$7/gal gas predicted w/i 2 years.....

[Butch Edwards]

..or $200/BBl for crude...either way, the American family is in for a very tough row to hoe.... those who are financed to the teeth will suffer most. I've tried to tell my kids to save,save,save..and I know it's tough when you're just starting out, but ya gotta start sometime. Drive a used car, instead of new... buy smaller house... cut back on entertainment spending... spend vacations @ home... BE THRIFTY WITH YO MONEY!!!

[Peter Quadarella]

It will drive innovation for alternative fuel. With billions of dollars in potential earnings, companies will be going nuts trying to come up with the next gasoline. And at that cost, there will be plenty of people looking to jump ship on gas. Not that I think it's a good thing - it seems to me that the flow of oil is in too few hands, and they can almost set whatever price they want at this point.

[mark page]

The consequences of the price of fuel is hitting harder in areas of the inner KC area. Besides the costs of fuel per gallon, people are getting hit with ice picks through their fuel tanks for fuel theft. Also a prediction that I make, and it's probably already happening in places, is going to be the theft of license plates to throw off the follow ups on fuel station "drive-aways".

[Rob Russell]

...either way, the American family is in for a very tough row to hoe...

Butch,

I give you a LOT of credit for using the phrase properly. I've heard so many folks talk about "a tough road to hoe" that I gave up explaining where the phrase came from.

As someone who helped out on my grandfather's farm in CT (rocky New England soil), I truly understand the real meaning of "a tough row to hoe".



Rob

[Dennis Peacock]

Butch,

Stay with your kids on that buddy. I've been teaching my kids the very same thing as it's not going to get any cheaper to "survive" any more. Hang tough buddy....and yes....it IS "a tough row to hoe".

[Mike Henderson]

It will drive innovation for alternative fuel. With billions of dollars in potential earnings, companies will be going nuts trying to come up with the next gasoline. And at that cost, there will be plenty of people looking to jump ship on gas. Not that I think it's a good thing - it seems to me that the flow of oil is in too few hands, and they can almost set whatever price they want at this point.

It will also drive fuel efficiency. Maybe plug in hybrids, maybe solutions we haven't even thought of yet. It may also drive people to live closer to cities and their work. But the transition will be painful.

Mike

[Joe Mioux]

Plant a garden and learn to can.

Also, I have been buying E-85 for my 1999 Plymouth Voyager. I lose 4 milers per gallon, but Reg is now $3.96 and e85 is 3.10. The cost is still bad, but not as bad as reg.

joe

[Jeffrey Makiel]

If we hit $7 per gallon in that short of a timeframe, I fear that our economy will take a devastating hit, and it won't matter if you use a bicycle to go to work, you will be squeezed.

Everything requires fuel for its creation, transportation or marketing. I am talking about the basic needs of life. Even if you live like a hermit, the taxation system will seek you out since all public services will cost a fortune.

There is no escape. Not in this short of a timeframe.

As a nation, we did not learn much from the 1970s gas crisis. Most folks today that are 40 years old and younger did not consciously experience this crisis. That's probably over half the population of our country today.

I remember the older folks many years ago as being non-materialistic. They always preached that one should saved for a rainy day. They also experienced the great depression. I bet that 95% of the folks today did not consciously experience the depression. This may explain our lack of a decent energy policy as well as our willingness to accept enormous national and personal debt.

I'm getting depressed....Jeff

[C Scott McDonald]

High prices generally fix high prices.

Around here at least traffic is still bumper to bumper on weekends. Until depand drops the prices wont either.

It is interesting that Iran said they where going to cut back on production. Why? They can't find anybody to buy it. They are storing the oil in tankers off the iranian coast.

Something doesnt add up with this deal and it will fix itself soon.

This is the first in four weeks there has been a decline in inventories. But gasoline inventories are up.

There will be a melt down soon.

[Andrew Derhammer]

Read this http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080521/...o/oil_congress
Personally IMHO the gov. should set a standard on what the price should be week to week depending on supply and demand not what these money hogging oil slobs decide on doing. The gov. should also put more money into making the machines to convert trash to light crude. We have the technology it's just not out there main stream.

[Greg Peterson]

Suppose we let the oil companies drill in the Arctic reserve. And suppose further there is a substantial amount of oil.

What rule of free market enterprise would prevent the oil company from getting the current market price per barrel? At this time, $130 will buy you a barrel of crude oil. Why would the oil company sell a barrel for less than this amount? They won't sell it at a cut rate price out of patriotism. They're going to get as much per barrel as they can.

The whole 'drill our way out of it' is nothing less than opening up more oil fields for oil companies.

We need to rethink how we store and use energy. Petroleum is a portable, flexible, adaptable form of energy. But it's old technology.

$7/gallon? That'll actually be good for the long term. Which by the way is a perspective that has been ignored for quite awhile and we are now reaping the results of our failure to think beyond the next quarterly report. Going to be a lot of pain in the meanwhile. But $7/gallon gas will make a whole lot of energy options very competitive. And once people adapt they may find that there are advantages to breaking out of the oil based economy paradigm. For starters, imagine your suburban home, off grid.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Part of the problem with the oil and the stock market for that matter is today's communications and the speed at which folks can communicate and OVERREACT to an "urban" rumor....or an internet rumor.


Think about this. With the way the stock market can be accessed today, some idiot gets on CNBC or on a board like SMC and makes a statement that while based on some facts, is, mostly a subjective speculative point of view...it's extemely biased. Biased views are often far from being objective and therefore far from being correct. So we get some guy, who the television talking heads, introduces him as an "expert". Now, this guy based on his extremely biased point of view (which could as wrong as can be) makes a prediction and a lot of folks based on misinformation fed by this media promoted "expert" immediately start making stock market trades using their computers and a "rush" on the market happens and the market dips. It happens everyday. The talking heads are there to do two things..1. sell advertisement and 2. have trades happen. If they can cause people to trade stocks, the traders or the trading companies they work for , make money.

The same analogy works on the oil futures. Somebody comes along and predicts $7/ gallon gasoline and the oil is already $130 a barrel and people start buying the stuff at $130 because "it's going to go up and we are going to have $7.00/gallon gas."

Having rapid access to buy and sell stocks....Yeah it's good for the trading companies that handle the trades. But it's also bad.....very bad...it's what make today's stock market volitile......

The people who write books and tell of the future terrible depressions...maybe......But frankly, they make their money selling books. A dull book telling eveyone to put money in a savings account.....invest some money......and spend some money .....pay off your house mortgage..don't abuse credit....if 99.99% of the time you can't pay off that credit card at the end of the month...get rid of the card and pay off the balance....that's dull and won't sell books or make news. Instead they make their money by predicting doom and gloom. And the talking heads, they put the doom-and-gloom guy on because they want to hold that audience and sell more advertisements. Good news doesn't hold the audience. When is the last time on a national "news" channel, they spent more than 5 minutes in a week showing acts of "good news"....that Dennis Peacock and his family helped a neighbor recover from the effects of tornado in the rural area of Arkansas where they live. When did you see a national news story about a couple of woodworking websites memberships take up collections to help a professional woodworker whose shop roof was collapsed by an early winter storm...or that a major w/w manufacturer contributed a brand new tool to that unlucky individual. Look around you ....there are acts of kindness in each and every neighborhood in this country but very few of those stories get broadcast.

You want to say the previous generations were wiser? They might have been.

The remembered their kindergarden reading:


"The sky is falling.....the sky is falling!"

They also remember what happened to the little boy who always ran around yelling "Wolf!......Wolf!"

[Steven Hardy]

High prices generally fix high prices.

Around here at least traffic is still bumper to bumper on weekends. Until depand drops the prices wont either.

It is interesting that Iran said they where going to cut back on production. Why? They can't find anybody to buy it. They are storing the oil in tankers off the iranian coast.

Something doesnt add up with this deal and it will fix itself soon.

This is the first in four weeks there has been a decline in inventories. But gasoline inventories are up.

There will be a melt down soon.

I agree. So many keep saying supply and demand.. some speculators are going to get buned hard....just like the Hunt brothers did with silver.

Some cool news:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...ural-gas_N.htm

[Keith Outten]

Hydrogen Gas is the fuel of the future.

Demand that your representatives support the conversion of our Country to hydrogen.

Hydrogen gas can be produced in your back yard and power your home, business and automobiles in a unit the size of a heat pump with a solor panel. The Japanese have a hydrogen powered home that has been operating for three years, it is totally self sustaining and it produces the fuel for the home owners automobiles.

Zero pollution and an unlimited supply. If someone would design a small unit for your back yard there would be no taxes or fuel bills and all the free energy necessary to operate your home.

Big Oil and Big Government don't want you to use hydrogen fuel

.

[Lance Norris]

If someone would design a small unit for your back yard there would be no taxes or fuel bills and all the free energy necessary to operate your home.

No taxes... right. I'll believe that when I see it.