably, as all idiots.
Sure may be the tough summer only. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 84518
4/23/2006 8:45 AM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
Its almost cheaper now to buy the refined gasoline from Kuwait @ .19 cents a gallon and have it shipped over here under a private label. Even with the federal tax it would still be cheaper. |
| Zaphod Beeblbrox
User ID: 83027
4/23/2006 9:07 AM
 | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
The government makes sure there is no price gouging?  Ah george, you're the funniest guy!!!!
Considering we could have been on a hydrogen economy FIFTY FUCKING YEARS AGO.
New World Order credo:
The whole world will learn of our peaceful ways, BY FORCE!!! |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 84780
4/23/2006 12:01 PM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
 |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 13931
4/23/2006 12:11 PM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
Bushie's only tough summer would be one without ethanol. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 33833
4/23/2006 12:21 PM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
gas shortages got this in email today from a friend
Please spread the word.
>WHAT GAS SHORTAGE??
>
>I just think everyone should know... I am a tugboat sailor. The gas
shortage
>is totally bogus. There are "fleets" all up and down the gulf coast that
you
>don't know about. They consist of hundreds and thousands of tank barges
that
>we tie up daily that are filled with millions of gallons of fuel. The big
>companies pump their fuel into the barges and as long as the fuel is in a
>barge it is considered offshore and not part of the reserve. So, there are
>millions of gallons of fuel tied up to spud barges all through the bays,
>intracoastal inlets, and canals all up and down the coast that the
companies
>don't have to report. They fabricate the shortage by pumping their millions
>of gallons of fuel and hide them in these fleets creating the shortage so
>they can make their multi billion dollar gains while we can't afford the
gas
>at the pump. I've never in my life asked anyone to forward anything, but
>this has me fuming. Accidental pun now intended. With many voices, we can
>put a stop to this.
>
>James F. Ransdell
>
> |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 3160
4/23/2006 12:26 PM | | Re: Bush warns of 'tough summer' | Quote |
Rising Gas Prices Hit Poor Hardest
By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer
Sat Apr 22, 9:10 PM ET
For most Americans, today's rising gasoline prices are an annoyance, not a serious financial hardship.
Then there are people like Kenneth and Edith Taylor of Baltimore, who already struggle to make their monthly social security checks of less than $1,700 last by cooking casseroles and soups at home instead of eating out and forgoing new clothes for as long as possible. Now, with neighborhood pump prices averaging $2.85 a gallon, the Taylors say they simply cannot afford the 80-mile roundtrip to visit their daughter more than once a month.
"There and back is $10 worth of gasoline," said 84-year-old Kenneth, who used to make the trip in his Buick LeSabre at least every other week.
The Taylor family's increasing frugality may be a drop in the bucket for the world's most voracious energy consuming nation, but it is not inconsequential and could be the start of a broader trend.
Recent government and industry data show that America's consumption of gasoline is not rising as rapidly as it was this time last year, and analysts say families living on fixed or modest incomes usually are the first to cut back. If prices continue to rise, other demographic groups expected to trim their gasoline consumption are young adults, who tend to have less pocket change than their elders, and people living in rural parts of Texas and Wyoming, where long drives are a routine part of life.
Jim Magagna, a sheep rancher and the executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said it requires a lot of transportation fuel to manage crops and livestock, and that makes it difficult to significantly curtail consumption on a day-to-day basis. However, ranchers he knows are finding ways to scrimp, for example, using four-wheel all-terrain vehicles instead of pickup trucks to get around their properties.
And because most ranchers live 30 miles or more from the closest grocery, drug store or bank, "they may make one trip to town per week instead of two," said Magagna.
If there is going to be any significant decline in energy prices this year, "it is going to start with softening demand," said Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover Inc., an energy market advisory firm based in New Canaan, Conn.
A.G. Edwards & Sons commodities analyst Bill O'Grady explained that because of constraints in oil production and refining "very small increases in demand bring about outsized gains in prices. Likewise, a very small drop in demand would have a similar but opposite impact. That's the part that's going to surprise people."
So far, though, the evidence points to only a miniscule shift in behavior nationwide, and no deceleration in prices.
Wachovia Corp. economist Jason Schenker said he expects the most price-sensitive Americans to continue cutting back on gasoline where they can, and that their spending on other goods is also likely taper off. However, this should only be felt at the margins of total economic growth, which will remain steady at about 3.5 percent in 2006, he said, because employment and wages are rising.
"What happens in those lower quintiles is not indicative of what happens in aggregate," Schenker said.
But corporate America is responding.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest retailer, warned earlier this week that it expected reduced sales throughout 2006 from its least wealthy customers, and the company highlighted its strategy to market more higher-end goods to maintain growth. And after reporting a $92 million first-quarter loss, AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, the country's largest carrier, said it would mothball 27 of its most inefficient aircraft.
The Energy Department released data this week showing that average daily gasoline demand since the beginning of the year rose 0.9 percent. That compares with an increase of 1.4 percent during the same period last year.
Meantime, retail gasoline prices, which average $2.86 nationwide, have risen by about 60 cents a gallon since the start of the year due to a combination of rising oil prices, dwindling supplies and jitters about possible supply disruptions when the Gulf of Mexico hurricane season begins in June.
There is additional concern this year about the availability of ethanol, a corn-derived fuel that is helping to replace a gasoline additive known as MTBE, which enables fuel to burn more cleanly but is being phased out next month because it has been found to contaminate drinking water. Some fuel distributors say they are already experiencing logistical challenges as terminal owners drain their tanks of MTBE-laced gasoline in preparation for the switch to ethanol blends.
Stuart Lowry, director of marketing at Tiger Fuel Co. in Charlottesville, Va., said retailers may have to wait longer than usual for deliveries until the transition is complete, meaning tanks could briefly go empty — a supply hiccup he refers to as "ethanol hell."
Of course, for many families it is their wallets, not their fuel tanks, that are in real danger of running on empty.
The effect of rising gasoline prices shouldn't be viewed in isolation, said Carol Clements, chair of the National Fuels Fund Network, which provides emergency financial assistance to poor families that cannot pay their electricity or home-heating bills. "All of these energy costs are having a compounding effect," she said. "We're seeing more people bumped from middle and working class to low-income and poverty situations."
At a Wal-Mart in Marietta, Ga., Ray Ernst waited for his wife in the parking lot Friday as she went in to buy a toy for their 6-year-old granddaughter, but he was quick to say the couple wasn't there to browse. The 69-year-old worker for a medical claim processing company said $3-a-gallon gas has forced him to cut back on nonessential items.
"We watch groceries a little closer too," said Ernst. "We aren't buying appliances. I get what I need and try to cut down on what I don't."
Similarly, Caroline Kirk of Highland Park, Texas, has found items that were once on her necessities list have now moved into the luxuries category.
"Blueberries, I love them, but they are $3.99 a pint," Kirk said. "I don't have to buy those right now, but I have to buy gas."
In contrast, the Taylors of Baltimore, and other families barely making it from check to check, are making sacrifices that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't dream of.
Late last year, with electricity and home-heating bills soaring, Kenneth Taylor tried to pinch pennies by not taking his high-blood-pressure medications as frequently as prescribed. He soon collapsed and landed himself in the hospital. His wife Edith now makes sure Kenneth doesn't repeat that mistake, but other spending cuts will certainly be made and the couple has not ruled out selling their car.
"You have to give things up," she said.
___
Associated Press Writers Steve Quinn in Dallas and Harry Weber in Marietta, Ga., contributed to this report.
[link to news.yahoo.com] |
| SS
User ID: 84940
4/23/2006 11:18 PM
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