4 dollars a gallon...

[Drewp]

Hey Sparky,

By avoiding the housing crisis locally, i just meant the values around our state have increased (on average, not everywhere) over the past year, whereas around the country the opposite, or at least stagnant values have occured. And right now, it doesn't seem like that's the case anymore.

I don't work in the construction business, but have friends and family that do. I also have friends in real estate, and homes just aint sellin. Another thing that I have been doing just for fun, is paying close attention to seattle homes for sale on craigslist. I've been keeping track of the total number of seattle homes for sale with a price maximum of 300k for the last five months now, and the total number of homes has steadily increased every month. I know that's a pretty rudimentary survey, but it still paints a picture. Definitely a buyers market out there, but people are afraid to buy (me included).

I work on proposal budgets for a nonprofit research company, and most of our research is federally funded. Needless to say, we've been through a heavy series of layoffs in the last 5-7 months.

[Gisteppo]

Anyone who lived through the post-Nixon era knows exactly what is about to happen with our economy.

Remember the oil embargo? If OPEC decides to cut production, its going to be similar. Oil has hit all time highs, with and without adjusting for inflation.

Remember the interest rates? I know a few of you remember paying 18% on a home mortgage.

Remember skyrocketing costs of durable goods?

It is a combination of factors that received the nickname STAGFLATION. Stagnating business (like new housing starts), high interest rates (mortgages in the high teens), and massive inflation (durable goods costs through the roof) created a horrible period for the US dollar. We are already weak in the foreign currency (go to Canada, you will see what I mean. Go to Europe, its painful), our trade deficit is atrocious, we are blowing T-T-T-TRILLIONS of dollars on a war of choice, increasing national debt beyond the wildest dreams of the Reagan era politicians (hey, wasnt that Rumsfeld and Chaney too?).

Be ready. $4 a gal gas, 10-20% increases for all consumables, and a significant decrease in disposable spending will really cause a tough time on the economy. Thats why I am all about boats with less than 50hp, making the majority of what I can (furniture, boats, etc), and getting my resource needs down as far as possible (geothermal heat, min 25mpg cars, etc etc).

E

[HillbillyGeek]

I agree 100%. The "cheap gas" party is over, and we are in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately, our entire economic infrastructure is built around petroleum and it will take time to ween ourselves off of it. The national debt is a disgrace, and we will have to pay for our irresponsible spending eventually. I'm 42 years old, and might be dead by then, but you never know. Several friends of mine have moved their families to New Zealand becuase they believe a US economic collapse is inevitible. These are not ignorant or overly-paranoid people either. Most of them have master's degrees, and all of them had successful careers here in the states.
It makes me wonder if my 401k will be worth anything when I retire -- if it even exists at all. My investments are relatively conservative, but even bond funds could become worthless if we have an economic meltdown.

Will social security be there for us? I'm not counting on it.

[Anonymous]

Yep. That's why I run a little set-up...uses hardly any fuel for days of trolling and running about. The cost of prescription drugs alone has gone up about 8% in year over year, which is staggering, with all things considered. Ex: the sleep medicine Ambien has jumped 27% in price year over year.

[AdsBot [Google]]

Yep. That's why I run an 8HP motor on my Zodiac...uses hardly any fuel for days of trolling and running about. The cost of prescription drugs alone has gone up about 8% year over year, which is staggering, with all things considered. Ex: the sleep medicine Ambien has jumped 27% in price year over year.

[A9]

Higher gas prices will definitely take some more of the market share from fiberglass boats over to aluminum boats. Lighter, so thus they require much less power..

I couldn't imagine fueling up a 26' Grady with twin outboards on the back....Probably a couple hundred dollar tab to fill that big ol tank...

[AdsBot [Google]]

Higher gas prices will definitely take some more of the market share from fiberglass boats over to aluminum boats. Lighter, so thus they require much less power..

I couldn't imagine fueling up a 26' Grady with twin outboards on the back....Probably a couple hundred dollar tab to fill that big ol tank...

Try filling up a SeaSport 24XL with diesel...like $310.00...my dad picks that tab up Yeah, the Grady White Sailfish is a pain in the you know what to fuel up. It costs over $300 many of the engines are twin or triple 200's.

[Marc Martyn]

I agree 100%. The "cheap gas" party is over, and we are in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately, our entire economic infrastructure is built around petroleum and it will take time to ween ourselves off of it. The national debt is a disgrace, and we will have to pay for our irresponsible spending eventually. I'm 42 years old, and might be dead by then, but you never know. Several friends of mine have moved their families to New Zealand becuase they believe a US economic collapse is inevitible. These are not ignorant or overly-paranoid people either. Most of them have master's degrees, and all of them had successful careers here in the states.
It makes me wonder if my 401k will be worth anything when I retire -- if it even exists at all. My investments are relatively conservative, but even bond funds could become worthless if we have an economic meltdown.

Will social security be there for us? I'm not counting on it.

I agree Hillbilly, there is a collapse coming and it is going to be bad, real bad. When? Nobody really knows.

Your friends moving to NZ is interesting. You think gas is high here. The equivalent in U.S. dollars to buy gas is $7.00/gal.
Needless to say, a lot of Kiwis use mass transit. It is a beautiful country and the people are great, however it is very expensive to live there. I know because my daughter lives there and I have visited. I love NZ and have thought about moving there from time to time. But, my home is hear and I love living here also. Let's hope that the economy will turn around, somehow.

[AdsBot [Google]]

All I can say is shame on my beloved country. Shame on this country for being energy dependent on others. This great nation of ours is able to put people in space, create cyberspace, and go where no country has gone before. Yet, we have not developed a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Big money and big oil are dictating to our elected officials with their big campaign contributions. Unfortunately, in a democracy, major changes only come during a crisis. Maybe a boycott on a major oil company for lets say two weeks and then boycott another will create some competition. Maybe we would see “gas wars” like we had in the 50’s and 60’s once again. When the “big man” starts digging deep in his pocket then we will see some change. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

[Marc Martyn]

Posted on March 3, 2008 I was out this evening for a couple of hours and coming home the gas had jumped .05 cent a gallon. I run middle grade, have since the truck was new in '91. Right now it is at $3.39 and will most likely be $3.44 tomorrow morning.

Geez guys, I apologize. It went up to $3.49!!

[A9]

Shame on this country for being energy dependent on others. This great nation of ours is able to put people in space, create cyberspace, and go where no country has gone before. Yet, we have not developed a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

It's too bad we aren't sitting on a pool of oil like the middle east is. While we do have some oil below our surface, we are required to import a lot of our oil for many reasons. We have developed viable alternatives to oil, it's now about making them available to the masses. Kinda tough to drain our gas stations tanks of oil and then fill it up with biofuels and then just go back to our normal life.

A lot of blame should be put on ourselves. If we didn't absolutely guzzle oil for the past few decades, especially the last 2, then we wouldn't be in this situation. We shouldn't blame the country. We should blame ourselves. You all are the reason for our dependence on foreign oil. I don't like $4 per gallon gas at all, and I'm sure none of you do either, but I'm not going to blame the country, I'm blaming it's people, including myself, for the current oil crisis...

[Gisteppo]

Sam, I cant agree with you.

If we had ANY viable alternative, I would own it. Period.

I switched to a Toyota truck to save gas. My wife drives a VW with the little tiny turbo engine to save gas. Of all of my boats, nothing has more than 50hp. We don't drive long distances. We mitigate our fuel usage as much as physically possible. I stopped skiing in Canada and went to a much smaller ski hill (hard for me) which is closer. It doesn't stop our use, it merely reduces it.

If I could get a car that was electric and would go 60 mph for 2 hours, I would buy it in a heartbeat because that would get SWMBO to work every day. If I could get a hydrogen fuel cell car to replace my truck for skiing, I would. Any developed technology other than oil-based, Id be all over it.

Unfortunately, it actually does have something to do with the government. Government has the ability to develop technologies through tax deferral, tax exemption, and subsidization. The oil companies have MASSIVE profits, and pay taxes in the 1% range, as compared to you or I paying in the 30s. We have these oil juggernauts paying lobbyists millions of dollars a year to develop more road infrastructure, alter tax code, protect the wealthy owners from paying their fair share. Oil pipelines and fuel distribution networks. Oh and that convenient little EPA loophole where they claim the govt wont allow them to build refineries (COMPLETE BS) so that production is stifled. Its actually quite strongly tied to government.

While I do agree, though on a slightly different tack. I agree that we have gotten too fuel greedy, with very low mpg vehicles such as the massive SUV/pickups. I had a big truck for a while. After going to different countries in NA and EU, I see what we have is ridiculous. They have shipping trucks that are smaller than my old pickup. I sold it very soon after. Look also at boats. The Thumb's boat gets a whopping 23gph at 49 mph. Any guesses? 2.1 mph.

The boat I am going to replace the jet sled with is 15.5' long, goes around 30 with a 20hp motor that burns 1.5 gph. Thats 20 MPG! A little downsizing in motor and a lighter boat, but it will also be very capable of going out on calm days in the ocean.

Im sick of oil, how about you?

E

[AdsBot [Google]]

When I was a child the Russians launched a satellite the size of a grapefruit and the effect of the American people was devastating. I remember going outside and looking into the night skies for a glimps of such an unbelievable accomplishment. The effect of that little speck in space changed my life forever. Our great leaders recognized the threat and pledged our nation and its people into action. The results of those actions are well documented and should be a lesson learned. We need our leaders to recognize the current threat to our well-being and challenge our great thinkers to go outside the box. Encourage them to be creative and move their thinking away from the propulsion systems we rely on today. We need our leaders to finance research and development of alternative power. Just remember it wasn’t that long ago that the words like cyberspace, terabit, X-Box, and the computer industry that we rely on today did not even exist. Anything is possible if we put our minds to it.

[A9]

Sam, I cant agree with you.

If we had ANY viable alternative, I would own it. Period.

I switched to a Toyota truck to save gas. My wife drives a VW with the little tiny turbo engine to save gas.
E

You could be driving all diesel cars, and make the conversions necessary to run biofuel (made from vegetable oil) quite easily and at a pretty low cost. Vegetable oil just needs to burn at a different temperature then gasoline, and your engine is set up to burn gasoline at a certain temperature, so all you have to do is get your motor tweaked a tiny bit to get it to burn the vegetable oil at a higher temperature so it gets burned...

That's definitely a viable alternative. All you have to do is swing by a fast food restaraunt and ask them for their oil from their deep fryers....

[Drewp]

You're joking right Sam? You think biofuel is left over Micky D's deep frier oil poured straight into your gas tank? Haha! That's funny.

[Gisteppo]

What you are talking about is greasel. I actually helped a friend build a VW into a greasel ( www.greasel.com ). It relies on diesel fuel to start, thus requiring petroleum. Its a cool system, requires a tremendous amount of front-end work (adding the system, getting oil, 3 barrel filtering process that takes about a week per batch). I like the concept, but the reality is you burn a gallon of imported diesel every time you start the car. Still reliant.

I want a 100% diversion from petroleates. Electricity, to me, is the way to go because its zero pollutant, and we have a massive green electric infrastructure in the PNW. Fuel cells are neat, but I have concerns about the volume of water that thousands of cars would produce as exhaust.

Biodiesel is a blended fuel containing a percentage of imported diesel fuel, which is then mixed with domestic ethanol products. Its a step, but it also requires almost as much fuel to produce as it generates at the pump.

I agree its an alternative, but just a varying degree of usage of imported fuel.

E

[Anonymous]

You're joking right Sam? You think biofuel is left over Micky D's deep frier oil poured straight into your gas tank? Haha! That's funny.

Here's a pretty cool article I found about powering a 1981 diesel VW Rabbit (much like E talks about):

http://www.thevoicenews.com/news/2003/0 ... s/f01.html

I found it kinda cool - definately not a permanent solution to our problems (we are discussing here).

"Waste vegetable oil is a very economical fuel to use. It is recycling something that was used up. Restaurants pay to have it removed, so they give it to me gladly. I’m accustomed to smelling fast food—now I smell free renewable fuel! It’s like manna from heaven.The use of biodiesel and straight vegetable oil is growing. Biodiesel can be mixed with diesel for a much cleaner-burning fuel. Many towns are starting to run these mixes in school buses for the better health of their children.

Want to join the veggie oil movement? Get yourself a diesel and convert it, or join the CT Biodiesel Co-op. There are kits available at <greasel.com>. Give me a call at 860-489-9555, and I’ll be glad to help.

Two percent of the passenger cars in the United States are diesel; there is enough waste veggie oil to run a lot of these. Also, you can power your home with biodiesel and a diesel generator. In Europe, 30% of the cars are diesel, and European farmers are growing rapeseed (canola) for the production of biodiesel. Fields of yellow flowers instead of oil fields—now that’s a choice we can live with."

- David Henri (from the article link above)

[A9]

You're joking right Sam? You think biofuel is left over Micky D's deep frier oil poured straight into your gas tank? Haha! That's funny.

I didn't mean straight in. I was being very general about it. Sorry if it mislead you. Their is a time consuming process that it takes to make that oil into the stuff you can stick in your tank. But people have also done the math about the time it takes and how much it costs them in the end, and everyone I have talked to say it's under the price of gas, making it well worth the time and some say it's only costing them about $2 per gallon. While it does take time, we have to be able to make these sacrifices...

Gisteppo: electricity as it is made now isn't a "zero pollutant." Unfortunately over 45% is still made from really dirty coal plants. I also would like to see a complete change that keeps us from having to put oil in our cars. But we aren't going to get that any time soon. We need to do what we can to try and reduce consumption of oil and biofuels are an opportunity...

[michaelunbewust]

im 50-50 on sam's reply. i, too, gave up my big silverado when the rear-end went out. i've been utilizing public transportation since. we did purchase a new grand cherokee, but, it sits in my girl's yard, and, we will use it to pull the boat or her dad's trailer. i've been putting the $400 a month i was spending on gas and insurance into a seprate savings account. i now will go on the ultimate fishing trip next january with my son, that i would never had been able to afford with my big truck. sitting on the bus heading home from work, i sit and scratch my head at all the big king-cab trucks with a single person in it driving home from work. 1 day from kent to renton (a 20 minute bus ride), i counted 232 trucks/suv's with single driver's. a huge waste!!! on that note, i would have to tend to agree with sam, on the other hand, just like gisteppo said, the government is right in the middle of all this, with the big oil companies. its going to be real interesting and scary to face these next few years to see if anything changes!!

[A9]

im 50-50 on sam's reply. i, too, gave up my big silverado when the rear-end went out. i've been utilizing public transportation since. we did purchase a new grand cherokee, but, it sits in my girl's yard, and, we will use it to pull the boat or her dad's trailer. i've been putting the $400 a month i was spending on gas and insurance into a seprate savings account. i now will go on the ultimate fishing trip next january with my son, that i would never had been able to afford with my big truck. sitting on the bus heading home from work, i sit and scratch my head at all the big king-cab trucks with a single person in it driving home from work. 1 day from kent to renton (a 20 minute bus ride), i counted 232 trucks/suv's with single driver's. a huge waste!!! on that note, i would have to tend to agree with sam, on the other hand, just like gisteppo said, the government is right in the middle of all this, with the big oil companies. its going to be real interesting and scary to face these next few years to see if anything changes!!

Good for you on taking that sweet fishing trip with your son...Where you guys headed to?

Dang 232 gas guzzling vehicles.. thats a headache. Tough to count that high and pay attention.