Which Carmakers Will Win—and Lose—Under New Mileage Rules

When all of this recent rise in gas prices since our current president took office, I said the price of gas will go up by memorial which has now moved to Easter time and Spring break and goes down by labor day when the fuel oil prices rose. Each year of this presidency it has steadily increased. Anybody else see the pattern here? In his final year of office when he can't continue the trend, it skyrockets. Funny how a president with an interest in the oil industry has allowed all of this to happen. I predicted all of this when he took office and people still tell me I am wrong. How wrong do I look know? Everything I predicted when he took office has taken place.

Prices could be brought down if people would smarten up to not play Washington's game, and stand up as a people so we could get reform and change. One person can't do it alone but many banding together can. Cut back on your gas use, find a friend to ride to work with and take turns. It is time to take back our borders and fight for a better tomorrow. Our country as it is now is poisoning our people in mind and body. It is making our people a bunch of drug dependent people afraid to stand up for what is right.

Fifty years ago this was a much better place to live. We didn't have all the gadgets and technology but it was a place with integrity and family values. Neighborhoods were about keeping each other safe not about not seeing if you could have more than them or how much dirt you can spread about them. Maybe giving up a lot of what we have and going back to a much simpler life could turn our world around. The depression we are heading for will do it for us because nobody will have anything. If people would step back give up some of the extras and give their kids the loving attention they need there could be a much better tomorrow. Fix family healthy meals at home from stuff grown in a family garden. Try it and see the rewards you get. Most families can't answer simple questions about who their family members are and what they like or dislike.

All of these things would decrease time on the road and make for a better tomorrow by bringing people together.Tell those around you to have a nice day. Plan block parties for neighborhoods encourages friendship and going places together such as kids sports, work, weekly shopping. Encourage carpooling whenever possible. Little things can make a huge difference!

Kathy Scherter of SC 2:59PM June 15, 2008

FIRST, let me apologize, and acknowledge, that as I write (wrote) this commentary, I did so without preparing for it. I may "ramble" and not "stay on target" for each/every topic I target here, but, if you all will just consider the totality of what I am trying to express, I hope you find it worthy of your time to read - and even, maybe, hopefully, to try to do something about these issues as a result. Now, I ramble on for your pleasure:

When I was vacationing in CA during the Oil Embargo of the 70s I thought: "Finally, America is going to get off the oil-dependency merry go round!"

HA!

It's been 30/so years since we were pushed to fighting for a place in line, on either odd or even days, depending on your license plate, to fill-up (at THOSE prices). Today there's no "rationing" even though "they" say gasoline prices are a reflection of "supply and demand".

30 years later there are protests world-wide over the recent gouging of the consumers who have had little or no choice but to purchase oil-dependent vehicles. All consumer prices that are dependent upon moving goods around the world, are getting out of reach for all but the wealthy (and even they are beginning to complain).

The Trucking Industry is being caught between that rock and hard place.

People have cut-back on spending for all manner of "non-essential" goods. Things which made life more enjoyable or easier.

Restaurants, movie theaters and similar "Service Industries" are losing ground - and the people who depended upon those jobs for their livelihoods are being "let go".

Airlines are grounding hundreds of planes, cutting back on services, increasing their fares to TRY to put a bandage on their "bleeding".

This "snowball" means that as more/more people can not keep or find jobs, is it not clear to the powers that be that the vicious cycle has begun & caused consumer spending to drop (after all - those without jobs don't have the funds to "consume").

Siphoning gas for a joy ride used to be a nuisance.

Now people are finding their gas tanks empty AND destroyed (drilling into the tanks) or gaslines being cut & perpetuated by those who are (choose one, more, or insert your own examples): (A) being "forced to find a way to get to work" because we Americans bought the dream of the Interstate System & fled the cities which used to provide all we needed; (B) "had to keep up with the Joneses (via advertising hype/whatever) to purchase SUVs, Hummers and all sorts of vehicles which are 'overkill'; (C) dishonest people & cannot ignore the "easy money" at today's gas prices; and/or (D) our "representatives" that have been bedding-down with the dregs of society and looked the other way while we continued our quest to drain every last drop of oil from beneath the surfaces (land or water) of the earth.

How short-sighted can a group BE?

Yes, I'm tired of the bulls..t!

America has, long ago, lost it's standing in the world to be innovative and caring about anything but "the bottom line" without regard to what kind of world we have perpetuated and worsened.

Daily reports of "global warming consequences" & over-done/used "sound bites" rule the airwaves. And real changes to our (shrinking) world have been ignored and put aside for "the bottom line" of these whores who campaign under the guise of honesty and the good of their constituents.

This includes, and begins with, our "representatives" in D.C. who no longer represent "the people", but themselves. (How many Americans realize that these "representatives" have, for years now, been able to raise their own salaries - without any consequence?

Their quest for the almighty contributions to recent - hideous - levels from big business is no joke. Pandering to groups for votes is rampant. Pork-barrel spending contineus to drive America into bankruptcy (and, just WHO is holding the "liens"?).

How can anyone of voting-age in the USA not feel guilt if they don't use the ballot for what it was intended? Our shameful voter turnout numbers prove many/most are just being led by the nose, to what destination?

The recent attack on the public, to keep us "afraid" by instituting more and bigger Departments of this, and that, are akin to vampires attending a bloodbank convention. These "leaders" know damned well that many people believe their crap! (Let's keep 'em scared so they don't notice how we're shoveling the money into our own bank accounts!)

I'm not saying there aren't real and dangerous people/threats in the world. But, using Bin Laden as an example - how in hell could we NOT find this guy and get him out of circulation?

We've given him more time to develop those replacements who will just step into his shoes to take over the insidious drive of hate and power.... if we ever get the guy, that is.

Recent figures on CNN were stated to be in the BILLIONS of dollars - that which the combined Primary campaigners have spent, vying to represent "the people" of this great nation (which has steadily fallen in grace and value to the world).

How could anyone actually justify these wasteful tactics for a "job" that pays less than the CEOs who head companies that, many with Regan's deregulations, have thumbed their noses at everyone?

What has become of our government, who is supposed to protect the people? Beside growing to mammoth proportions, i propose - like the Mammoths - the world as we know it will become just as extinct.

These campaign figures are glaringly overlooked and I suggest that, over the past 3 decades since that Oil Embargo, much of these campaign dollars could have been used to subsidize "a Manhattan Project" to stop the utter nonsense, and time, the D.C. groups have squandered. I'm not pointing toward any, one, camp here.

Ecologically our planet is dying - no - being euthanized!

We used to worry about air pollution, and finally there were regulations that curtailed much of that malady. More needs to be done, and can be done ,in parts of the world who continue to do what has always been done and in the ways in which they were done.

Solar power, alone, could replace much of what we "burn" every day to fire our electric plants. Removing dams developed to harness/create energy for a growing America/world could restore what, once was, the very natural world in which we, as humans, developed.

Obscene profits from the Oil Industry, Medical/Drug Industry and even LEGAL Industry (dang, there are more lawyers than doctors in MY "Yellow Pages") have all been the carrot they've lusted-after. They've done this instead of fostering what's good for our peoples, other animals with which we share this tiny orb, forests, rivers and oceans and ultimately the planet.

Polar bears are losing their habitat. Rising tides will wipe-out priceless land and wetlands (which are still being raped). Pesticides and other pollutants are sickening our people because they cannot be effectively removed from our drinking water.

Now that we can't trust our food, OR water, what will be the next life-threatening issue that will be hammered to death over the airwaves, adnauseum, and to no avail.

WAKE UP AMERICANS, and all other countries!

Take responsibility for the world in which we are leaving to future generations.

There have been many, past, cultures who honored "the land" and the natural world. Mayans, Aztecs - and now I propose - America, China, India and all the other nations who seek to live "the American Dream" are doing little, or nothing, to circumvent what's likely to be the demise of our planet as we know it.

Like any snowball gaining speed down a mountainside, the force will build-up until there is no stopping the growing and menacing crash at the bottom and those of us who live there.

A.Y. of OH 7:27PM June 05, 2008

Well...

C of PA 10:53AM June 05, 2008

It amazes me how little people understand about commodity pricing...particularly oil. The two biggest drivers of oil prices today are one, the US dollar has fallen from 82 cents to the euro to over $1.50 per euro (more than 80%!) and two, the developing world is massively increasing its consumption of all commodites...particularly oil. Added to those are the bottleneck in oil refineries caused by too low prices in the 1990's and government/environmental restrictions and the fact that there are more than a dozen government mandated fuel mixtures in the USA.

So why aren't people slowing down or driving less? Because fuel still costs less than Coca-Cola.

John Ibeling of IL 11:12AM June 04, 2008