The Benefits of Surging Oil, Recession, and the Housing Bust

[igor]

Originally Posted by 68CoupeDeVille

Sigh... The reason American cities don't have the extensive public transit systems you find in Europe has nothing to do with the American love of freedom or a robotic European mind-set. I know of plenty American car owners who do nothing but drive back and forth to work, going nowhere else except when they have to.

Most American cities had their population growth spurts AFTER the car was invented. The US was a very rural nation until the 20th century. By the time things began to urbanize beyond the Eastern Seaboard, gas was cheap, cars were cheap, property outside the city limits was cheap. Why would you spend money developing public transit, the best systems of which demand a very high population density (Europeans don't just sit at home after they've taken the train away from work - they WALK places because there's actually stuff other than more homes within 1/2 mile of the average urban, European home), when everyone wants space and has the means to buy and enjoy it?

NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. What do they have in common? Public transit. Anything else? They're OLD. Maybe not by European standards but certainly compared to say, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Denver, etc.

Anyways, internet soap-boxes don't make you any taller in reality. I just get tired of the self-loathing, American left eye-balling Europe as if whatever they do is always, 100% of the time the right thing to do.

If they stick around, high energy prices will surely change the way our cities grow and function. It will be different than ever before, without a doubt, but will it be for the better? All I'm saying is, if it's a better thing to have compact, dense cities with good public transit, why are all the youngest American cities arranged in the exact opposite? Because we all wanted to do the thing we thought was wrong...?

thanks

this is not EU v US argument - this is "I am tired of HAVING TO DRIVE EVERYWHERE" argument - at least for me. I am not really a downtown person ( I grew up in a city and have lived in Philly for the past 2 years - and I am done) - however I want enough density so I can walk places. Up to this point - I had felt that it was impossible - MY FREEDOM - MY PREFERENCE was not catered to - my options were very limited - now it is changing. I want a semi-suburban neighborhood (edge city maybe) with a good public transport line to my work and something resembling good old American "main street."

Igor

[logansowner]

Originally Posted by 68CoupeDeVille

Sigh... The reason American cities don't have the extensive public transit systems you find in Europe has nothing to do with the American love of freedom or a robotic European mind-set. I know of plenty American car owners who do nothing but drive back and forth to work, going nowhere else except when they have to.

Most American cities had their population growth spurts AFTER the car was invented. The US was a very rural nation until the 20th century. By the time things began to urbanize beyond the Eastern Seaboard, gas was cheap, cars were cheap, property outside the city limits was cheap. Why would you spend money developing public transit, the best systems of which demand a very high population density (Europeans don't just sit at home after they've taken the train away from work - they WALK places because there's actually stuff other than more homes within 1/2 mile of the average urban, European home), when everyone wants space and has the means to buy and enjoy it?

NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. What do they have in common? Public transit. Anything else? They're OLD. Maybe not by European standards but certainly compared to say, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Denver, etc.

Anyways, internet soap-boxes don't make you any taller in reality. I just get tired of the self-loathing, American left eye-balling Europe as if whatever they do is always, 100% of the time the right thing to do.

If they stick around, high energy prices will surely change the way our cities grow and function. It will be different than ever before, without a doubt, but will it be for the better? All I'm saying is, if it's a better thing to have compact, dense cities with good public transit, why are all the youngest American cities arranged in the exact opposite? Because we all wanted to do the thing we thought was wrong...?

Sigh. I get tired of people thinking I'm American because I don't think my Silverado is killing the planet.

I don't hate Europe, but I do not want their lifestyle of driving tiny cars and feeling guilty about it either.

I think the reason for their transit system is more because of country size than age. In a little country, it's more economic to build a transit system. Here in Canada, building a transit system is not reasonable.

I mean sure, I can hop a train from Halifax and go to Montreal, but nowhere else. I mean we do have bus systems. In my particular area we have a really nice system. All new buses, but it's the luck of the draw that we have a system that covers most of the province, and it costs a fortune. However nice the vehicles are, doesn't change the inherent fact that a long trip on a bus is a LONG ordeal. A 20 minute car ride will take an hour or more via bus. It just doesn't work.

But the real problem is all these peopel saying they hope prices stay high so we will learn that we are ruining the planet..yadda yadda yadda. And I'm stuck here riding my dirt bikes illegally because the hippies always win, and now most trails are closed off. So I wont be able to ride my CBR either because it will be looked at as a non essential toy..meaning it will either be illegal or have the **** taxed out of it. As it is now, we pay a "trail fund" fee when we annually register off road bikes. That fee is solely used to pay rentacops to drive around in ugly green Silverado's and to impound the bikes that are kind enough to stop for them. The trails aren't maintained at all, and most are closed off. Ironically the trucks have a huge banner saying "REPORT A POACHER CALL 1-***-***-****" but because nobody is going to poach a frigging rabbit they have nothing better to do than impound peoples motorcycles. Should you be all legal and such, they will find something...I got a ticket for "going too fast". On a motocross bike on a private trail.. WTF?




What I am saying is this hippie revolution is BS, and we don't need to stop driving. It is arrogant of humans to think anything we do could possibly **** up mother nature. Assuming we are causing problems, maybe we aught to look at the black smoke spewing from factories before we worry about people having fun on motorcycles.

[Chaz_23]

I hope this will somehow cause us also to be less wasteful: packaging of everything, plastic bags, plastic water bottles, XXL size of everything, and worst of all, this business of people living 50+ miles from where they work.

[KingElvis]

It's a little like:

Thank God I lost my good paying job, now I appreciate how nice it was having a regular paycheck.

This loss of employement will force me to go back to school which may benefit me in the long run (or maybe I'll get a much lower paying job and 'appreciate what I have.')

"Upside to massive food shortage: Americans will eat more vegetables and grains and less meat, thereby decreasing long term health care costs from obesity."

BTW, it's too bad the mortgage sheisters that wrote all those bad loans, bundled them into opaque 'investment vehicles' and then made off like the bandits they are aren't being "taught a lesson" about pious financial management.

[Slideways]

Originally Posted by bonecrrusher

I take public transportation into work every day, I was filling up for $55 a week in the C6, that car sits in the garage and I spend $30 per month on the light rail.

If I fill it up every time I use it, can I drive your C6? Pretty please. I promise I'll be very gentle on her.

Originally Posted by logansowner

However nice the vehicles are, doesn't change the inherent fact that a long trip on a bus is a LONG ordeal. A 20 minute car ride will take an hour or more via bus. It just doesn't work.

Agreed. I priced a train/bus ride from Orange County to Monterey County earlier this year. My truck doesn't get great mileage, but I still wouldn't have saved money, PLUS it would have taken twice as long, with transfers it was almost three times as long. I'm sure you've heard the addage that time is money, and time you're sitting on a train and not at home, or on vacation, or doing what you otherwise would be doing, is like losing money. PLUS, guess what? No vehicle to drive around once I reach my destination. No thanks, I'll use trains when they are convenient, and until then, I'll be a gas-wasting idiot who makes his own schedule.

Originally Posted by Chaz_23

I hope this will somehow cause us also to be less wasteful: packaging of everything, plastic bags, plastic water bottles, XXL size of everything, and worst of all, this business of people living 50+ miles from where they work.

I agree with the first part of your post, but come on. What's wrong with people living 50+ miles from where they work? Commuting to a distant suburb is the price people pay for having a four-bedroom house, a backyard, a pool, etc. It's their choice. Do you want everyone to live in urban areas? Do you want people to have LESS choice?
{Sarcasm** OK, everyone that lives in a city, town, or community of less than 500,000 people, please report for relocation to either New York, Boston, or San Francisco. Leave your cars (wasteful), A/C units (wasteful/unnecessary), guns (dangerous), and pets (use too many resources/no use to society) and pile into the nearest Greyhound bound for either coast.

Actually, I may be onto something. No more pets for anyone. Every dog, cat, bird, snake, lizard, guinnea pig, hamster, horse, gerbil, and fish in captivity that's not providing a service to society at large should be killed and processed into a tasty pate for human consumption. Just think of how much gas is wasted delivering Alpo, how much farmland is being used for the corn in feed, and how much better the quality of peoples lives would be if they didn't spend that extra little bit of their paycheck on food for some animal that provides nothing but companionship and love. What a waste of our nation's resources! {end sarcasm**

[BlueMontreal]

When I was in biology, I remember reading something about what is driving evolution : challenges.

[Firebird00]

Originally Posted by Ming

From just a few weeks ago. The extreme resistance Houston's Light Rail once faced from Conservatives is hardly to be heard these days, even on local Talk Radio:

HOUSTON — The Houston City Council approved the addition of five new light rail lines Wednesday to help ease congestion in the nation's fourth-largest city.

The rail lines approved in a 13-2 vote could be completed by 2012, the Houston Chronicle reported in its online edition.

Houston was listed Tuesday as the seventh-most congested city in the nation by Inrix, a traffic information service. The rail lines would give the city 30 additional miles of light rail — up from the current 7.5 miles, said Metro spokeswoman Sandra Salazar.

www.chron.com

It sure would be nice if they'd build those rail lines so they would actually take people some place (like from the suburbs to downtown) not just from downtown to the Astrodome. I would kill to be able to ride a train from Intercontinental Airport to the University of Houston. If our "leaders" had any brains they'd realize the value in having a rail run from the AIRPORT to downtown. Wish in one hand.....

[sigma]

Originally Posted by Slideways

If I fill it up every time I use it, can I drive your C6? Pretty please. I promise I'll be very gentle on her.


Agreed. I priced a train/bus ride from Orange County to Monterey County earlier this year. My truck doesn't get great mileage, but I still wouldn't have saved money, PLUS it would have taken twice as long, with transfers it was almost three times as long. I'm sure you've heard the addage that time is money, and time you're sitting on a train and not at home, or on vacation, or doing what you otherwise would be doing, is like losing money. PLUS, guess what? No vehicle to drive around once I reach my destination. No thanks, I'll use trains when they ae convenient, and until then, I'll be a gas-wasting idiot who makes his own schedule.



I agree with the first part of your post, but come on. What's wrong with people living 50+ miles from where they work? Commuting to a distant suburb is the price people pay for having a four-bedroom house, a backyard, a pool, etc. It's their choice. Do you want everyone to live in urban areas? Do you want people to have LESS choice?
{Sarcasm** OK, everyone that lives in a city, town, or community of less than 500,000 people, please report for relocation to either New York, Boston, or San Francisco. Leave your cars (wasteful), A/C units (wasteful/unnecessary), guns (dangerous), and pets (use too many resources/no use to society) and pile into the nearest Greyhound bound for either coast.

Actually, I may be onto something. No more pets for anyone. Every dog, cat, bird, snake, lizard, guinnea pig, hamster, horse, gerbil, and fish in captivity that's not providing a service to society at large should be killed and processed into a tasty pate for human consumption. Just think of how much gas is wasted delivering Alpo, how much farmland is being used for the corn in feed, and how much better the quality of peoples lives would be if they didn't spend that extra little bit of their paycheck on food for some animal that provides nothing but companionship and love. What a waste of our nation's resources! {end sarcasm**

Oh noes... You're completely right. There aren't small villages in France or Britain or Germany or Spain or Italy. Those people have all been forced to move to London, or Manchester, or Paris, or Frankfurt, or Berlin, or Rome or Milan. The people who live in those cities are banned from owning dogs (regardless of the fact that Parisians have so many dogs they are almost infamous for them). And yes... many people in other European cities have pets too!

How could all of these smaller towns survive and thrive when their freedom hating governments are forcing them all to abandon there farms and homes? Well they have cars and trucks and vans, not unlike US, but they are smaller reflecting gas price concerns. Furthermore, these towns and cities are linked to major cities with trains and bullet trains reducing the need for cars and allowing people without cars in the city easy access to the suburbs and country.

And there is nothing that says that cities have to be riddled with crime, bad schools, and nasty air. Many American cities aren't (such as MSP, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Austin, and many others. European cities are even better in this regard.

[sigma]

Originally Posted by Firebird00

It sure would be nice if they'd build those rail lines so they would actually take people some place (like from the suburbs to downtown) not just from downtown to the Astrodome. I would kill to be able to ride a train from Intercontinental Airport to the University of Houston. If our "leaders" had any brains they'd realize the value in having a rail run from the AIRPORT to downtown. Wish in one hand.....

They can't because the idiots back in the 90's sold off the railroad tracks that used to run up that way and paved them over to expand 45 and 59.

[yoblues]

Originally Posted by zete

If this refocuses the American mind on not spending like drunken sailors and living completely on debt, it'll be a good thing. Living beyond your means is never a good thing.

That sounds very nice but the rat sucking politicians allowed our manufacturing economy to tank and they developed a consumer based economy based on spending and debt. If people do not spend and go into debt you have a recession. If you have any ideas on how to get our manufacturing economy back and get rid of the consumer/debt economy I'll listen.

[tgagneguam]

Originally Posted by Chaz_23

I hope this will somehow cause us also to be less wasteful: packaging of everything, plastic bags, plastic water bottles, XXL size of everything, and worst of all, this business of people living 50+ miles from where they work.

Judge not, lest you be judged.

[tgagneguam]

Originally Posted by yoblues

That sounds very nice but the rat sucking politicians allowed our manufacturing economy to tank and they developed a consumer based economy based on spending and debt. If people do not spend and go into debt you have a recession. If you have any ideas on how to get our manufacturing economy back and get rid of the consumer/debt economy I'll listen.

Our "rat sucking politicians" failed industry in that they interfered with misguided legislation, with tax breaks cum "industrial policy" that ballooned local, state, and federal deficits, with spending more money than they were taking in (and that was already too much), with generally thinking they knew more than a free market controlled by consumers knows.

Rather, they could have endeavored to promote longer-term growth strategies: properly educating the masses so that at least 50% of the population could write beyond a fifth grade level; reducing burdensome red tape that discourages investment; paying down debt through fiscal responsibility rather than dipping into the pockets of the 50% of the nation that actually pays taxes.

Be clear on what you ask for. I know that I want less government, as it has demonstrated ad nauseum that its policies more times than not do more harm than good.

[Slideways]

Originally Posted by sigma

You're completely right.

I'm glad you agree with me. (wow, I really like the quote function)

Kidding aside, I never said that people should live beyond their means and that they had to drive behemoth trucks and SUVs. Like you, I was being sarcastic to make a point, hence the pre- and post-sarcasm notation. I just don't see why some people, who tend to be very vocal on this board, find it absurd that anyone would want to buy a house in the suburbs when they could rent a perfectly good apartment five blocks away from their place of business. It's narrow-minded, and people come off sounding like a stuck-up jerk when they try to dictate the lifestyle choices of others.

Are people honestly glad that those who chose to commute are now paying much more? What kind of attitude is that?

[geozinger]

Originally Posted by KingElvis

BTW, it's too bad the mortgage sheisters that wrote all those bad loans, bundled them into opaque 'investment vehicles' and then made off like the bandits they are aren't being "taught a lesson" about pious financial management.

+1

Quote of the day, period.

[gardnet1]

The real benefit is showing the world what idiots Democrats are for not allowing us to drill for oil in our own country. We have plenty of reserves in Alaska and of the coasts of CA, FL, VA, etc.

We have more known/proven reserves than over 85% of the countries in the world but won't allow ourselves to use them.

Would it be enough to match our energy needs? Probably not but it would drastically cut down on our trade imbalance and stop shifting wealth out of the country.

Secondly we are idiots for supporting/subsidizing corn-based ethanol which only drives up the cost of meat and food products. Why aren't we planting sugar cane or or sugar beets which are 6-7 times more efficient as an ethanol source? This one is a bi-partisan effort with blame going to both Dems and Repubilcans.

Yes we need to conserve and be less wasteful but you can't save your way out of an energy deficit. And drilling oil in America and using more efficient ethanol sources are key parts to obtaining energy independence. Coupled with conservation, nuclear power, wind and electric vehicles charging on nuclear power, we can get there.

But we must open up the oil fields like yesterday!!!