<p>“I just don’t understand your viewpoint on things and your odd style of posting.”</p>
<p>You actually answered it yourself with this:</p>
<p>“Geez, you blame everything on conservatives - literally, everything.”</p>
<p>It’s a very simple formula: if something is wrong or can be twisted to make it sound wrong, CGM blames it on conservatives/Republicans/Christians. But yet, it is also the conservative who are the divisive ones. Go figure.</p>
<p>well she is just swift-boating you.</p>
<p>I find a lot of wisdom in this gem from Socrates:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Psst.</p>
<p>It’s all politics. Election time is coming around, and they aren’t really saying they’ll give you $100. They’re really saying “I want your vote.”</p>
<p>delete…</p>
<p>“Amen”</p>
<p>Good comeback, liberal! Go have a tea party with Hillary!</p>
<p>“if something is wrong or can be twisted to make it sound wrong, CGM blames it on conservatives/Republicans/Christians.”</p>
<p>I agree completely. </p>
<p>Citygirlsmom, I think that them George Dubya put thar hurrycane in the wa wa on purpose. That BOOSH don’t like them liberals, is me right?</p>
<p>
Um, you’re wrong. First of all, if they make the CHOICE, then they should live and die by that choice. I’m not subsidizing it. Clear?</p>
<p>So you’re in DC. What needs to be done in DC, aside from gov’t work or politics, that can’t be done in Charlottesville? Or Williamsburg or Nofolk or Richmond? You’re making the CHOICE to live in that city. </p>
<p>As for the $1 million thing, you’re full of garbage. No polite way to put it. I ran a Washington Post online real estate section search for middle-class, single family homes in Washington DC. Not NoVA, not Maryland, but DC. Price range: $175,000 to $325,000. There are currently almost 4,000 listings available.<br>
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/realestate/[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/realestate/</a>
Play for yourself, then apologize for being full of it. You can own in DC for less than a mil. You can live in Maryland’s Stratmore/Grosvenor area - not a bad place by any means - for a reasonable amount of money. Figure out the numbers for yourself - you’re young, but you’re old enough to learn this stuff before whining. </p>
<p>You’re telling me that it’s necessary to live in NoVa because… you work in DC? Great - take the Metro. </p>
<p>You completely, completely missed the point about gas prices and equity. First of all, you don’t know how to do math. Lesson: compare apples to apples. You cannot compare mortgage to transportation costs - because you have both no matter where you live. So you need to compare mortgage in place 1 + transportation from 1 to work with mortgage 2 + transportation 2. My simple point is that if you are going to spend $5,000 a year extra in transportation, you may as well live somewhere more expensive which will increase in eqiuty. Cities are very recession-proof; the further out from cities you go, the bigger problems you have selling when the economy goes south. Real estate in cities retains its value and constantly appreciates. The five grand that you spend in gas goes out the window (or through the exhaust pipe); five grand in a mortgage builds equity in a home. </p>
<p>Also, random question - how is NoVA to DC at least 75 miles each way? Last time I checked, you’re almost to C-ville by the time you’ve made that drive. A 75ish mile radius from DC gets you:
*well beyond Front Royal;
*near Quantico;
*close to West Virginia;
*Hagerstown, which is near the PA/MD/W. Va. border;
*Newark, Delaware;
*slightly south of Harrisburg, PA.</p>
<p>Just for an example. Just to show you that to extreme-commute to Washington, DC, you are not living in NoVA, unless “NoVA” is up on Rt. 81 near West Virginia. I do not suffer fools gladly, and I will call you out, happily. Few are the people who cannot live within a 25 mile radius of DC proper; if you choose to live in rural Va., Pa., or Maryland (although very little of MD is more than 50 miles away from DC), your choice - but don’t scream that someone needs to provide you with gas rebates or alternative energy sources when you choose to live in the country and work in the city.</p>
<p>“I’m not subsidizing it. Clear?”</p>
<p>Aye, Aye, Captain Genius!</p>
<p>I used to live in the NOVA area, no longer. </p>
<p>“What needs to be done in DC”</p>
<p>Plenty! Not just politics but, computers, AOL, technology etc. There is much to be done in D.C. and the surrounding areas.</p>
<p>Your little Post real estate search showed me nothing. Where did you see 175000 for a house in D.C.? The lowest price I could find was $279,000 in Hagerstown which is 50 minutes away from D.C. Not so convenient, yes? Plus this said house was the size of shoebox, boasting 1000 sq ft in the hood area. I would have to have weapon with me at all times to live there. I did see a 1 bedroom apartment in D.C. for a real bargain, 460,000.00</p>
<p>“take the Metro.”</p>
<p>Yippee! Oh wait. I still have to drive my vehicle to the METRO which Lord knows how far that will take me. Cha ching for gas again!</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, do you live in NOVA? I no longer do, thanks be to God!</p>
<p>Have those idiots who drive 75 miles ever heard of car-pooling?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t make too much fun of CGM for her price-fixing theory, when a certain someone is also playing that line.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501900.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042501900.html</a> </p>
<p>When two MBA oilmen are babbling about price-fixing phantoms, I suspect there might be some very valid questions about our Republican leadership. Bush and Cheney both know an investigation will turn up nothing. And a free market economy would also frown on the kind of government subsidies and sweatheart tax breaks passed to oil industries in headier times. I think the House Republicans are actually fighting a $5 billion tax break repeal from the Senate, which may not play well with voters come November.</p>
<p>And the 100 dollars they are offering us…please, it is an insult</p>
<p>and its okay, make fun of me, I don’t care</p>
<p>17% PROFIT…well, gee, were did that come from</p>
<p>If gas goes up like it is, then EVERYTHING goes up, projects will stop, police departments will have to spend more to save you, food prices will increase, shipping, everything everyday will go up, people will shop less, the entire economy will be hurt, but guess you all forgot what happened with the oil crisis a couple of decades ago, the economy suffered substantially so ONE segment could make a mint</p>
<p>but guess that is okay with you’all</p>
<p>and I did not blame conservatives, I just wanted a valied explanation and not a bunch of whooey</p>
<p>has use increased that much in the last year? really?: oh yeah, we are at WAR so oil will be safe for us…that was a good plan</p>
<p>Did you ever consider that the $100 might not just be a gift? That it might serve some public policy objective? The mathematics and economics behind such things are highly complex. You can’t just oversimplify the $100 credit as being some kind of political ploy. I don’t understand the economics behind it, and neither do you. Unless you have a KSG MPP that you’re not telling us about, or something.</p>
<p>The gigt of money our governemnt does not have!! Were is the money coming from…it is borrowed, with the underlying costs of borrowing money</p>
<p>And really, how far will that 100 go, it covers maybe two tanks of gas…two…after that, prices are still high, and then what…that money will go right back to the gas companies in some form, so profits will go up for them on</p>
<p>CGM: You are stuck on absolute numbers. Take the profit as part % of sales.</p>
<p>“Taken together, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips made a first-quarter profit of $8.19 on every $100 in sales. In contrast, Internet bellwethers Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and eBay Inc. collectively turned a $19.20 profit on every $100 of their combined first-quarter revenue.”</p>
<p>Is 8% gross profit margin obsene?</p>
<p>“In the first quarter, Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips turned over a combined $13.8 billion in excise taxes – about 7 percent of their total revenue.”</p>
<p>“Exxon Mobil’s first-quarter effective income tax rate rose to 47% from 39% a year-ago.”</p>
<p>"Chevron raised its capital and exploratory budget by 76 percent in the first quarter to $3 billion. "</p>
<p>“Exxon said it invested $4.8 billion in capital and exploration projects, a 41 percent increase from 2005.”</p>
<p>Exxon actually made less money selling gas…“The company’s net income from its refining, or downstream, operations was $1.27 billion, compared with $1.45 billion a year earlier.”</p>
<p>“There’s little that either lawmakers or the industry can do in the short-term about the high oil prices that yielded those profits, however, as long as energy markets stay tense and the global economy is expanding. Instead, it would take a decision by CONSUMERS and BUSINESSES to consume LESS FUEL, a choice they have yet to make”</p>
<p>Aries…25mpg average, and during commute times? Maybe if your locality has an extensive freeway network and low congestion.</p>
<p>Take the ‘city’ rating, which assumes consistent speed with brief stops at lights, then drop off a few, because honestly, no city street ACTUALLY performs ideally. A 2002 Camry should get 20mpg in the city, but the owner is likely getting in the 17- range…and this is in a car that’s quite fuel efficient for its year and newer than a majority of cars on the road.</p>
<p>converting mileages from your figures: 17/25 * 825miles / 7days = 80 miles per day (or 594 miles per week).</p>
<p>Plenty of people who work in DC - FDA, NIH, etc - live in Gaithersburg, ~26 miles away. That’s 52 miles, leaving 28 in reserve. That 28 can evaporate easily if an older car is used, or the car is used for more than just commuting.</p>
<p>Even with revised figures, though, I’d take the metro…</p>
<p>Oil companies make very little money off the sale of gasoline itself. Instead the bulk of their money comes from the production and sale of oil, hence their called oil companies, not gasoline companies (although they prefer to call themselves energy companies now). The price of oil has gone up more than 200% in less than five years and 500% in about 10 years. Despite these high oil prices, the world economy is going along just fine. The economy is actually still expanding at a pretty nice pace and oil production will not be able to keep up. Oil production may actually be at a peak (Peak Oil) which would just be the beginning of ever decreasing oil supplies despite massively rising demand (1+ mpd/year). Even without Peak Oil occurring soon, production simply can’t keep up (when taking into consideration all likelihood) with demand, which forces prices higher given this free market that we live in. If prices were to not go up, then there would be shortages and rationing. Feel free to go to North Corea if you’re fond of shortages and rationing. They even have a shortage of rationing. It’s their national hobby!</p>
<p>Would reducing the profit of gas companies help our gas condition so much? No, not really, but the gas companies are only experiencing high profit because they are selling their reserves when the cost for oil was cheaper. Wait until they have to start selling oil at the market price and see how that hits their profit margin.</p>
<p>CGM: “can any conservative here explain why prices are so high, and acutally say it with a straight face”</p>
<p>Why would a conservative need to explain this to you? Hurricane Katrina shut down our own oil refining capacity along the Gulf Coast and the costs for oil on the world market has gone up. Did Republicans cause that the hurricane to destroy our costal refineries and plotted in a global conspiracy to drive up oil prices so we can drill in Alaska? I guess that seems very, very possible. After all, the ultimate goal of conservatives is to drill in Alaska. (sorry, I guess I couldn’t keep a straight face after all…snicker)</p>
<p>my dad is one of the people who drives 75 miles each way to get to work. why is that? because where we live there are no well paying jobs… and he actually makes MORE money paying all of that gas and replacing his car every few years than he would be if he accepted a job around here. he has to have a car that’s 4wd because he drives backroads till he gets to the turnpike, so he has a forrester… which gets great gas milage for a 4wd vehicle.</p>
<p>I myself get about 35mpg and i drive about 20 miles each way to work. I can’t wait to move closer.</p>
<p>i asked conservatives to explain it to me because they seem to find everything this admin does or doesn’t do just peachy</p>
<p>and if the rifineries were shut down…how do they make huge PROFITS!!!</p>
<p>If my Hs business say, breaks something on the job, it is part of the expense and even if he passed the cost along ot his client, he doens’t make MORE money, he breaks even</p>
<p>So why the huge profits!!! Come on, a real reason,no pablom</p>
<p>17 mpg? Can I laugh? My 15-year-old, automatic Volvo gets 22 minimum in traffic. </p>
<p>When I drove a Honda Accord ('92 model in the late '90s), I routinely got 32 mpg. I’m sorry, 25 is a completely rational estimate. You can quibble up or down a bit; but you would think that a person with a long commute would have the sense to buy something more fuel efficient. You are really just quibbling over nothing - completely asinine. </p>
<p>Calling you out on that one. Drive my darling '91 car in traffic, realize that you’re getting 22 to the gallon, and then tell me that these poor people get 17 to the gallon in traffic. Again - refusing to allow people’s lack of ability to maintain their cars be someone’s problem.</p>
<p>CGM: I suggest you educate YOURSELF instead of waiting for conservatives to do it for you. Also, would suggest promoting some sort of solution - alternative energy sources won’t be available for yars, so what is the working class to do between now and then? The Republicans have just volunteered a VERY regressive tax break ($100, regardless of whether you make minimum wage or a million bucks a year), for the purpose of helping out working Americans, and the Democrats complain. I LOVE IT!!!</p>
<p>Again, no one is filling up your car for you; they are just covering the increased costs. </p>
<p>FYI: I have not filled up my gas tank since Easter. Driven all of about 100 miles in that time. Certainly would have been nice to take a pre-finals shopping trip or a mid-finals study break, but it’s not happening with gas at these prics. </p>
<p>I don’t agree with everything this administration does. Saying that we agree with the Bush administration is like saying y’all agree with prohibitions against interstate recognition of gay marriage. (I’ll wait while your heads spin as you try to figure that one out. 
)</p>