USA take notice… i wonder what striking Gas Tanker Drivers would do to the gas industry

Why is this story being carried by LLN? Even a story like “VW adds new tartan seat cloth” would have more relevance for enthusiasts.

Have a Seat, boys.

Really? Can I get the tartan seat cloth installed on my recalled Tiguan? VW is lame.

This goes to show y’all…don’t f*cking mess with truck drivers. Without them, any country grinds to a halt. This is serious, gentlemen. Something has *got* to be done to lower these ridiculous oil prices. It’s only a matter of time before a strike of this magnitude hits this side of the Atlantic, and then we’ll have to pay the price. I’m hoping it won’t spin out of control and lead to a Mad Max-style world…

Hmm Mad Max, Maybe in the southwest U.S.A, and maybe in the land of O.Z. What actually scares me more, and I read a fictional book about this, was this massive energy shortage leading to WWIII. Of course it is only fiction but the beginning of the story sounds just like how things are happenning now in real life.

It’ll be interesting to see how this carries out. I commend the working men and women of Spain for doing this but will it turn out to be more harm than good? We need to moniter this very closely and see how it pans out and maybe the people in the U.S. and other countries will follow suit…

@Need4SSpeed

WWIII is not fiction, we’re already in it. You can think of our current period as being equivalent to 1937 Europe with Iran playing the role of Germany and North Korea playing the role of Japan and the USA playing the role of Britain. The sooner the world realizes the mess we’re in politically (instead of denying it and even trying to say that 9/11 was a conspiracy of the right-wing in the US government), the sooner we meet these problems head-on.

Don’t forget, OPEC hasn’t increased production in three years while the world’s economy (and thus need for petroleum) has grown at about 5% per anum over that time. That’s a total of nearly 20% more demand for fuel with the same supply. (If you think 5% per anum means 15% then you need to learn about compounding sums).

^ yeah you’re right. As long as the U.S continues to buy foreign oil, especially from the middle east. The U.S is sorta appeasing like Britain did with Germany. What we need is collaboration among all of the countries that feed off of foreign oil and pressure the countries of OPEC to either produce more or do something. (which will probably never happen)

Obviusly looking at the big picture we need to eventually become independent of fossil fuels, but something has to be done.

Spain has cars?

You now what, this can be one of the “small” steps towards a global irreversible ****alization, by this I mean people will, with a couple of pushes more,learn the power of unity and peaceful protests. This certainly damages more than a plain destroying a building, in economical therms (It really shakes a country). Think WWIII is right there and some says it’d be because of the sweet water, I think oil is more desirable this days. We’re changing too slowly, soon this will be pure mess.

I re-read it and I realized I sound like a GreenPeacer but I’m just showing my point of view.

Bolex: “Spain has cars?” Yes, they do, they’re like FIAT but Spanish; SEAT. Their style is cool and they’re non-luxury hatch’s, most of them.

1c3d0g: Invade the Middle East? Wait, we’ve already tried that.

Rafa LL – nah, i was just kidding. although thanks coz i didnt Seat’s came from Spain.

SEATs are built on same platforms as VWs. They’re part of VW.

Payton Byrd, if world is near WWIII or in it per your assertion, did you build a nuclear shelter in back yard? Are you really comparing Iran and North Korea (even combined) to Germany? What are you smoking, and where can I buy some of that? BTW, you are smoking too much of it, you are getting paranoid.
US gets about 7% of its oil from Middle East. Most of our oil comes from Nigeria. Of course we are affected by their little war(s) and market reacts it.
Russia is not member of OPEC and holds oil reserves second to Saudi Arabia. Former republics of Soviet Union probably have the same amount of combined oil reserves as OPEC.
About 5-7 years ago there were series of articles in WSJ stating that the peak of world oil production will be between 2008 and 2015. It was impossible to tell at a time precise date, but it haven’t been news. I hate OPEC so much that I’ve been driving efficient cars all my life, but realistically if I would own oil reserve and price of it goes up by the hour would I rush to sell it for less?

I don’t understand, why are they going on strike? In the US if fuel cost more, the cost is passed on to consumers (we) who pay more for groceries and services. In Spain the drivers must have a time contract to earn wages regardless of fuel costs. Can this happen in the US?

A group of knuckleheads decided to strike thinking that will actually accomplish something and Spain will lower fuel prices. All it does is call attention to the price of oil and fuel, and hey Spain, we already know the ****ing price of gas, **** you very much. No it won’t happen in the US. The price of oil is very shaky right now, and if you have paid attention to the price of oil in the past 2 weeks, it came down, and then went right back up again very quickly. This same scenario was just played out by the real estate market. Prices kept going up and up and they got to a point where most people could not afford to keep or buy their home, and people quit buying and others defaulted. The price of oil has been going up and up not because of the rag headed sand monkeys and OPEC, but because of global stock markets and investors buying in oil futures. When there is multiple offers for anything, the price goes up, and this can create a false market. When the price shakes, many sell and even more buy it at a lower price. Soon, investors are going to stop buying oil at $137/barrel, and the price will drop. Fast. I predict that we will see oil below $100 right around the election, and it could drop even more after the election if McCain is elected. If Obama is elected, ****. Get a bus schedule.

Oh,yes they do have cars in Spain, and in some weird way this story bears a lot of relevance to US-consumers. It’s a wakeup-call as to what is going to happen when US citizens one fine day will have to pay what a gallon og fuel really costs. $7.60 a gallon diesel is only the beginning I fear.

This has been going on for some time in Europe folks. Gasoline taxation is huge over the pond. I worked with some British and Irish engineering back in 2003 and they told me similar stories of truck driver strikes in England where they parked the trucks on the highways and walked away.

I really hope your prediction is right brassmonkey, I really do…

Unfortunately as much as I would love to see it, to me I predict gas continuing to rise and eventually hitting $5 and 6$ a barrel by the next two years.

Today, pretty much gas is about $3.35/gallon and diesel about $4/gallon on the spot market. Anything over and above that is mostly taxation. If the euros don’t like paying $9, they can point the finger at their hyper-controlling politicians (just like we here can also).

mayer_ray_nagin, fed taxes gasoline at 18c/gallon and diesel at 24c. The rest are local taxes. In Europe there is VAT (value added tax, albeit nobody explain what value tax can possibly add) of 20% across EU countries and then their country and local taxes kick in. In US like in Europe there is distribution cost and the cost of operating gas station by each individual owner/manager.

The strike in Spain is not about cost of fuel, no government can fix that: Spanish or US alike. The strike is by smaller operators for who diesel cost more then then for large companies. Like everywhere there are cost saving measures large companies enjoy in Spain and small operators feel squeezed. Large tracking companies purchase diesel in bulk for their facility and since Spain is not all that big (compare to US) trucks can fuel up at the depot and make round trip all around country. Small operators have to go to gas station for fuel and pay $7.60/gallon. The prices for deliveries are dictated by large companies, based on their reduced cost of fuel. Before the price increase, smallish operators could compete, becuase cost of fuel was less percentage wise then cost of corporate bureaucracy.

xyunya is the voice of reason!

I repeat, oil is going to $170 this year … to $250 within two years. Bank on it … I’ve been batting 1.000 so far.

Impulsive, you seem to be a smart guy. But, I think most of here hope you are wrong about the price of oil. I hope you strike out! Otherwise, I won’t be able to afford to drive my 4cyl! I’ll walk before I even consider driving a hybrid. I don’t play the man made global warming bull**** put forth by Al Gore and those like him.

“brassmonkey’, I hate to be right in this situation but I was right when I called $100 oil, I will be right when it hits $150 shortly, I was right when I called $1000 gold, and I’ll be right when it hits $1200 this year.

You have to understand the bigger picture to realize why this is all happening … no joke, check out the links I provided above … THAT is reality with respect to the oil nightmare. The economic situation, predominantly in the U.S., is ABYSMAL. Nobody really knows how bad it is because they don’t really understand economics. You can’t have a government solve all problems by lying to its people with phony inflation numbers. You can’t have a government solve all problems with artificially low interest rates to stave off a recession, which is sometimes necessary. You can’t have public, taxpayer dollars paying for horrendous mistakes by bankers who use derivatives to make profits illegally.

Like I’ve stated to ‘NoNameDufus’ recently, BearStearns is GONE … one of the biggest investment banks in the WORLD is GONE!!!! If that isn’t a sign of what’s to come, you all need to give up now and kill yourselves. There will be more failures coming, ignoring the rise of small bank failures that nobody cares to talk about, that will/should shock you all.

The “maintain social order at all cost” plan can only run so long, so far … and when REAL inflation comes and smacks everyone with something you haven’t seen in your lifetime, please remember it was me, Impulsive, who warned you all. I’ve mentioned buying gold several times here and I’ll mention it again, buy gold now … you will thank me this year and again within three years.

BMW Z4 3.0si, I’m getting about 29mpg on the interstate, top-down. Most of my driving is either Interstate or a 15-block commute to work.

Americans need to buy smaller and lighter cars. It’s the reality. Only a reduction in consumption will reduce demand to the point that it’ll dent the price.

We also need to DRILL everywhere that we can.