Bush - "America is addicted to oil"

[nino_savatte]

It's especially poor as a measure of wealth for poor countries rich in natural resources, as it doen't take into account that the GDP is (partly) generated from non-renewable resources, so the country is actually becoming poorer, the greater the amount of it's GDP is generated from sale of natural resources.

Of course, mears will be along with "what's the alternative". I'd refer him to the thread where I explained alternatives to him, but I know (from past experience) that he'd ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist.

Aye, I expect mears to spout his usual line and to make the claim that he is the most contented person on the planet because he "doesn't bitch". People like him think that if they chuck around acronyms like GDP and provide one or two figures then no one will argue with them, or they have somehow have 'won' the debate...but, in reality, they end up looking like the narrow minded cretins they really are.

 

[TAE]

Don't own a car. But if I did it would not be French.

You should be grateful to the french for saving you arse in the war of independence.

If it weren't for the French you would be speaking English now!

 

[slaar]

Aye, I expect mears to spout his usual line and to make the claim that he is the most contented person on the planet because he "doesn't bitch". People like him think that if they chuck around acronyms like GDP and provide one or two figures then no one will argue with them, or they have somehow have 'won' the debate...but, in reality, they end up looking like the narrow minded cretins they really are.

Especially if the argument is against people who actually know what GDP means.

I agree with the issues about the limitations of GDP, but it's actually not a bad proxy for standard of living in the rich world, and correlates quite well to living standards in most middle-income and poor countries.

The issue of bankruptcy is a bit different as it's not in the US creditors' interests to call in their debts at once. So that goes to an argument about the whole basis of capitalism as a way fopr generation and sharing wealth, which is a bit much for a portion of a thread rightly devoted to highlighting rogue yank's lack of knowledge and ability to debate.

 

[slaar]

You should be grateful to the french for saving you arse in the war of independence.

If it weren't for the French you would be speaking English now!

As most effectively put by War Nerd, reposted by Bernie a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.exile.ru/2003-October-02/war_nerd.html

 

[Streathamite]

Nonsense. The productivity of American workers ($GDP/worker) is the highest in the world.

evidence please. that is - simply - bollocks

 

[max_freakout]

What do we reckon the price of a barrell of oil is going to be this time next year? $100?? $200??

 

[ViolentPanda]

Aye, I expect mears to spout his usual line and to make the claim that he is the most contented person on the planet because he "doesn't bitch". People like him think that if they chuck around acronyms like GDP and provide one or two figures then no one will argue with them, or they have somehow have 'won' the debate...but, in reality, they end up looking like the narrow minded cretins they really are.

Ah, but he does bitch. He bitches at anyone who questions the line he's adopted.
Still, if he's contented to give himself up to adherence to an ideology, then who are we to try and stop him?

 

[Rentonite]

I have hit dogs and things like that at 40 mph with My F150 and didnt have any damage at all, other than splatter.
I did bend the bumper in the parking lot one time and I smucked the bottom of the door one time too but those where my fault.
In a car to car crash I think the bmw mini would be a squashed beer can if it was bumped by a regular pickup.
but hey do as you will.
cars are smaller and less substantial in Europe than in the US
your whole road system is smaller than the US.
One thing I remember about Europe is that the place is Tiny.
We have distances to travel that most Europeans have a hard time comprehending.
We get in our cars (or on our motorcycles) and go for hours and hours 500 miles is a good day of traveling.
It is possible to exceed that easily.
My longest day on a bike was 810 miles
I used to make a weekend trip every year that was 1560 miles in 35 hours.
one way.
leave on thursday back on monday.

The distances in Europe are just not that far in most cases.
your attitudes about Gasoline are vastly different as well.
We travel by automobile All the time We go farther and more often.
So, By American Standards most European cars are dinky (the ones that are big enough to get imported.)
I understand that by European standards American Cars are excessive.
OK,
So, Mr FRIEDA, you can whine and carryon about automobiles all you want to but your standards dont apply here and ours dont apply there.
It is easy for me to get "haughty" about european cars
I have a bigger engine in my motorcycle than in Most automobiles over there. I do understand that there are differences for valid reasons.

I also Understand that You Hate America so intensely, that there is no logic or reconciliation that you would ever accept.
There for I shall not waste time offering you any

 

[ViolentPanda]

Thing is, distances are even greater in Australia and in places like Russia, but do you see them driving cars with 5 liter+ engines?

Not many of 'em.

Face it, your country has loads of guys with small dick syndrome, who think that a big throbbing multi-carburettor V8 will somehow make up for their pathetically small genitalia.

Hasn't anyone told you that over-exposure to gasoline exhaust fumes makes your dick shrink even more?

 

[friedaweed]

I absolutely love you for saying this! Well, sort of.

It's an in joke at urban, i think the term is banded around far to freely but that's the joke bit when it's done in that context. Your gun toting side kick however has demonstrated, on more than one occasion, that the title fits him well.

 

[Rentonite]

Mmm Kay
Ya know it is Possible for you to come here and join us and become part of the United States.
You dont have to stay there allways complaining about what we have and what you dont have.
You too can have a full sized American Automobile and drive it across the continent on our big American Highway system.
Yu may even find American Foxes with their Big American Breasts!!! and Be a Wild and Crazy GUY! (SNL)

 

[friedaweed]

I have hit dogs and things like that at 40 mph with My F150 and didnt have any damage at all, other than splatter.
I did bend the bumper in the parking lot one time and I smucked the bottom of the door one time too but those where my fault.

http://vader.mindtel.com/strongangel/Strong Angel Photos/Strong Angel Prep/images/Truck F150.jpg

In a car to car crash I think the bmw mini would be a squashed beer can if it was bumped by a regular pickup.

It's a mentality thing isn't it. Here we have the classic European V's US thinking when buying a car.

Frieda thinks "How many miles to the gallon will i get, how enviro friendly is it, does it come in emerald green.

Renty "What will happen when i smash it up"

It says much about your national identity. Save vr's destruction. Nice expose Travis.

but hey do as you will.

Yup

cars are smaller and less substantial in Europe than in the US
your whole road system is smaller than the US.

Well Europe is only a tiny island off the coast of China isn't it Mr Geography major

One thing I remember about Europe is that the place is Tiny.
We have distances to travel that most Europeans have a hard time comprehending.

You're so big butch. See earlier post referring to your large attributes

We get in our cars (or on our motorcycles) and go for hours and hours 500 miles is a good day of traveling.
It is possible to exceed that easily.

Oh please do extend your next road trip dude.

My longest day on a bike was 810 miles

Yeah but if you drive through the ghetto its only 28 miles to moms house i hear. Why take the long way round dude? Show some love to the peeps and pass on through.

I used to make a weekend trip every year that was 1560 miles in 35 hours.
one way.
leave on thursday back on monday.

Aye but if you'd have behaved yourself in the first place you wouldn't have to travel that far to get mental health care.

The distances in Europe are just not that far in most cases.

Yeah its so small it fits in a shoe box.

your attitudes about Gasoline are vastly different as well.

No way Einstein

We travel by automobile All the time We go farther and more often.
So, By American Standards most European cars are dinky (the ones that are big enough to get imported.)

You're bigger and better and i bet your cock is massive dude.

I understand that by European standards American Cars are excessive.
OK,

No by world standards

So, Mr FRIEDA, you can whine and carryon about automobiles all you want to but your standards dont apply here and ours dont apply there.
It is easy for me to get "haughty" about european cars
I have a bigger engine in my motorcycle than in Most automobiles over there. I do understand that there are differences for valid reasons.

Do you have to have the petrol tank modified to make room for your massive manhood?

I also Understand that You Hate America so intensely, that there is no logic or reconciliation that you would ever accept.
There for I shall not waste time offering you any

Cool now take that extended journey bigusdickus

 

[friedaweed]

Mmm Kay
Ya know it is Possible for you to come here and join us and become part of the United States.
You dont have to stay there allways complaining about what we have and what you dont have.
You too can have a full sized American Automobile and drive it across the continent on our big American Highway system.
Yu may even find American Foxes with their Big American Breasts!!! and Be a Wild and Crazy GUY! (SNL)

I've been dude. Worked in LA for a while. Met lots of nice folk that's why your racism and bigotry really doesn't change my views of the average American Joe and Dana.

I'm a wild crazy guy here so there's no need for me to chase that American wet dream of yours Travis. Plus my partner has fantastic breasts.

http://www.escapeartist.com/efan/efan1.htm
Go on you know you want to

 

[rogue yam]

You should be grateful to the french for saving you arse in the war of independence.

The difference between leftie bollocks and musty old leftie bollocks is merely must.

 

[rogue yam]

evidence please. that is - simply - bollocks

Read 'em and weep, bucko.

 

[TAE]

The difference between leftie bollocks and musty old leftie bollocks is merely must.

Is that the best you could come up with?

 

[TAE]

Read 'em and weep, bucko.

"These measures are only approximate indicators, because a country's welfare consists of many things that are not included in its GDP. Moreover, using the number of persons employed as a measure of labor input ignores differences in the number of hours worked and in the skill levels of different people."

Indeed.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Unnecessary willy waving aside, it strikes me that this is quite a big deal. The Grauniad report on it has some quotes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1699391,00.html


The US has a lot of land, this would seem to make sense.

What do people think?

The energy balance for most of these processes is pretty lousy, unless you fiddle the figures in various ways. Mostly what the proponents of corn or soya ethanol do is leave out a bunch of the less obvious energy costs, which makes their business proposition seem plausible. If you account properly for the costs, then it becomes clear that you need to put more energy in than you get out to make liquid fuels from biomass in almost all realistic scenarios. Burning the biomass directly is a different matter, but that doesn't work too well for cars.

Also, if you do the arithmetic, you need some vast proportion (97%) of the surface area of the US growing biomass fuel, in order to power their cars.

Growing biomass fuels competes with growing food. We have approximately 0.27 hectares of land per human to grow food on right now. That's barely enough for food, which is why about half the world's population is struggling to get enough to eat and we're only doing that well because we can use oil to subsidise our agricultural systems, e.g. by bringing marginal land into food production with petrochemical fertilisers and oil powered techniques for deforestation.

See e.g. this for a quick headline summary and this pdf for the detail.

Pimentel's team at Cornell have done a whole bunch of work on this over the last couple of decades, and various agribusiness PR people have done a whole bunch of propaganda asserting their right to get massive subsidies for this lucrative delusion.

 

[rogue yam]

"These measures are only approximate indicators, because a country's welfare consists of many things that are not included in its GDP. Moreover, using the number of persons employed as a measure of labor input ignores differences in the number of hours worked and in the skill levels of different people."

Indeed.

My claim was explicitly based on $GDP/worker. This was challenged, so I proved it. That there are additional things that might be said is unremarkable.

 

[TAE]

Ok, what is the definition of an 'employed' person?

In the UK we have many self-employed people who work as contractors and earn huge amounts of money. If they do not count towards the 'number of employed' people, then the GDP per employed person will be higher than it should be. On the other hand, if they are including people like Bill Gates ...

Statistics are a wonderful way of making numbers say what one wants them to.

 

[jæd]

"These measures are only approximate indicators, because a country's welfare consists of many things that are not included in its GDP. Moreover, using the number of persons employed as a measure of labor input ignores differences in the number of hours worked and in the skill levels of different people."

Yep... My expereince of Yanks is they work twice as long for slightly less than a European. And then spend ages going on about how long they have worked and what they achieved.

Yanks. Good if you need a large supply of hot air...

 

[bigfish]

What do people think?

pledged to reduce its dependence on Middle East imports by three quarters by 2025, largely through the development of ethanol fuel for cars derived from wood chips, vegetable matter and grass.

So, it's back to the 1930's then.

If the farming lobby and Henry Ford (lobbying for ethanol) hadn't lost out to Rockefeller and Standard Oil back in the 1930's, things could have turned out much differently today.

This photo, taken in April 1933, shows a Lincoln Nebraska gas station of the Earl Coryell Co. selling "Corn Alcohol Gasoline." The test marketing of ethanol blends was comon in the Midwest at this time, but it did not succeed due to the market dominance of the major oil companies. Coryell was subsequently among complainants to the Justice Dept. in the US v. Ethyl antitrust lawsuit of 1936, which Ethyl lost in a Supreme Court decision in 1940. (Nebraska Historical Society)​

The fuel of the future

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

This photo, taken in April 1933, shows a Lincoln Nebraska gas station of the Earl Coryell Co. selling "Corn Alcohol Gasoline." The test marketing of ethanol blends was comon in the Midwest at this time, but it did not succeed due to the market dominance of the major oil companies. Coryell was subsequently among complainants to the Justice Dept. in the US v. Ethyl antitrust lawsuit of 1936, which Ethyl lost in a Supreme Court decision in 1940. (Nebraska Historical Society)​

The fuel of the future

I have to smile. That's 12th and M Streets. The gas station has been replaced by a Vietnamese restaurant, but the other buildings are still there.

I just changed cars to a flex fuel and I run it on E85 rather than the E10 pictured.

 

[bigfish]

I have to smile. That's 12th and M Streets. The gas station has been replaced by a Vietnamese restaurant, but the other buildings are still there.

It's a small world, isn't it?

I just changed cars to a flex fuel and I run it on E85 rather than the E10 pictured.

It's a shame the development of this Tesla modified Pierce-Arrow automobile stopped when it did, otherwise you might never had to call at a gas station again (much to the annoyance of the slippery sisters oil cartel, I'm sure )!

In 1931, under the financing of Pierce-Arrow and George Westinghouse, a 1931 Pierce-Arrow was selected to be tested at the factory grounds in Buffalo, N.Y. The standard internal combustion engine was removed and an 80-H.P. 1800 r.p.m electric motor installed to the clutch and transmission. The A.C. motor measured 40 inches long and 30 inches in diameter and the power leads were left standing in the air - no external power source!

At the appointed time, Nikola Tesla arrived from New York City and inspected the Pierce-Arrow automobile. He then went to a local radio store and purchased a handful of tubes, wires and assorted resistors. A box measuring 24 inches long, 12 inches wide and 6 inches high was assembled housing the circuit. The box was placed on the front seat and had its wires connected to the air-cooled, brushless motor. Two rods 1/4" in diameter stuck out of the box about 3" in length.

Mr. Tesla got into the driver's seat, pushed the two rods in and stated, "We now have power". He put the car into gear and it moved forward! This vehicle, powered by an A.C. motor, was driven to speeds of 90 m.p.h. and performed better than any internal combustion engine of its day! One week was spent testing the vehicle. Several newspapers in Buffalo reported this test. When asked where the power came from, Tesla replied, "From the ethers all around us".
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/teslafe1.htm

 

[Bob_the_lost]

It's a small world, isn't it?



It's a shame the development of this Tesla modified Pierce-Arrow automobile stopped when it did, otherwise you might never had to call at a gas station again (much to the annoyance of the slippery sisters oil cartel, I'm sure )!

Most entertaining.

Nice to see you again Bigfish btw.