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forget the transportation. Better telepresence technologies.

My retirement funds took a serious hit this past quarter. Good thing I'll likely die before I retire...

So I take it you're getting back on two wheels? :P

well, I've been on two wheels (bicycle) for a couple months now. There could be more in the offing though...

So you're talking $3B to construct. Call it $4B for overruns, payola, etc.

That's chump change by government standards. That's <12 days of I-wreck to support "more of the same" foreign oil dependence (numbers based on the "costofwar" web site).

In rough figures, regular gas has gone from $2.80/ gal to $3.45 in the last twelve months and in that same period oil futures have gone from $70 to $115/barrel. That is a 23% increase for gas vs a 64 % increase for oil. Why the discrepancy, is it just because oil is based on futures and if that is the case will we see $5.00/ gal in the next 3 months?? due to summer demand.

I purchased 100LL aviation yesterday for $4.83, at the same airport I paid $4.70 a year ago? That was a pleasant surprise but don't expect that to last for long.

CA has been studying a high-speed rail service from San Diego to Sacramento. I looked at the info on the web (Caltrans website). Looks logical and economically sensible.

I think we should start with north-south line along the West coast (San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Salem, Portland, Seattle). And beef up the existing north-south route on the East coast (Boston, New York, Wash DC, and extend down through mid-Atlantic, Atlanta etc). Those are pretty dense routes. When those are working, extend to Midwest and Southwest.

Yes, the money to build the above is huge. Let's say $20 to 40 BN, just guessing.

That's only a few months's spending on this black hole of a war in Iraq.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile (Post 3881149)

Start by doing the logical thing - connect "hub" or major cities. A high-speed rail NYC to LA would be a good start. Our Amtrak rail system is a joke by global standards. The only thing that we have that even resembles good rail service is on the DC/NY/Boston corridor (Acela train) and that's pitifully slow by international standards. The technology exists today to build a 300 mph train. That's 10 hours coast-to-coast (2,982 miles from Union Station L.A. to Boston's South Station). Assume a couple of hours' worth of stops along the way (Denver, Chicago, NYC) and make it an even 12. Not quite air travel, but close. One day trip. Pretty much what a smart traveler allots for getting there by air now, especially factoring in all the additional TSA bull***** and a connection (or two) in there for most routes, etc. AND you could launch one of these things every half-hour if need be.

Why aren't we doing this? Is there REALLY no market for it?

I mean, nobody wants to ride coast-to-coast on Amtrak because it'll take you the better part of a week and be stopping every 45 minutes in half the podunk towns in America. If you seriously had a dedicated high-speed line with only quick-turns in major cities, you'd have a very viable transportation system that would ease a lot of congestion at airports, etc. Not to mention the maglev technology uses ELECTRIC power (not fossil fuel) which could be powered by nuclear, solar, whatever. You'd be substituting one or two of these power plants for how many hundreds of millions of gallons of Jet-A a year?

I think the time might be here (or will be shortly) to dust off these ideas and start giving them some serious consideration again. A few years ago it was simpler/easier to just say "aww, screw it - we can just keep going on with 'more of the same old' and we'll be fine", but as oil starts approaching $125, $150, $175 or $200 a barrel, maybe not so much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by widgeon13 (Post 3891120)

The price of a barrel of oil has gone up when the actual physical indicators suggest it should be going down, in fact the supply and inventory suggests it should be around $70 a bbl and gas should be around $2.70 a gal.
Some folks (including me) suspect underhanded actions by huge brokerage houses have manipulated the oil market and artificially drove the price up. They leak BS info, the media jumps all over it, and the price goes up. They slowly sell off, the price falls about $6 or $8 a bbl, then they buy and drive it back up, lather rinse repeat. If that aint illegal it should be.
I follow the markets pretty darned close (spend more time doing that than i do at PPOT) and i've noticed things that simply shouldn't be and wouldn't be under normal circumstances.

I've seen reports from so-called "expert analysts" that say the opposite of what the department of energy's enery information association's report. They put out very clear and consice and accurate reports, but often the market will make a big move on some BS report put out by an expert the day before, only to dip after the EIA report comes out. I watch the volume of trades and the patteron of trades, and can almost see their fingerprints it's so obvious.

Oil should not be over $70 and lots of us think it will soon fall to that level in a really big hurry, and lots of regular people with 401ks will be the ones hurt, not the big boys who are playing with the price.

As a comparison, the price PER GALLON of light sweet crude oil is around $2.74.
The wholesale price of gasoline (what the refineries sell it for) is around $2.88. The difference between that price and what you pay at the pump is taxes, and profits from the suppliers, transporters, and retailers. Yes, the retailers are making a killing right now. If they say they aren't they are lying.

The difference between what the oil costs and what they sell the gas for is 14 cents. Onliest problem is, it takes around 13 to 15 cents to process the stuff so if they are lucky they are paying the bills and breaking even.
Yup, the big bad refining guys are not making any money, or if they are it's not very darned much.
The guys pulling the stuff out of the ground are still doing pretty good though.

Sammy,

Have you adjusted for the various fractions that come from that gallon of crude. Refining is a process of separation. When you crack crude, the sum of the value of the fractions is far greater than the cost of the crude plus the processing cost. The number of distinct products that comes from each unit of crude is staggering. I'm not sure that I understand your analysis that gasoline sells for $0.14/gal more than the crude oil that went into making it.

That seems like a gross over-simplification.

Furthermore, it is the government that is making the biggest killing of all on gasoline. For each gallon, they collect a lot of tax for which they provide absolutely no value and have absolutely no cost.