Exxon's 3rd quarter profit was $5 million PER HOUR, or 120 million per day, 3/4 billion per week... pathetic totally pathetic, and the government just lets it go on

I personally wish energy cost TWICE as much.

The only thing I want the gov to do is add hefty taxes, that go straight into alternative energy dev. The companies can profit as much as they dare as far as I am concernced. Until the idiot consumer wakes up and makes different choices.

You can pay half my gas bill then

oil is the drug....we have the addiction,....and THEY KNOW IT!!!

Eric is right. the only way alternative energy will be developed is if money is involved. that means heavy taxation on the method we are going away from to subisize what we want to go to.

What about the "idiot consumer" who can't afford to buy a new Prius? There are millions of peole who were barely able to afford a car so they could do the things that you and I take for granted every day. Some people are ahving to cut back on things like food simply to be able to drive to work. How about them? Or are they simpy idiots for being poor...

Not everyone has as wonderful a life as you. I'm not one to talk either. I've got way too many toys. But at least I take into consideration those who don't.


Dave, are we also going to susidize new cars for thoise who can't afford the alternative fuel ones?

It reminds me of a parallel situation occuring right now. Digital TV. For you and me it may seem like a great idea. Hi-def picture, 5.1 surround sound, and so on. Wonderful. Well, I'm all set, we've got three HD TV's. No worries right?

Well, when the final change over to pure digital takes place, who gets screwed. Those same "idiot consumers" who didn't buy an HDTV, those who couldn't afford them.

So now suddenly half the country won't be able to watch TV. THey can always get a D/A converter box to watch, but they'd have to buy that too. Or they could just get cable or satellite. There's been talk of subsidizing those as well, but the idea bombed. Who wants to pay for someone elses stuff?

Now I admit, watching TV is far different from driving, but it draws a nice parallel.

been advocating that since i joined this site. over half of the polution is created by the 25% of the cars on the road that are not properly maintained and driven by people who cannot afford anything better. these cars belch smoke, burn a disproportionate amount of gas, and leak oil and anti-freeze (a single cup of anti-freeze does more damage to the environment than driving a new car over 100,000 miles and over 85% of anti-freeze that is used is leaked out of these cars!!)

an exchange program that would permanently take these cars off the road and replace them with small efficient well running vehicles is what we need to do. part of that program would be regular inspections to insure that these cars continue to run well.

Vijay,

There are a world of choices in between Prius and nothing.

Used Honda Civics, and other economy cars that get over 30 mpg
Car pooling
Local vacations rather than 2000 mile private auto jaunts
Sweaters in the winter
Sun filtered windows in the summer
Personal fans instead of full-house AC
Home close to work, rather than distant suburbia
...
...

The list is endless, and I have no sympathy for people who are too lazy or spoiled to do otherwise. In case you are wondering (and I expect you will ask), the short list above includes, but is not an exhaustive list of things I do/have done.

Once again you seem to miss the point. I'm speaking of the huge number of people who CAN'T AFFORD even a used Civic. They certaily don't take 2000 mile trips. They likely don't have whole house AC either. THey probaly do use sweaters and blankets in the winter, because they can't afford to heat it all the time. Many of these people don't have a choice of where they can work, they take whatever job (or likely jobs) they can get simply to pay the bills. Double their gas costs, and they are in serous trouble.

I agree that the things you listed are wonderfully effective IF you have the luxury of doing so. I'm talking about people like the ones that were criticized for not leaving New Orleans before the storm. They couldn't afford to. Fine, maybe they could get out of the city to a safe place, then what? No money for a hotel, you used all that gettting there. Those people. I'm not even slightly referring to people who are too lazy or spoiled. They still have a choice, and are choosing not to change. That's their right. If they want to drive an H2, that's fine with me, but just don't complain about the gas prices. And when it comes down to it, if they wanted to they COULD change their life as you suggested. The people I'm taling about simply CAN'T.

There are a lot more people in that economic situation than in yours and mine. I have no symathy for the lazy and spoiled either, they deserve none, but I do for these people. Most are very hard working, and yet they still can't seem to get anywhere.

I am in full agreement about the point you made. In fact, that's where I came from. That's where I was for years. That's where a number of my close, close friends still are.

I have watched one of my friends go through car after car when they failed, because she couldn't come up with more than $200 at a time and that won't buy you much. I watched her take a job at Chuck-E-freaking-Cheese for $6 an hour, part time, because that's all she could come up with and she was that desperate. She didn't have enough money to feed herself and her daughter, so she starved herself. You think she had a couple grand to buy a used Civic?? You think anyone would finance that kind of situation? And how would she make the monthly payment?

I am the only person I know who has taken any kind of vacation (well, if going home to visit family counts) in the last 5 years, with the single exclusion of my friends who got married in Key West last fall. Vacation time is used up when someone gets sick and needs to be taken care of, because they can't afford to take time off without pay and spring for doctor bills, prescriptions, OTC meds, you name it. Hell. You think someone like that has time or money for a couple-thousand mile vacation?? You must be out of your mind.

These people live wherever they can afford to, and work wherever they can find a job. If there's a distance between point a and point b, they can't afford to up and move for a job that might not even last a full year.

This stuff is not an option for these people. They do whatever it takes to stay afloat in this world. They're not wasting their money because they have no money. They overpay for under-insulated crap apartments in the worst part of town where the police sirens wake the kids up at night. They pay astronomical heat bills to keep the house at 60 degrees. And their landlords don't really give a *&%^ as long as the rent money comes in.

I think most people here are way too far removed from that kind of life to have any capacity to understand.

sorry, double post

Vijay, you would be surprised how many confuse CANNOT with UNWILLING.

What fraction of your cannot group smoke tobacco, do you think ?
What fraction could take the bus, if integrated with 5 miles of walking a day ?
What fraction could afford a bicycle ?

I admitted a woman to the hospital last week with a mechanical heart valve. She had stopped taking warfarin months ago, because "she could not afford it". She smokes a pack of cigs daily. She is not an anomaly, I assure you.

Galaxee, my house rarely hits 60F in the winter, and I am still alive. Comfortable, actually; although I do wear a couple layers of clothing.

I bought my first car when I was 28. I rode a bicycle all through medical school, up to 20 miles/day during my clinical rotations -- and that does not include bicycling to night-work two or three times weekly. I finished with no debt.

Choices.

I'm sorry, last bit to my rant: Do not presume that I am ignorant of poverty. I grew up in a ghetto, in a single mother family. I have been working since age 12.

oh god.

if you're in the healthcare business you should be well aware that smoking is kind of addictive. you know, just a little bit. and it's not exactly as easy for people to up and quit, as you make it sound.

not that i'm defending smoking or anything, but it's not something most people can just give up just like that.

let's look at it this way. when my husband smoked, it was maybe a pack every 2 days. back then, that was around $3 a pack. so around 15 packs a month was $45. but when he quit, he took zyban and used the nicotine transdermal patch. that cost us well over $160 a month (no insurance, not like they would have covered it anyway) and financially, it was almost easier to have him continue smoking. but i made the budget work for his health's sake. we went without a lot of things while he was quitting. that's a budget many people can't afford. and many people just can't quit without some kind of outside chemical assistance. sad truth.

you don't mention where you live, but i lived in WI all my life until i graduated from college. we lived in a house that had more holes in it than you can imagine. the frigid drafts would come up the stairs from the door that did not seal and we often had snowdrifts in our entryway. the city would not help us, the landlord did nothing. without the heat on near full blast it would have been 40something in the house, and the pipes would have frozen. we paid near $220 a month in the wintertime to keep the house at 58. we turned it down to 50 when we left the house.

58 isn't fantastic when you're trying to warm frozen toes that have spent half an hour walking around in the snow. we still have all sorts of blankets laying around the house out of habit.

i imagine you also didn't have kids that you had to haul around on your bike.

oh and did you have to bike on snow and ice for 5 months a year and wonder every day whether you were going to be hit and killed by a car? i did.

you're not really succeeding here in comparing yourself to what i'm talking about.

I have a fair understanding of the pharmacology,physiology, and psychology related to tobbaco abuse.

'Addiction' is often portrayed as an absolute, when it is anything but. Degrees of craving and physical discomfort exist across a wide spectrum. I have met literally hundreds of people who tried to quit tobbaco and failed, and eventually succeded after their first heart attack. The addiction was the same, the motivations differed.

I see people in heroin withdrawl routinely. Tobacco withdrawl is nothing (at least outside of the psychiatry settting). If you can pay for a crutch, by all means; but it is not a neccesity.

But going back to the question of choices: who forced the habit on your husband ?

I am not trying to portray myself as the most miserable creature ever. I am trying to point out that relatively minor sacrifices and smart choices would allow vast segments of the US population to conserve energy and money, EVEN if the price of energy doubled.

Not everybody.

To answer your question, I did not bicycle in Buffalo winters. I thought it safer to walk.

Time for a thread hijack. (Replying primarily to Galaxee's post)

With regards to the smoking issue. Does anyone remember the Tobacco industry settlement. The purpose for the suit as originally filed by the State Attorney General (of Alabama, I think) and joined by other Attorneys General around the country was to provide states money to cover the medical costs of smoking and build smoking cessation programs. What have those State goverments done instead... Used the money as a slush fund for thier pet projects. At its best my state Idaho put 10% of it's settlement into smoking related issues. Last year they provided even less. The smoking cessation counselor I refer to used to be able to run her classes on some of that money. Now her classes rely on student payouts.

Ericgo has forgotten/never knew how truly addictive tobacco is. As currently manufactured, more addictive than most of our illegal street drugs. But the point still remains. Smoking does eat up a significant portion of disposable (and non-disposable) income for many. And States continue to redirect money that should be put to helping the situation for other things.