General Conference Rumors

[Tacenda]

5 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Soon, gas in the US will be more expensive than it is here in UK. Actually, that may be the case already. I'll have to check.

ETA: Checked and we're currently $7.15 per gallon.

In the UK I don't picture the gas guzzling vehicles like here in the US.

And cool video you shared earlier, beautiful! I kept looking for a fence on the edge of the cliff by the homes, and did see one finally, whew! 

[mfbukowski]

29 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Soon, gas in the US will be more expensive than it is here in UK. Actually, that may be the case already. I'll have to check.

ETA: Checked and we're currently $7.15 per gallon.

CA is no longer the USA though

But yes, that is not too bad a price here, for today.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

21 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

In the UK I don't picture the gas guzzling vehicles like here in the US.

And cool video you shared earlier, beautiful! I kept looking for a fence on the edge of the cliff by the homes, and did see one finally, whew! 

It's like in the '60's you saw the cars in Europe and they were all little tiny things because gas was so expensive.  Fiat. Reneau Le Car.  VW Beetles.

We had the big cars with tail fins.

I remember gas at 29 cents per gallon.

The joys of inflation.

But if we follow this line, that will shut it down for the "P" word.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Soon, gas in the US will be more expensive than it is here in UK. Actually, that may be the case already. I'll have to check.

ETA: Checked and we're currently $7.15 per gallon.

Maybe we should do something to encourage oil companies to extract more?

This is a multi-faceted problem and only a little of it has to do with inflation. A lot of it has to do with labor shortages. There are lots of sites (most of it on private land though a lot of federal and state owned lands are included too) that are ready to be drilled but it is hard to get labor to the site or they have mineral rights but can’t get the surface landowner’s cooperation or it is not cost-effective to move the oil out to concerns that overproduction will tank prices and the startup costs of new drilling operations will never be recovered and on and on. The industry is just super volatile which doesn’t encourage expansion with a lot of risk.

[Stargazer]

10 hours ago, Malc said:

Yeah, but how far can you drive in a country that's the size of a postage stamp? 🙃

LOL!

Indeed. Even a town only 20 miles away can take an hour to get to, depending. 

Oh, yes, Motorways. The M25, the ring freeway around London, has been called the World's Largest Parking Lot. 

Speaking of narrow country roads:

 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Maybe we should do something to encourage oil companies to extract more?

This is a multi-faceted problem and only a little of it has to do with inflation. A lot of it has to do with labor shortages. There are lots of sites (most of it on private land though a lot of federal and state owned lands are included too) that are ready to be drilled but it is hard to get labor to the site or they have mineral rights but can’t get the surface landowner’s cooperation or it is not cost-effective to move the oil out to concerns that overproduction will tank prices and the startup costs of new drilling operations will never be recovered and on and on. The industry is just super volatile which doesn’t encourage expansion with a lot of risk.

Another huge hit to fuel prices is taxes. I have heard that more than half of the cost of fuel in Britain is taxes. 

[bluebell]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Maybe we should do something to encourage oil companies to extract more?

This is a multi-faceted problem and only a little of it has to do with inflation. A lot of it has to do with labor shortages. There are lots of sites (most of it on private land though a lot of federal and state owned lands are included too) that are ready to be drilled but it is hard to get labor to the site or they have mineral rights but can’t get the surface landowner’s cooperation or it is not cost-effective to move the oil out to concerns that overproduction will tank prices and the startup costs of new drilling operations will never be recovered and on and on. The industry is just super volatile which doesn’t encourage expansion with a lot of risk.

And usually (for us in the states) the price comes down to whatever OPEC is doing plus the weather.

The cost of crude oil is about half of the cost of gas and refining costs are most of the rest (plus some for taxes and small stuff like that).  When OPEC cuts production (like they did this summer because they wanted to make more money), and demand is high (like it also is in the summer travel season), it makes the cost go up.  Plus, refineries had issues this summer because of extreme heat (they can't operate at capacity when it's super hot) and hurricanes (which shut down refineries on the coasts), making fuel more expensive on that side of things.

Together it's a perfect storm of expensive fuel.  

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Another huge hit to fuel prices is taxes. I have heard that more than half of the cost of fuel in Britain is taxes. 

A lot people (for some weird reason) support raising taxes on oil and gas companies because they believe that the companies are so rich they should pay more, but fail to realize that the companies don't pay those taxes.  The consumers pay them.

[Chum]

20 minutes ago, bluebell said:

A lot people (for some weird reason) support raising taxes on oil and gas companies because they believe that the companies are so rich they should pay more, but fail to realize that the companies don't pay those taxes.  The consumers pay them.

Boy are you not wrong. I know of 5 places that pay corp expenses. Shareholder dividends, executive payouts, wages, upkeep and cost of goods sold.

The first two are at the front of the line and get everything they can.  The rest get to keep the corp in business.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Chum

[Chum]

The conference stream is in surround sound. Our 1980s system plays music out the back speakers but they're silent during talks.

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

You used to be a radical, now you’re just a grumpy old boomer 😛

Now I am suspicious that you have been talking to my wife.  🤨

[Tacenda]

5 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Now I am suspicious that you have been talking to my wife.  🤨

When I first started posting, I pictured you to be way younger than me. And maybe an artist, lol. 

[Malc]

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

LOL!

Indeed. Even a town only 20 miles away can take an hour to get to, depending. 

Oh, yes, Motorways. The M25, the ring freeway around London, has been called the World's Largest Parking Lot. 

Speaking of narrow country roads

I worked for a while in Yeovil, and lived in a small village called Bradford Abbas. Between that area, and parts of Scotland north of the Clyde, I've driven on lots of "single track with passing places" roads. Quite hairy at times.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

A lot people (for some weird reason) support raising taxes on oil and gas companies because they believe that the companies are so rich they should pay more, but fail to realize that the companies don't pay those taxes.  The consumers pay them.

There is a logic in taxing gasoline. If you want to fairly apportion the costs to build and maintain roads it is often considered fair to collect that money at least to some degree proportionally to how much use individuals and organizations of all types are getting out of them. Electric cars are probably going to kill this approach at some point.

[CV75]

I heard a rumor that General Conference would be cancelled this year. Did that happen?

[Calm]

20 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I heard a rumor that General Conference would be cancelled this year. Did that happen?

For some people probably.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

When I first started posting, I pictured you to be way younger than me. And maybe an artist, lol. 

Lol! Well I have studied art history some - Both art and philosophy are about Humans, including Gods- creating our world AS WE KNOW/ SEE it.

But that is a  l o n g story!

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Lol! Well I have studied art history some - Both art and philosophy are about Humans, including Gods- creating our world AS WE KNOW/ SEE it.

But that is a  l o n g story!

 

I started out in physics and ended up in psychology. Want to know how everything works.

It is all One.

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

I started out in physics and ended up in psychology. Want to know how everything works.

It is all One.

It really is it's like the 3 blind men and the elephant- all human knowledge is limited by human perception-- meaning human psychology!

We see thru a mirror of our own perceptions- for now only God sees "face to face".

Physics is the best at building a human perception of the world as humans see it with their human tools and math etc. -  but it cant do more.

Both tell us how we see things, not "things as they are".

Edited October 1, 2023 by mfbukowski

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

There is a logic in taxing gasoline. If you want to fairly apportion the costs to build and maintain roads it is often considered fair to collect that money at least to some degree proportionally to how much use individuals and organizations of all types are getting out of them. Electric cars are probably going to kill this approach at some point.

Agreed. Taxes for roads, which are charged at the pump and not to businesses providing the product, definitely make sense.

Im thinking more of the taxes that voters sometimes vote into existence that businesses have to pay as a cost of doing business. Those are almost always simply passed along to the consumer.  And then the consumer is upset the price went up. 

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, CV75 said:

I heard a rumor that General Conference would be cancelled this year. Did that happen?

Another victim of Cancel Culture.

[Chum]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

I started out in physics and ended up in psychology. Want to know how everything works.

I'm with you. If something isn't one, it's the other.

[Stargazer]

On 10/1/2023 at 4:34 PM, bluebell said:

A lot people (for some weird reason) support raising taxes on oil and gas companies because they believe that the companies are so rich they should pay more, but fail to realize that the companies don't pay those taxes.  The consumers pay them.

Yep. So they are demanding to pay more taxes themselves. 

[Stargazer]

On 10/1/2023 at 8:12 PM, Malc said:

I worked for a while in Yeovil, and lived in a small village called Bradford Abbas. Between that area, and parts of Scotland north of the Clyde, I've driven on lots of "single track with passing places" roads. Quite hairy at times.

I was on one of those single-track roads earlier today. The brush and the left side of my car were getting well acquainted.

We will be visiting Yeovil in a couple of weeks! 

[Malc]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I was on one of those single-track roads earlier today. The brush and the left side of my car were getting well acquainted.

We will be visiting Yeovil in a couple of weeks! 

I wonder if my old Branch President & family might still be around: Noel & Angela Parsons were lovely people. They would be in their 70s now.