How Far Would You Drive to Save a Few Cents per Gallon?

Just how far would you drive to find gasoline that was 8 cents cheaper per gallon? Eleven gallons of gasoline minus eight cents per gallon would save almost a dollar.

Or would it???



11 gallons would save approximately 88 cents at the gas station above. But when one factors in that the gas station was 1.5 miles out of the way, plus 1.5 miles for the return trip equals 3 extra miles traveled, or 1/8 of a gallon if your car gets 24 miles per gallon.

An 1/8 of a gallon costs approximately 60 cents nowadays.

So from the 88 cents in fuel savings we must now subtract the 60 cents in extra gasoline consumption, making for a grand total in savings of 28 cents!



The lesson is, if you buy gas from a gas station that is exactly enroute to where you are going anyways, you can offset slightly higher costs per gallon, versus going out of your way to find a slightly lower cost gasoline station.

Just what is the least amount of money you would be willing to save per tankful when the extra mileage to get the cheaper gas is taken into account? For my purposes, any savings less than 50 cents per tankful is probably not worth it. So I guess it was my bad when I went for the lower price but higher distance, as my net savings was approximately 28 cents.

Lou Dobbs Agrees, sort of, Impeach George Bush, just like WallStreetChange Reported a Week Ago.

Reported on this Blog one week ago, Impeach Bush over his inability to rally any government resources over REDUCING FUTURE FLOODING downstream that would be occurring over the next couple of weeks.

Lou Dobbs expresses impeachment concerns about tomato tainted salmonella. All I can say is if Lou Dobbs thinks George Bush should be impeached for salmonella tainted tomatoes, what about his non action in doing anything to REDUCE flood damage that is yet to happen.

Both of our stories came on the same day. I think the flood waters are an easier target to fight than salmonella, but either way, George Bush doesn't seem interested in making a real difference in his own country, just fighting wars elsewhere.

Lou Dobbs Impeachment Article
WallStreetChange Impeach George Bush Article

Why it Really is Later Than We Think When it Comes to Petroleum and the Worlds Addiction to Oil.

Imagine that ethanol had been invented before gasoline. The advantages of Ethanol would be pretty apparent, one can grow their own fuel while remaining independent of all other countries and entities. Seed, water, soil, and sun and one can grow corn to make ethanol, wow.

Now imagine the ethanol pioneers wanting to resell excess ethanol. To meet this goal, and to increase efficiency and profits, a huge ethanol plant is built. At first glance the ethanol plant is doing spectacularly well as all the local growers bring their corn in for processing. Sooner rather than later, the nearby seasonal supply of corn is depleted.

To keep the ethanol plant busy, and profitable, corn is pipelined in. Oh wait a minute, corn cannot be pipelined in, because it's corn. The lightweight, volume enhanced corn has to be trucked in. It soon becomes apparent that as the distance the corn has to travel before it is ethanolized increases, the potential profits are consumed simply supplying ethanol fuel to the truck that is carrying the load of corn in for processing.

The corn to ethanol ratio works best when the corn is nearby, and almost doesn't work at all as that distance grows. To make matters worse, not only does the truck have to go and get the corn from the farm and then bring it back, all the while burning ethanol, another truck has to then be used to transport the flammable fluid to it's final destinations. Ethanol also is used to harvest the corn, and sadly, the fertllizer used to help grow the corn uses petroleum products as well. The result is way too much ethanol being used, to produce ethanol.

Petroleum has always been able to mask the wrongness of using itself, to make more of itself, until now. The wrongness with petroleum comes into play when petroleum energy is used to make more products, that also are petroleum dependent. If petroleum was only used to create products that in turn run off of non-petroleum based fuel, the world and its future would look a lot better.

I happened to catch Tammy Bruce (June 22, 2008) on the radio last Sunday afternoon, and it was appalling to hear her try and claim that the United States' over consumption of petroleum is something the rest of the world should bow down to in gratitude because the United States fuels the world's economy. This is nonsense.

The worst thing the United States could be doing is encouraging every other country to follow our "petroleum addicted" lead. Sadly, we seem to be doing a great job of addicting the rest of the world to petroleum.

When we use petroleum to make products that rely on the burning of petroleum to function, we are no different than the farmer driving their load of corn a far enough distance to basically burn up all the product that was to be made from selling the corn for ethanol in the first place.

How does this relate to Wall Street?

Wall Street does not want to acknowledge the super simple rule that using petroleum to make other products that rely on petroleum will be the quickest road to a worldwide economic meltdown. If Wall Street continues down the path of rewarding petroleum based products that create more petroleum based addiction with higher stock value, the surface of the planet and the industrialized nations that enhabit part of it will just be wiped out at a faster than expected rate.

Those less addicted to petroleum will probably survive at a better rate than the industrialized nations.

Old School Thinking Types like Tammy Bruce helping to Destroy the Planet.

Coming Soon, a Response to comments Tammy Bruce made about the United States gasoline consumption. The rebuttal to Tammy Bruce can be found directly above. Or you can click on this link Tammy Bruce Rebuttal

Banks continue to Squeeze Consumers Credit Card Debt Dry.

Rather than make a bold move and encourage consumers to pay down their debt by eliminating interest rate charges on OLD DEBT, the Banks continue to cling to the only way they know how to make money, charging ridiculously high interest rates on old credit card debt. The banks may then use this never ending old debt indenturedness to invest in businesses in other countries.

When will this madness end? Will it take physical riots to uproot a system that is trying to pretend the status quo is acceptable? Wall Street continues to crumble yet clings to it's credit card interest rate fiasco as a prize of some kind. Long Term Credit Card Debt is no prize, it is an anchor that continues to sink the american economy, american citizens, and Wall Street.

What is bad for the american consumer SHOULD ALSO BE BAD FOR WALL STREET, but somehow that does not seem to be the case.

Should President George Bush be Impeached over the Rampant Flood Damage that is still Days and Weeks Away?

Nobody knows at this point how much damage the Flooding along Iowa and on down the Mississippi River and surrounding areas will cause. But the FACT that NOTHING by the government is being done to mitigate the floodwaters before they do new damage downstream, is very disconcerting to me.

Is the lesson learned from New Orleans to simply get FEMA in place as soon as possible and help flood victims, is that all has been learned? Of all the types of non-man made disasters, slow motion floods fall into a different category simply because their damage can go on for days and weeks as the mass of water moves downstream to new locations, causing more and more devastation.
If President Bush thinks his only responsibility is to monitor flood damage that has already occurred, acknowledge that more damage is to come, visit the flooded location, and dole out money that isn't his, he could be charged with reckless disregard for the american citizen, and I think this kind of reaction is worthy of impeachment charges being brought against him.

If you found out that 100 billion dollars in damage related to the floods was going to occur, and that damage could have been cut in half to 50 billion dollars with a 5 billion dollar influx of governmental resources, resources that would have both created jobs while reducing flood damages, wouldn't that mean that the government just squandered 45 billion dollars of taxpayers money?

Is George Bush's government about spending money to fight wars in other countries while disregarding the welfare of people in his own country?

MInimal, insignificant action on the homefront by George Bush as it relates to PREVENTING additional flood damage is not acceptable. I consider that to be reason enough for impeachment. Who in congress is on the president's case to do more? To make sure resources besides money are in place to reduce future flood damages? Or is congress fearful that if they speak up now, their region will get less funds after the flood waters have receded?

Is this the best that we can do?

Waiting to Exhale, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is just the tip of the FloodBerg.

I am completely floored that our government is basically standing by waiting for the flood waters to recede in Iowa so they can go in and "mop up" and dole out vouchers, water, and perhaps temporary shelters. But what when the waters recede in Iowa, do those waters just recede and disappear, or do they ease on down the road?

I feel like the government is engaged in some sort of ambulance chasing involving the flood waters. Rather than get ahead of the flood waters and try and do something to alleviate the flooding, the idea seems to be to wait for the flood to go on its destructive way, and then clean up and rebuild.

While nobody may have ever said "Slow motion disasters fascinate me, I just sit and look at one for days", it sure seems to be the modus operandi currently at work.

Is this the best that we can do? Really?

How does this relate to Wall Street? The less resilent we are as a nation to fix our own problems, to repair our own damage, to anticipate and minimize future known problems, the less reason there is to invest in our own stock market.

500 Year Flood, Dredging up Mountains of Mud might have prevented billions of dollars in Damages.

Apparently, there may be a "wave effect" from all the Mississippi River related flooding. Places farther north that are suffering right now, such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, may then translate into places further south having their flooding problems in the near future. Is it possible that some type of dredging or ground forces could make a difference farther south, except that perhaps we just are not prepared to fight wars against nature?

Is it possible that George Bush believes that the military is to be used only to fight in other parts of the world, but never to heal problems in the United States? In a twisted sort of way, is the government secretly pleased that the floods will cause a lot of damage, and that once the floods have receded the local economies will get a much needed boost from the insurance companies? Could that be the master plan?

I think we can do much, much better than that.

Tim Russert Passes.

Please leave a Tim Russert remembrance if you have one.

Cedar Rapids Iowa Flooding, How Long for the Media to Realize this is more important than the Presidential Race Daily Discussion?

I don't mean to imply that Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the only place that has had trouble this year. Tornados, Cyclones, Earthquakes and floods have been happening all over the world. 50,000 people and more have perished in earthquakes.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa is starting to look and feel like New Orleans and the news agencies are still too wrapped up in the presidential campaigns to switch gears and make this flood the real top story.
In coming days, Cedar Rapids, Iowa will be heard about more and more, but what about right now? This lack of complete focus on troubled american regions harms the american people and economy by not letting the proper attention be used to make a difference.

I heard that FEMA is out there, but why is MSNBC still going on and on about the presidential race that is still months away while floods waters rise to unheard of levels.

The United States Military uses a LOT of Petroleum, Are they Giving Away America Because of this?

These numbers may change as I do more research, but it appears that the United States Military uses 15,000 gallons of gasoline every second of every day! My calculator doesn't have enough digits but lets do some math. Assuming every gallon of gas nets the supplier one dollar, that would mean our suppliers, whom we are told don't like us, are being paid 15,000 dollars a second to do business with our military.

15,000 dollars a second equals 900,000 dollars a minute, 54 million dollars an hour, 1.296 billion dollars a day. Is our military really paying our supposed antagonists 1.3 billion dollars a day for petroleum to fight them, to protect us from them? Is this why the middle east now has so much money that they want to buy huge chunks of America?

At 1.3 billion dollars a day, that is a whole lot of real estate our oil suppliers can buy in the United States, especially as the high price of petroleum reduces real estate values! 1.3 billion dollars a day for Military fuel expenses may be controversial, and one could argue that 30% of all of that oil is from the United States, so that portion shouldn't be counted.

Yes and No. As our budget deficit grows because of our dependence on oil, we are paying interest charges on our national debt. But it's worse than that.

To show a positive bottom line. banks are hammering the american citizen to the tune of 30% credit card interest rates. So one could say that the 30% oil that we produce ourselves has been negated by the 30% interest rate that is being passed on to consumers on the ever increasing revolving debt and decreasing real estate value being caused in part by our becoming an import economy.

What the military consumes in one years time for petroleum could actually power the United States' entire public transit system for 14 years!

If the Military donated just 10% of their oil consumption to the United States public transit system, the public transit system could eliminate their entire fuel expenditures every year! We are reaching a point where less is more. The less foreign oil we purchase to power our military, the stronger we may actually be.

I think we have already crossed the point of less is more, but apparently nobody has bothered to notify the military.

How Wall Street could help Prevent Flooding from the Mississippi River, but Refuses to do so.

Over time, the Mississippi River bottom literally gets "muddied up". The result is the depth of the Mississippi gets shallower and shallower. Today we see the result of that shallow depth as the midwest experiences monstrous floods unseen in at least 15 years.

Some people like to rationalize that floods are good for the economy. Insurance money "floods" the area and people go forward with the task of rebuilding their lives, hiring contractors who in turn purchase supplies, and so on.

While one can agree that there is sort of a perverse economic insurance funded bounce after a tragedy, I doubt that the actual net affect is a good one. How about Wall Street actually supporting the revitalization of the Mississipi River by having it dredged several feet deeper. I would assume that the mud at the base of the Mississippi River is actually good potting and planting soil, no?

Why can't Wall Street just create an industry that actually maintains the Mississippi River and in the process prevents flooding, damage to billions of dollars worth of real estate, reduces Insurance Industry costs, and creates a made in america product? Or should I say Mud in America. Mississippi Mud would probably would be coveted in the United States, especially with so many people starting to grow their own fruits and vegetables.

If you are an expert in the field of flood management and want to refute my position, please do so in the comments section. I just want to understand why Wall Street can't create a win win win situation within the United States, but happily will bilk indebted american citizens to the tune of 30% credit card interest rate charges, and then use that money to invest in economies outside of the United States. How about Wall Street start helping the very people they are overcharging and underserving.

Solving the Home Owner Crisis Requires more than a Stimulus Check.

A better way to stimulate the economy is to eliminate interest rate charges for a while. An economic stimulus package in which the entire amount of the stimulus check goes towards higher gasoline prices is silly, no? If I were a bank and I was worried about millions of foreclosures, I would value keeping the homeowner making a monthly payment over simply foreclosing on them.

But for some inexplicable reason, the banks seem reluctant to waive interest payments. The obvious reason is that if they waive interest payments for some, they will have to do this for everybody. The reverse corollary to this reasoning is, if the banks don't waive interest payments, the debtors who lose their homes just become more of a drain on society, and it will be up to others to prop them up.

How about this idea. Waive all interest payments on home mortgages UNTIL a homeowner is no longer upside down on the house, plus 20% equity. So if a homeowner owes more on a house than the house is worth, they get to stay in the home as long a they make interest free payments. Once they have built up 20% equity in the home, they can either put the home up for sale, or agree to new terms that now involve interest.

Assuming banks have behaved ethically in how they have managed their homeowners loans, the above solution is a no brainer that helps everybody get through the current crunch. If it isn't done sooner rather than later, than we can assume the fix is in to imprison the american citizen for some ulterior motive.

Made in America, a Label that is Harder and Harder to Find.

If an american company can increase it's stock value by outsourcing its labor to other countries, how does that help America citizens? If a company actually disassembles assembly lines and sends them overseas where cheaper labor will reassemble and run the assembly line, how does that help America?

One argument that is used is if American companies don't stay competitive in the overall cost of their products, they will simply lose market share anyways. I don't have an exact answer to that conundrum, but I do know that if local economies don't spread wealth threw enough hands, that local economy will suffer either a quick, or slow death. An import economy does not replenish
a local economy anywhere near as effectively as products that are actually made in america.

Can't American stores guarantee to stock a certain percentage of completely made in america products on their shelves? 25%, 30%, 33%? Shouldn't every American store guarantee a certain amount of American made products are sold within their stores?

The Price of Gasoline Doesn't Matter.

The Price of Gasoline Doesn't Matter. Well, actually, the price of gasoline shouldn't matter. If you drive a car that gets 20 miles per gallon, and pay 2.00 dollars per gallon, your cost per gallon of gasoline is no different than if you drive a car that gets 50 miles per gallon and you are paying 5 dollars per gallon.

The problem has been in the lethargy with which our own economy, marketing, and personal preferences cause the increase in miles per gallon technology to barely increase over the past 20-30 years. New potential gas saving advancements are instead put into faster acceleration or more internal comfort for the passengers such as more 12 volt outputs to power television screens, improve air conditioning, add a better speaker system, keep the car more plush, or just larger and heavier than is necessary.

Just what is happening to the gasoline profits? Think about that for a moment. In a free market universe it's none of our business what the petroleum profiteer does. But what if the oil profiteer decided to make millions of hummers, sell them at a discount, and even offer 3 dollars off on a gallon of gas to every buyer of a hummer? While the odds are that won't happen, there are signs of it with these gas for only 2.99 guarantee offers if you basically buy a new gas guzzling car.

Could the argument be made that we no longer have a "free market society" if the amount of petroleum required for the planet's economy to run is more than can be supplied? Under those conditions, aren't urgent maneuvers the order of the day?

Not if you believe in let the market decide. At some point, the price of gas will become so high that other technologies will be developed. so just let the market decide. But there is a problem with that line of thinking.

If the oil profiteers choose to ignore the development of alternative energy technologies, they actually obstruct it's development. The obstruction comes in the form of purchasing existing, inefficient products that actually increase oil consumption! Anything short of investing ALL of the excess petroleum profits in alternative renewable energy products generated in one form or another by the sun, may be too little too late.

I believe we are in an "either you support alternative energy technologies, or you are against alternative energy technologies" mode, there is no in between. Fighting in Iraq to ensure stability so oil flows becomes a moot point if we don't accelerate our own fight for alternative energy development at a fater rate, especially when the amount of oil the military is using just to stay in Iraq is factored in.

Those Low Priced Import Trinkets, Part II, How they Hurt the U.S. Economy.

I believe the current economic woes in the United States are imbedded in our import economy. As more and more money is squeezed from the american consumer via credit card interest rate charges, gas guzzling cars, and HELOC's, the american consumer becomes addicted to low cost import products.

I could start a business right now. put a catalog of import products together, put up a website, and try and sell those products. Odds are that I won't succeed, but some have. However, whether I succeed or not, if our economy becomes more and more dependent on reselling only, with no emphasis on product creation and the servicing of existing product lines, the ability for local economies to refuel themselves is destroyed.

If our economy becomes all about the price of a import product with virtually no emphasis on quality, durability, repairability or usefulness of the product, we are doomed. We have actually reached that point in the United States. But what is probably sinking us is that our power elite either knows they have destroyed the local infrastructure all local economies need to survive, or they are too busy making the next big overseas import deal to care.

Those Low Priced Import Trinkets, How they Hurt the U.S. Economy.

I believe that import trinkets have had as much to do with the destruction of the US economy as our love with wasting gasoline and the wars we fight to keep that right.

What are Trinkets?

Trinkets are a small step up above junk, a very small step. On second thought they may be worse than junk simply because we believe they are not junk. Certainly todays plastic import trinket will be tomorrows landfill junk, no? The older junk you sell or try and give away today is no doubt worth more than the current trinket you buy today and try to sell or give away in the future.

I recently observed a "Reduced to Sell" sign on several boxes of import trinkets outside of an indoor mini mall store. It made me think of what a silly waste this was. This business had other, newer, lower priced inventory to put out for sale and needed to fast sell it's previous line of import trinket junk.

The goal for this business was to now try and find a buyer for these low priced trinkets. In turn this trinket seller would then have to find a place for what in many cases were probably "new and cheaper" trinkets, or basically worthless products ready to replace the trinkets that had yet to sell.

Suddenly this whole process seemed stupid to me. Products are cranked out in China in what probably are slave like situations. These products are then shipped across the Pacific Ocean, imported at various U.S. docks, then trucked in to stores. The store then makes room for this out of the country product at the expense of more expensive, better quality products that used to be made in the United States.

Do you prefer to fill your living space with very low cost items, or do you prefer to wait and slowly buy more expensive items? Do you prefer to buy several low costs products cranked out in an environmentally squalid situation at less than slave wages, or can you wait, and buy higher quality, hand crafted products instead?

Or, is your goal to quickly fill your living space with low cost junk, then slowly over time replace that junk with nicer stuff? Or is the low cost junk for youngsters, yours and your friends, to help you stay within budget? Or, would you be better off buying ONE more expensive but decent product, then several lower cost products that are not made very well?

Is the plastic crap being dumped on the US market something that also goes on in Europe, where space is more of a premium. or is it more of US phenomenon?

Are low cost plastic imports the equivalent of the Star Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles"? Maybe it's time for a remake called "The Trouble with Trinkets" in which the original Star Trek script is kept intact, except trinkets replace the tribbles. Is it possible that we are building false wealth on the backs of products that really don't offer either quality or usefulness, but do require additional dependence on oil needed to ship products from overseas. Lets also factor in all the oil being used to ship raw resources to China so they can be turned into a trinket.

Over time, Chinese products have gotten better and better, the question I have is, did the Chinese economic revolution have to happen so fast? I wonder how many hard earned U.S. Dollars were simply shipped off to China to create businesses that literally sucked the life out of American manufacturing and the very people who did business with the banks.

In the next article I would like to further explore how trinkets are destroying the US economy, your comments are welcome.

Welcome to Wall Street Change

lol, it's all about change this year. In that spirit I thought a blog that discusses Wall Street Philosophy and how it affects citizens of the United States might be an interesting adventure.

I am not an economist, however I know I am an ideas person so I would like to share ideas that relate to the U.S. economy. Your responses in the comments section will spur this blog on.