What was more useful to consumers, $700 billion bailout of banks, insurance companies and Wall Street, $180 billion to AIG ...or $1 billion that brought families scrambling for a $4,500 rebate on a new car that may save them $1K a year in gas, a 200 % rise in dealership traffic and a few car factories working overtime.
Clunker Class War - nyt.com/blog
Plug in "Cash for Clunkers" on YouTube and you get a stream of dramatic engine explosions with glove donned car technicians pouring in sodium silicate (liquid glass) and performing the not so painless death to vehicles.
They are often hooting and carrying on with the same glee that I might get from smashing a computer or a camera at the end of a long week.
Some of my friends in the used car business respond to these videos like an animal lover exposed to senseless pet murders.
Top Purchased
1. Ford Focus (built in Wayne, Mich.)
2. Toyota Corolla (assembled by Toyota in either California or Ontario)
3. Honda Civic (95% are built in Indiana or Ontario of U.S. made engines)
4. Toyota Prius (Japan)
5. Toyota Camry ("almost all" of the Camrys sold here are assembled at plants in Kentucky and Indiana)
6. Ford Escape FWD (Kansas City)
7. Hyundai Elantra (South Korea)
8. Dodge Caliber (Belvidere, Illinois)
9. Honda Fit (Japan)
10. Chevrolet Cobalt (Lordstown, OH)
Ford turned its first sales increase since November 2007, with the top seller from a sacrificed clunker. Ironically, Ford is the top clunker
The webpage with the cool statistics ( Google power meter - Greenmesh 2/09) is plugging into eight utilities and their customers by providing gadgets and info to track home electricity use. Check out the cool graphing.
The Google PowerMeter includes a that graph displays energy use hour by hour, and the users can view consumption totals day to day, across a week or more. The information displays in box that sits on a user's personalized iGoogle homepage.greenbiz.com
...well, maybe there is a 10% +/- chance that certain death won't occur. Even though an 80% chance of contracting cancer and dying from a drug would flip the panic switch at the FDA, a 90% chance of global warming is unlikely to create the same panic.
President Barack Obama will announce today that automakers must meet average U.S. fuel-economy standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, four years sooner than previously planned, a senior administration official said.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a 2007 report there's a 90 percent certainty that greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, cars and other human activities are causing higher temperatures and sea levels, potentially leading to dangerous climate change.
Former President George W. Bush balked at the idea of reducing emissions when he took office in 2001. Many automakers including "green" Toyota concurred since large vehicles were profitable and desirable.
Fast forward nine years.
The plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 900 million metric tons through 2016, the senior administration official said. In 2016, meeting the standards will cost automakers $600 a vehicle in addition to the $700-a-car cost automakers face under standards in existing law, the official said.
Also in 2016, light trucks would have to meet a standard of 30 mpg, and the average for cars would be 39 mpg.
bloomberg.com
General Motors plans to sell cars in the United States that it makes in China, starting in 2011. That could make GM the first major automaker to import Chinese cars to the U.S. market. The car maker expects to sell about 17,335 of the China-made vehicles in the United States in 2011, and triple that number to 51,546 in 2014, a planning document circulated by GM among U.S. lawmakers Automotive News - May 11
I like the concept of free trade. I like the concept of a free market. I have also made huge donations in the past ten years with my shrinking retirement funds and my future quality of life to the money grabbers of the free market and their Ponzi scheme economy.
A CEO somewhere down the line at GM in 2014 will make millions for taking my current tax dollars, my sweat of labor, my quality of life and send them to China because he will say it is more profitable for GM. I don't see Ford in the running for this achievement and they aren't taking my tax money right now just to survive.
This is the free market.
I also don't have to buy the product.
This is also the free market.
I am not a protectionist or free-market thinker. I am both.
The daily voice of the Obama campaign, manager and adviser David Plouffe slipped into history after the election.
He recently purchased a Ford Fusion Hybrid (41 mpg city and 36 mpg) in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. usnews.com
The benchmark for crude oil prices is West Texas Intermediate.
The price of West Texas Crude continues to stay low because our economy is more of a mess than other places and demand for fuel here is weak.
Unfortunately, most of our refineries are set-up to process grades of oil from foreign sources that are normally cheaper than our own crude so the infrastructure isn't in place to pipe and process our own cheaper crude beyond Texas.
Not that it would matter much because refiners are also reducing production to avoid taking losses on gasoline no one will buy. The reduced production causes prices to rise. AP
I will leave you with a chorus of "Drill baby drill !"
The Obama administration is reconsidering California's plan to increase the fuel economy of cars sold in the Golden State and 13 others to 35 miles per gallon by 2016.
The Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and Smart Fortwo are currently the only cars with an EPA combined rating of better than 35 mpg. Later this year, the Ford Fusion Hybrid and Honda Insight will join the list. foxnews.com
US history of vehicle efficiency (epa.gov)
1. a rapid increase from 1975 through the early 1980s, (Arab Oil embargo)
2. a slower increase until reaching its peak in 1987,
3. a gradual decline until 2004 (17 years of decline)
4. an increase beginning in 2005. (Spike in fuel prices)
I followed a retired York police officer (1968-91) and his daughter on a 17 hour odyssey through the millions who gathered to welcome President Barack Obama.
Although they had tickets, their efforts fell short of the grand theater.
As we walked away, a group gathered around a car with open doors. White people, black people, a soldier, a lady sat on the cold granite curb with her dog - some seated, some leaning into the car to get closer.
The muted reverberation of amplified reality bouncing from ancient granite buildings mixed with the soft tinniness of the Ford's dashboard radio.
A melting pot with the flavor of an FDR radio moment listening to President Obama say,
"...of our prosperity, on the ability extent opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity but because it is the surest route to our common good..."
So many elements in that headline we don't normally associate with each other.
Chemicals, pumped into the ground for hydraulic fracturing during drilling for natural gas, can contaminate ground water. The effects are known in remote places like Wyoming and Colorado.
Adding to this 50-60 vehicles associated with the drilling site and adding to this test wells that are drilled, found not to produce in succession.
In sparely populated areas contamination of ground water does occur from hydraulic drilling according the the statement. In the case of drilling effecting New York City, water is piped from upstate New York supplying 8 million residents which is where the drilling would occur in shale formations.
The American Petroleum Institute sent me an email today asking me to sign a petition that will "demand that Congress and the President expand access to new sources of American oil and natural gas."
There is a picture of pristine American on the website and it also says we need to promote alternative energy... but for the love of god! let us drill.
It would seem that $49 a barrel for oil and gasoline heading into the $1.70 range has silenced the chorus of "Drill, Baby, Drill" and the choir director is frantically waving his baton.
The economy is imploding and the effects on the oil industry will become more obvious if the price continues to erode. It's hard to maintain new record profits to satisfy investors and have money for exploration at the same time when the overall price structure is eroding.
It is imperative for the oil industry to show investors that they have new found reserves that point to a future for this product. The high price for oil and the resulting large profits have masked the fact that as a whole the industry is pumping less oil.
A perceived future global supply problem for this fuel monopoly was the reason the price was high before the air was squeezed out of the big ball.
Anyone for an a taxpayer bailout for Exxon Mobil when their annual profit slips below $40 billion this year? Like General Motors and the banking industry which under duress has actually consolidated and become larger with fewer players giving each failure more impact to the economy, the oil industry might need money from you and me in the future...or else!?!
The consumer has the upper hand on the oil industry at the moment. It's a great time to take a deep breath and re-evaluate all decisions affecting "our" future going forward.
As petroleum gas prices soared out of control the concept of using corn based ethanol almost started to make sense.
It was cheaper than gas and although highly subsidized with our tax dollars and getting fewer miles per gallon than gasoline, it might have been considered a substitute.
A few miles down the road from this gas station in Spring Grove, Pa., petroleum diesel was selling for seven cents cheaper than biodiesel.
A spat of stories today following the announcement of ExxonMobil record profit unfolds how the free market may be the undoing of oil before the oil runs out.
HOUSTON -- ExxonMobil (XOM), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported income Thursday that shattered its own record for the biggest profit by a U.S. corporation, earning $14.83 billion in the third quarter. usatoday.com
Can someone explain to me why they need more tax cuts?
Reinvesting to get more oil...they will hold us hostage and charge us more if their profit is cut...we all invest in oil with our pensions and 401-K and it would hurt us...
I need a reason to understand why this policy is a long-term investment in the future of a baby born today.
I went to see the movie "W" last night. Whether you love or hate George W. Bush, it's an interesting movie that digs into G.W. as a human being and not our usual view from the press release or a suited podium puppet.
The movie is fresh with a blend of recent history, so news junkies like myself can melt their own experience and research with the depiction of the producer.
I tried to gauge the crowd. They were all older. I tired to gauge the reaction. It was neutral.
I thought I might feel anger, but I only felt pity and a bond in that we are all products of our parents, experiences and people's expectations; objectivity is sometimes the ability to see past these.
During the movie there was a passing mention (jab) at Jimmy Carter's White House solar panels.
During the 1970's, Carter was dealing with the effects of an Arab oil crisis and was seeking ways to wean us from foreign oil. Carter had some success in reducing the U.S. dependency on foreign oil.
Carter lost re-election to Ronald Reagan in 1980. The solar panels eventually came down in 1986 and the solar research program was gutted by the Reagan administration. Those same solar panels were in operation at Unity College in Unity, Maine for 12 more years.
The college drove an old school bus down to drove Franconia, VA, to liberate them from a General Services Administration warehouse.
They placed 16 of them on their cafeteria roof in 1992, and used them to provide hot water for 12 years. unity.edu A few were used in experiments by students.
Solar energy returned to the White House in 2002 with a grid of 167 solar panels on the roof of a maintenance shed that has been delivering electricity to the White House grounds. Another solar installation has been helping to provide hot water. Yet another has been heating the water in the presidential pool. nytimes.com
I had never heard that the White House currently had solar power until I did some research here. It appears that it was publicized more by the solar industry than the president.
How cool would it be if the White House was a "shining city upon a hill" to the world. A visible symbol of independent energy.
John Winthrop, a pilgrim who arrived in a rickety wooden boat, coined the phrase when he described the America he imagined (reaganlibrary.com); a home that would be free from the restraints of the world he had known.
OPEC is scrambling to tighten up supply as the price crude has dropped 56 percent decline in 16 weeks. Even when they moved to close the flow today, the price continued to fall.
Some effects beyond making U.S. drivers happy and adding a stimulus to the U.S. economy.
nytimes.com
- With fewer petrodollars now flowing to the Gulf, Russia and other regions, a major source of global liquidity and investment in places like the United States and Europe is beginning to shrink.
- Iran's representative said that prices below $90 a barrel would hurt.
- A continued drop in oil prices, and a tough domestic economy, could jeopardize the position of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected on a populist platform and who faces re-election next year.
- Some analysts believe Hugo Chávez needs $100 a barrel to finance his expensive social programs and continue his international activism.
It appears that low oil prices hurt the people who don't like us very much, foreign oil producers don't have the money to buy up our stuff in the U.S. and we don't really have any control over the supply of oil when OPEC's members control 40 percent of the world's oil exports.
Look for more OPEC drops in supply if the price of oil doesn't increase.
I think I will "help" out those suffering from low oil prices by not driving my car tomorrow.
America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by spreading the wealth, we became the greatest nation on earth by creating new wealth. (McCain at last night's debate.)
This is a key phrase motivating both campaigns and the undercurrent of voter despair.
Before globalization, creating new wealth meant capitalization resulting in more domestic jobs. Today that end more often means "spreading" wealth and power to China, and other developing nations with cheap labor pools and sending our energy dollars to oil producing nations in a global oil market.
It is no longer a simple formula of trickle down economics. It's more rolling pin economics where the roller pin has an oval shape and the dough is spread thin where it is least profitable.
That is the reality of global free trade and the dough in the United States is getting thinner. As some of the bakers get stronger and beat away the other bakers, a few fat bakers roll all the dough.
However, the free market in the United States has always been balanced with a democracy that once the majority believes it is no longer prospering, moves to conserve it's resources.
The old-school conservative thinking that motivated my grandparents to save rolls of string and hoard things in their basement long after the depression was over is different from modern conservative thought.
My "conservative" grandparents would have been repulsed at people who drive huge SUV's and demand drilling when the future of oil is a one way downward spiral. My grandfather would be in the garage retrofitting a bicycle with a lawnmower engine when gasoline got over $2 a gallon. He was a successful small business owner whose employees worked for him for decades and never desired a union even when they were petitioned by a local.
Beneath the blind moral eye of the fat bakers who rule a "free market", those who eat the cookies are always the one who call the shots in the end.
What we use and don't use - in our innovation we change the play of the game.
Given the current economic conditions, I think we all can agree that the U.S. needs a new economic/industrial policy.
CEO's Say US Needs New Industrial Policy.... a variety of economic statistics as evidence that the U.S. industrial sector is suffering overall. He noted that manufacturing currently makes up less than 12% of the U.S. economy, compared with nearly 22% of the U.S. economy three decades ago. cnn.com/money
I call it the Moral greening of Capitalism... There is a possibility of a depression, taxpayer buyout of bad debt insulating the risk in free-market with socialism, decades of outsourcing, do nothing energy plans that promote dependence and suck the life out of the economy... consumers, who sweated to create the wealth in the first place, taken hostage, roughed up and mugged.
I get up in the morning excited about the future of the day, next week, ten years from now.
The future: a simple concept to guide principles.
Rep. Todd Platts, R-York County, voted with his fellow Republicans against the (energy) bill, calling it an example of "what is wrong with Washington."Instead of addressing the interest of all Americans, Platts said the bill would continue to prohibit drilling in the locations where most of the oil and natural gas can be found. inyork.com/ydr 08/18/08
And in about 7+ years when this oil and gas hits the global market (a free and open oil market) where the value is controlled by those who have most of the oil (OPEC), the price effect will be nothing. The thirst by developing nations will continue to pressure that market and will only be more severe in following decades.
Oil is a dead end. The cry for drilling will continue until the day we run out and then there will be panic for a solution.
What is wrong with Washington is that it has allowed it's vision to be powered by whatever the monopoly is of the time.
What is wrong with Washington is that we should have been building a national resource of renewable energy decades ago so we wouldn't be so controlled by this mess now.
What is wrong with Washington is that it lacks innovative heroes who can dig through the think of the crowd, the flow of money, and look beyond the rhetoric of the day to the survival of future generations.
Congress' earlier attempts this year to renew wind, and solar tax credits, with a measure proposing higher taxes on the oil and gas industry to pay for it have been shot down.
"It's pretty remarkable. ... Wind turbines are used in political ads, yet we stand on the verge of not extending the credit which supports the growth of the largest-growing sector of the utility and energy area in the country," - Hunter Armistead, head of renewable energy for Babcock & Brown, the private-equity firm with 20 U.S. wind farms generating 1,600 megawatts wsj.com
House approves offshore drilling with alternatives, drillers revolt - greenmesh 9/08
The House voted today 236-189 to allow oil drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts if states agree -- but only 50 or more miles out.The bill rolls back $18 billion in oil industry tax breaks and imposes new oil and gas royalties, while giving tax incentives for wind and solar industries and for conservation. (AP)
President Bush vetoed the bill saying "its a waste of time" and opponents argue that 50 miles is beyond where most of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil is located.
Republicans who recently shouted "Drill Baby Drill" at their national convention hate the bill and the Democrats say drilling needs to be part of a comprehensive alternative plan.
The Republican's believe that the bill is an election year gimmick against the will of the people which is to lower gas prices.
Fifteen Republicans crossed the aisle to support the bill Tuesday. Thirteen Democrats voted against it.
Since we really don't control the the world oil market, of which the rest of the world has the majority of the oil and the oil we drill in the future will just flow on the world market.
Domestic drilling + OPEC = no impact (greenmesh 9/08)
As the United States feeds a global economy with outsourcing and imports the demand for global oil will just increase far greater than anything we can drill.
Even if we drill tomorrow it will take years before oil hits the world market.
The drilling initiative is almost pointless in the long or short-term, though it squeaks out a tiny addition to the world oil supply beyond the next decade.
The alternative is to...find an alternative? I don't get the problem with the bill.
You would think a govenment wouldn't have to legislate to promote alternative energy when the oil machine seems to be so good at destroying it's own market. Reports of surges in gasoline prices are coming in with the tides of Hurricane Ike.
$6 a gallon in Florida, $5.59 in South Carolina and $4.79 in Virginia.
Nineteen percent of the U.S. refining capacity is clustered beneath the spiral of Hurricane Ike.
"A lot of it is simply incredible," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, "and a lot of the price increases make no sense economically in terms of supply and demand." (AP)
OPEC oil ministers agreed today to trim overall output by more than 500,000 barrels a day in a compromise meant to avoid new turmoil in crude markets while seeking to bolster falling prices.The news sent oil prices rising. Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 97 cents to $104.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. (AP)
Oil had a short-lived dip below $100 due to sluggish demand and weakening global economies.
During the Republican National Convention, more than once, the people in the crowd responded to speakers with the chant, "Dril. Dril. Drill." It's an exciting knee-jerk reaction akin to the gas tax holiday (greenmesh 5/08).
We import over 50 percent of our oil from foreign entities that control the global price based on their own internal manipulation of the supply.
Of the 1,143.355 billion barrels of world proved reserves of oil, the United States has 20,972. (U.S. Energy Information Administration 8/27/08)
It really doesn't matter how much you drill here when someone who owns the majority of the resource can manipulate the price. It isn't like we get to keep what is drilled for ourselves.
Oil companies are global companies. When they are given the green light to start drilling that company sells the oil on the global market. Then those who have a majority of the resource (OPEC) manipulate their output to regulate price.
So drilling domestically really won't change the equation other than bolstering profits for global oil companies constantly thirsty for new sources of oil to prove to stockholders that there is a future supply of oil.
And it makes a great chant for conventions by people who are longing to take the situation unsolved for decades, because it is too profitable for those who control it, into their own hands and start boring it with a drill.
We are just feeding the machine by drilling with no short or long-term solution for consumers. If anything, if we don't let global oil companies drill our oil sometime decades from now, OPEC will suck themselves dry and we will still have dwindling reserves. This isn't likely though because we are always tapping our own reserves.
We Should be chanting, hydrogen hydrogen hydrogen... or solar, solar, solar or maybe, Think, Think Think !! and come up with some plausible alternative energy sources and implement them.
I can recall presidents since the 1970's, Republican and Democrat, all saying we need to free ourselves from the dependence of foreign oil. Some were mildly successful.
Here we sit in 2008 with the same dependence on foreign oil we enjoyed thirty years ago chanting "drill, drill, drill".
I was thinking about this while lying under my
motorcycle doing the 6000 miles service.
Being green around the year 2000 meant driving a tiny hybrid Honda Insight with a "Save the whales" bumper sticker plastered between those funky rear fender skirts. These lone conservers were few and far between navigating a sea of SUV's, consuming 5 times the fuel, labeling them liberals.
I have never understood the label liberal because it's often applied to one who chooses to conserve resources (or reduces profit?); which would be conserve-ative..? It's one of those strange spins of economic-politics, like having a trade embargo with Communist Cuba for 40 years when Communist China has become our dominant trade partner and labor force.
The innovative minds of yesterday that invented (and capitalized on) modern convenience, today capitalize on those inventions and innovate new layers of surcharge and ownership, adding layers upon layers of costs to consumers.
Green today means more about marketing than solution. Under the complicated layers of production of products and energy delivery, consumers have realized that they need to take steps to simplify and extract value out of everything that empowers their existence, but are left with more green static than tools to fix problems.
Capitalism is this wonderful/horrible thing where opportunity seems unlimited yet the long-term prognosis screams metastasized cancer without a moral thread sewing the futures of consumers together.
CEOs have replaced feudal lords. It's questionable which leader has a greater motivation to support their underclass.
I ran across this interesting, ranting article from a South Africa paper, How hybrid cars cause hunger thetimes.co.za The hybrid part doesn't make sense, but the historical perspective is fascinating.
The author relates modern agribusiness selling food stock to the highest bidder (corn for ethanol) to the emergence of apartheid where black people were forcibly removed from fertile farming land, relocated to unproductive land and forced to work on big commercial farms as underpaid laborers..
Patel points out that in the 2000 years before the British arrived in India, famines occurred once every 120 years. After the British imposed the market on India's agricultural production, famines occurred every four years.Despite the shortcomings of feudalism prior to the arrival of the British, India's landowners fed peasants when harvests were bad. For millennia, a moral economy prevailed, which ensured that nobody starved.
Innovative minds looking for new revenue streams killed the railroads.
Consider all the jobs, wealth and competition that was created by our car centered, personal transport society. Cars, dealerships, parts, the insurance industry. Thousands of truck drivers, shipping companies and owner operators traversing the roads using diesel and services. All of this a major feed for the oil industry.
And it all worked as long as oil was cheap.
The once cheap oil that brought us a uniquely American car centered transportation culture is now strangling our economy and future success competing in a world market.
Pennsylvania is fortunate to have many short-line rail corridors still intact like the one along the Heritage Rail Trail and the Stewartstown Railroad waiting for innovative minds and clean technology to move large volumes of freight and people more efficiently.
I am starting to hear McCain scream for offshore drilling in my sleep. His cry sounds almost frenzied in a speech I listened to Monday. There are lot of other cries (and actions) that would could motivate us on to energy independence sooner.
The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage time.com
If the price of gasoline went down to $1.50 a gallon next week, suddenly all those useless full-sized SUV's sitting in used car lots depreciating would be in demand and spring to life - because we could now "afford" them.
It's animal/human nature to consume as much resources as you can, because you can take it.
We can drill and pump and, if it were possible, double output... and then we would consume our way back to the next price hike.
Eventually we will drill everywhere, however the daily cry for drilling doesn't offer me any peace now or for the future.
Drilling for more oil is just a dead end.
It wasn't drilling or a windfall profit tax that has made the price of gasoline go down almost 30 cents in the past few weeks. U.S. fuel consumption was down 2.4 percent over the past four week a U.S. Energy Department report showed and during the heart of Summer driving season.
Sell, Sell, Sell ! I want to spark some fear in oil speculators.
The quickest way for someone who gets 15 mpg to cut the cost of their gas in half is to dump that vehicle and drive one that gets 30 mpg.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike is part of my American heritage. Rolling into a toll booth, I look at it as the gateway to a national treasure of transportation history.
I have a vested interest in supporting and preserving it, whether that just means not throwing trash at it or becoming actively involved when it's threatened.
When I am empowered, I go the extra mile to care about things and look to preserve this treasure and practical function of this roadway for future generations.
It's public, non-profit status gives me a say in it's future and ensures that my toll is actually going to the generational preservation and enjoyment of it. Not to financing a capital investment group; someone else's dream or worse a shady future deal that I am inadvertently supporting with my toll.
When an investment group is pushing very hard to enguage me in a public debate they view it as a sales pitch, but the true beauty of this moment is that I still have control of the power to guide the turnpike's destiny.
Although I love free enterprise and the America dream of the freedom to grow a small business, the flow of money tends to flow faster in the direction of the most money.
Big business is rarely interested in the good of the whole, for this we have a democracy.
Interesting opinion article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Hidden costs will make Turnpike deal a bad one
Summary:
I was walking around my village today and a couple neighbors were responding to my blog entry Why can't "WE" keep making a profit on the turnpike? (6/25)
One neighbor was blaming Gov. Ed Randell for siphoning the money off to Philadelphia under the current set-up. I drop off the mail for another neighbor who often is listening to Gary Sutton. She just plain asked my opinion on the merits. I have yet to hear anyone, except the governor, say they think it's a really good idea, "it's slam-dunk" he said.
I believe the heart of the matter is a difference in perspective that has widened between the ever increasing transience of business and what the great population hopes government's long-term commitment is to them.
When you privatize a public entity ownership is moved from government to the interest of a group of investors. Government is you and me because we elect and reject those who represent us.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was created in 1937 to build, finance, operate and maintain the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The commission is comprised of five members. Four members are appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania. So ultimately the turnpike management is an arm of government, made of people we elect and reject.
Barcelona-based Abertis Infraestructuras, Abertis investor Criteria CaixaCorp of Spain and Citi Infrastructure Investors offered $12.8 billion to lease the turnpike. (AP) I will not be on a seat of the board of directors of a company in Spain or the equally nebulous Citi Infrastructure Investors group. What is my recourse if i had a concern about the business of the turnpike or what my tolls are financing.
Meanwhile, up north 80 percent Interstate 80 needs resurfacing to replace more than half of its pavement, which was applied between 1958 and 1970. Officials proposed replacing 60 bridges within the first 10 years. Sixteen of the interstate's bridges are structurally deficient and 13 are in worse condition, which the turnpike described as "fracture critical." pittsburghlive.com
The scramble is on to get tolls on I-80 because PennDOT cannot fund a complete rebuild. Any bids on I-80? Going once, going twice... hello, any takers? Mmmm, must not be such a good deal.
From personal experience over the past 28 years of driving on it, The Pennsylvania Turnpike have been a very well maintained road in road surface and snow removal. It
The turnpike is currently a non-profit meaning they have to put the revenue from tolls into the road.
I supposed the clinical thing to do would be to calculate cost vs. environmental impact and come up with a nice squeaky green conclusion, but recently my conclusions seem to be made more out a belief that our open ("free" doesn't really apply) market for energy needs to be placed in check by the only force that can bring change.
Calculated, individual consumer choices multiplied by millions of people.
My friend Matt has a company car with paid gas for personal use. He said to me today, "I don't care if the gas is free - I just want to use my motorcycle because it doesn't use (uses half) gas." In 2004, he purchased (which he can't sell now) a Chevy Suburban that gets 15 mpg and never considered the price of gas.
My neighbor Chuck's new full-sized pickup is now collecting dirt around the wheels for sometimes two weeks at a time. He drives a 115 mpg scooter to work.
My retired neighbor on a fixed budget told me today, "I am going to hold on to my economic stimulus check so i can pay for fuel oil this Winter" A tax money give-a-way to spark the economy, funneled into the oil machine that is squeezing the economy in the first place.
We are entering the uncharted free market waters. Huge global energy monopolies that use raw materials that are irresistible to investors and tied to everything as a reason to make it more expensive. We can't regulate it, tax it or force it to do anything. The concept of oil just got too big in business and in our hearts.
The only force that can save the world from suicidal greed; the consumer stands alone with a choice to become super hero or victim.
I like the electric lawn mower more than the gas, simply because it does not use gas. It's two gallons of gasoline that went unsold this Summer.
