Government, rich people, little people, and business

[€uroMeinke]

Hmmm - but if you can find a preservative for gasoline....

If they can do it for the Twinke it must be possible!

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

So what you're saying is that you're just as evil as the oil companies but not as smart?

Nah, only a republican could afford to do something like that. I was just wondering why they were too stupid to think of it.

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Hmmm - but if you can find a preservative for gasoline....

If they can do it for the Twinke it must be possible!

I think the entire Twinkie itself is a preservative. Hmmm.....Merge the two and we can call it 'Twinkaline'!

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Merge the two and we can call it 'Twinkaline'!

Sounds like the name of a gay stripper or something.

(or, maybe I'm just tired)

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Sounds like the name of a gay stripper or something.

(or, maybe I'm just tired)

Oh man, and just when I was going to request a change in my screen name to twinkaline

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Sounds like the name of a gay stripper or something.

(or, maybe I'm just tired)

How about Gwinkie?

Gasinkie?

Tasolinky?

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Tasolinky?

Gay russian stripper

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Gay russian stripper

MBC, do you need a night out on the old town?

[Not Afraid]

I think Matthew has some work to do.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

As for refineries, I'm not sure building more of bigger/better is really going to do much about the price of gas. It's a limited resource and world wide demand is on the increase. We still have it cheap - (I read an item yesterday that pegged the cost at $7 a gallon in France right now).

We're in a disturbing in-between state right now.

We're seeing an increasing number of short-term issues due to the fact that refineries are running at capacity. In times of emergency (from things as major as Katrina to as minor as a small chemical fire that causes one refinery to shut down for a few days), there's no way to pick up the slack. So every little disruption in refinery output casues pretty immediate upward fluctuation in pump price. Some of it is real, some of it is paranoia, and some of it is the companies taking advantage of the situation. So from that perspective, more refineries seems to be a good answer.

But I think that only works if those refineries exist now. If it's going to take, what, 10? 20? years, not so much. Most likely, by then, crude supply will be the limiting factor, and if there's any intelligence left in this world, alternate fuels sources will start erroding demand for petrolium. In that case, if they start opening shiny new refineries with no rude to refine and no customers to for the product, we're going to look pretty stupid.

So we're kinda screwed either way for a little while, the way I see it. There's not quick bandaid for the refinery capacity problem, and any long-term solutions will take so long as to be obsolete once they're ready for prime time. So we're just going to have to suck it up and deal with it for a while.