The upside of high fuel prices

I hate paying over 4 bucks a gallon for gas as much as anyone, but it looks like the higher fuel prices are already starting to bring jobs back into the US.
ABC News: Oil Price Fallout: Jobs Coming Home?

I can see it now. Container ships and oil tankers with square rigged sails. Hey, wind energy. So far the expense isn't helping the airlines, yesterday United announced laying off 950 pilots.

Your more correct than you know. Ships exist that have sail kites that they reel out on the open seas.

The weak dollar is also helping.

We all hate high fuel prices but the truth is when fuel is cheap we waste it. GM & Ford are offering a ton of incentives to keep Americans buying big gas guzzlers. They missed the handwriting that's been on the wall for years. Now they've handed the U.S. car market to their competitors on a silver plater. Good will come of the situration though it will take some work and ingenuity.

The frightening side of this trend is that these jobs and skills requirements are returning to a country that has fostered for almost 2 generations a 'duh' workforce. Every kid wants to leave high school or college and walk into a $40.00 an hour 40 hour a week job. And you can't dig a ditch or tune an engine with a Gameboy in your hand or a cell phone on your ear. For 2 Saturdays in a row I had a heck of a time assembling a 7 person crew to work 8 hours at time + 1/2 at work. Finally this past Saturday had to be mandatory. There wasn't really anything spectacular in the area going on, just nobody wanted the eztra time.
It's funny in a sad kind of way but I have several temporary people on my shift and all of them are openly envious that I have my own house, 2 trucks and 2 cars (w/ 2 kids in college) and a small stainless fabrication shop). What they don't realize is I've spent the past 35 years working often in over time to get to that point.
Today's up and coming workforce? The outlook is bleak at best.

Saw evidence of this yesterday when I picked up a wagon tire. I usually specifically ask for a U.S. made tire, but when I dropped it off, he said he only had 1 left that size. Figured I'd take it reguardless of wehre it was made, rather than wait 4-5 days for his next tire delivery. Turned out to be U.S. made, and I commented on that... he said that it's been harder to get the imported ones lately, and the prices have been about the same as U.S. tires. If people would ask for and buy U.S. made stuff whenever possable, our economy would pick up nicely.

I'm getting more stuff done around the house!

I enjoy driving, but I'm planning my trips better...and really using mail order instead of driving modest distances to get odd-ball items.

Just ordered some instecticide for my garden I couldn't find at either local feed & grain store. It was $6.80 in shipping...but I would spend that much in gas going to the only other feed store in the county even if they had it in stock. Yep, gotta wait a week...but saves me an hour+ over making a special trip.

I remember GM doing alternative research programs in the 80"s and then their executives got greedy and cut them. Research programs in cheap oil isn't about making money, its about covering your butt. The well warned and short sighted fools hung themselves.

This was Bush's plan all along. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Well I think they stupid plan BACKFIRED ! Wait till many of us go broke and don't produce food here anymore and it goes up more and more. What SMALL businessman do you know that has more $$$$ to hire more help and keep more things in stock??? It's all BIG socialism BS at its best to weed out every small business in the US till the fat cats sheet heads own it all!

At the end of the age of sail it was all fore and aft rigged ships that were hauling all the freight. But the steel hulled clipper ship Cutty Sark out of Scotland was beating all the steam powered ships of the day when the wind was good.

Oh boy I can low paying get a job at Wallmart and sell American made stuff.Bush is smart and Cheney is honest too.They said the war will pay for itself and the price of gas will go down.Cant wait.Oops no politics,slipped, send me to gitmo and torture me.

Don't let the return to Jimmy Carter nnalert fool you. Anybody remember double digit interest rates because of him? It's time we stopped listening to the global warming bullsh** and developed our own resources. As soon as we could say to the arab's we don't need your oil, they wouldn't be so quick to condemn us or be so able to attack.

Are you saying that Jimmy Carter created all that inflation on his own ? In one sentance you say global warming is bull . Yet you dont give your credentials that show you have any expertise in this field . What would you have us do to save your version of the world ?

Well didn"t the US economy take a skid under Jimmy Carter and didn"t turn around until Ron Reagan?
Arabs are 4th largest exporter of crude to the US.

The highest interest rates were under Reagan not Carter. 84-88

Look,plain and simple,Nixon had 6 years to screw up the economy,then there was Gerald Ford for 2 years.Then Jimmy Carter(southern governor actually more nnalert than nnalert,right wing and abundant)for 4.None of the 3 was worth much.The big problem was the war in Vietnam.The one Nixon claimed he would stop in 1968.Jimmy Carter inherited the inflation from the loosing of the Vietnam War.If you are 40 some years old,you should know this stuff.You conveniently forget about the nnalert contribution to the problem,but are all for putting blame on a nnalert.Typical modern nnalert,just like the old ones.Why not tell us now how your 4 dollar gas and 5 dollar diesel President is so great?If he doesnt quit running his mouth about Iran he is going to start WW3,and we are going to be at a gun fight with a knife,and nuclear weapons.Do you want Pandoras Box opened?Are you ready for a nuclear war?If you are so good of a nnalert you need to get the nnalert in Washington DC to represent this country,not rich people in Saudi Arabia,just like old Jimmy Carter thought he was only supposed to help peanut farmers.Neither way is right,and if these people dont stop this nonsense there is not going to be much America left standing,as if there is now.Even if you are from Canada,its not going to help you if the USA falls.You will be in he!! toh yeah,please tell about how good it is to speculate commodities like oil,and ruin the economy,in the world,so rich people can get richer,and lots of folks can starve.Also just to top it off,just what turned around under Ronald Reagan?He was as disgusting as any other nnalert.We still are suffering from his"conservativism"which has run lots of jobs to other countries,trade agreements like NAFTA,ended millions of union jobs,and caused things like drugs to devastate parts of America,and peoples lives,with millions in prison.The only good thing about Ronald Reagan is that he is not still our president.Its going to be up to history as to how good or bad he really was,want to bet on how it will come out?If the truth is told,he was only a little better than this Bush,but worse than Daddy Bush.Yeah,Reagan was not the worst nnalert,but he was a big crook,and if you are smart,you will leave this alone,it can always get worse.You can blow all you want,but the best"nnalert"president we have had since Eisenhower was Bill Clinton.Even if he called himself a nnalert,he had a nnalert congress,and being from the south was more nnalert than nnalert.If you want an example of somebody that took the country in the right direction for the most part,its Bill Clinton.Run your mouth about that,and you are just ignorant.I didnt care for what Clinton did to the military,but he had to get money somewhere,and the nnalert controlled congress of the day was just as responsible for the destruction of the military as he was.Its not hard to see that Clinton knew what he was doing in a lot of areas that the rest just dont get,and sad at the same time,because there was lots more that should have,and could have been done.It was an uphill fight for anybody that tries to set the country right in my whole life watching this from Eisenhower until now.I will give any nnalert the benefit of the doubt even if I am a nnalert.The best one I saw was Eisenhower,and that may be because I was too young to remember him much.In my opinion,bad as he was,Nixon was better than Reagan.All the good about Reagan was hype.He was bought and paid for by big money,just like Nixon.Good or bad the best thing Nixon did was talk to China which nobody did for a long time,but I think it helped China more than the rest of the world.Nixon actually will look a lot better in history than Reagan if the truth is told.All Nixon did was make a couple of big mistakes,and kind of set us up for destruction,but I think he really was trying to run the country right,he just didnt know how.Reagan on the other hand had an agenda from the first day,give it all away to big business.Even a broken clock is right 2 times a day,and Reagan was lucky enough that some of his ideas actually worked,plus he had to think he was helping America.I am not going to let you get away with saying Ronald Reagan was good for our country.He may very well thought he was right,but its questionable as to giving all that he did to big business helped anything.I feel that it speeded up the demise of our great country.Just like LBJs big idea was a failure in a way,Ronald Reagan gave a lot of welfare to business that it wasnt even asking for.Maybe it helped to go that direction at the time,but it was kind of hard on working people,and working folks are still suffering from Reagans agendas that have been amplified to where it takes Mom and Dad both working away from home to raise kids,and lots of family farms are gone because of stupidly low grain prices and other stuff.I liked his lower interest rates,but they were still too high at 10-12%,and that Russia lost the cold war,but that was not because of Reagan exclusively,another thing he was lucky for happening,and somebody attributed it to him,not legitimately,although he probably had as much to do with it as any of the rest did before him.Reagan was not a very good president,but lots better than the one we now have.Maybe Im wrong,Reagan was probably just as bad as this one,just that all the destruction was not in place at the time.I think its fair to say that all of them have made some fairly big mistakes,and the ones calling themselves nnalert arent smart enough to be able to tell that by giving everything to the rich they are tearing up the country.No conscious.They dont care about anything but themselves and their big shot buddies.

Highest interest rates here were 1981 to 1984.
Women went to work because everybody wanted the 2nd car, vacation trips, boats, atv"s, 2500sq ft house etc. Not because 99% of those families were starving. The rest of the working women are either single or single mothers working to feed the kids because the father took off.
Americans gained their standard of living through the Nixon, Reagan, Bush & Bush administrations. The Clinton"s sold out to the Chinese when they weren"t committing adultery or faking a staff "suicide".
Trucker40 keeps saying people are starving? I don"t see it with all those 200+lb women and 300+lb American men.
Trucker 40 you keep coming back to your real concern. The Fat Cats getting rich and you are not. If you knew how to make good bucks and manage serious bucks. We wouldn"t hear a peep from you. You were raised to think poor, feel sorry for yourself, look for sympathy and blame somebody else because you don"t work hard and smart.
It"s all about I don"t have anything, they do and that isn"t right..........in your eyes. Well do you want something for nothing?
How do we have multiple generations of families living in poverty in the US no matter what president or the state of the economy.
Then some poor soul from the 3rd world floats in on a raft into the US. He learns english, works hard, doesn"t blow every cent and live paycheque to paycheque, saves his money and re-invests it into his business.. Ten years later he"s wealthy, no mortgage, owns a business, lives in a nice house & his kids are in a good school. And he employs Americans for $10/hr who were born here and had every opportunity.
It"s called delayed gratification. A concept lost on the "if it feels good do it", "buy now pay later" Western mindset/culture.
Ever thought of looking in the mirror for the person in charge of your finaces?

As I wrote last week before it was wiped from the site.
If you can"t see it coming. The US is getting out of fighting in Iraq and being welcomed with open arms in Iran next year. All the middle east oil you want. Not that any significant amount of oil exported into the US from the Middle East being 4th.
If Americans inflated their vehicle tires, didn"t idle vehicles by using drive throughs and made one trip a week to the store instead of three. Middle east oil would not even be missed.
The US presence in the middle east is all about protecting a certain one small country from getting overrun by Arabs. I don"t see any problem with protecting that particular country either.
Trucker40 if you bought a house for $40,000, lived in it for 10 years and sold it for $100,000? Is that stealing?
If you purchase a company or shares in a company. Do expect to make money owning that company? Are in business to make a living? Is that stealing?
When hauling, when there are more loads than truckers. Do you raise or lower your rate for hauling? I"m certain you would kept your rate down at the same $$$ per mile when there were more trucks than loads.
Do you blame your fellow Americans who own oil wells for selling their oil at $130 instead of $30.

I dont have a lot of time to reply but the starving people are in Haiti and other places.Economy is a world problem,when the United States condones a crooked stock market,the results are felt worldwide.Now what was Farm Aid about?Yeah there were some people that wanted things which had Mom and Dad working,and the sort of feminism type stuff,but there was also the high interest,and it got to where it was necessary rather than to just buy stuff.Even people that call themselves nnalert know that things were worse than they needed to be,especially the high interest.Clinton doesnt deserve what you said.Clinton really did turn the country around.I saw it with my own eyes driving in different citys in the 1990s.Clinton made his mistakes as well,taxes were too high,went along with nnalert on NAFTA,and other things,but he turned the economy around some.The hype that nnalert are great economists is a big lie.They are responsible devaluing our currency,and bad inflation,then after they get things that way,set there and do nothing.Trucking better work or people will starve here.Enough said?

Long Haul Trucking is going to go by the wayside as did the horse drawn stage coach, steam locomotives, sailing ships, hand dug wells and salt pork.
More trains, barges, ships which use less fuel but take a wee bit longer.
Either keep up with the times or get left behind. Just look at all the professions made obsolete in the past 75 years.

The only real thing that Reagon did for America was show people that it was ok to be proud to be an American . He did everything he could to break the unions that helped create fair working standards .Those same standards we all deserve . He was a man with integrity as long as it was paid for up front . George Bush on the other hand wouldnt know integrity if it walked up and shook his hand .

Well now thats better.Im all for improvement.I always hauled food.I bet that lots of food will still get hauled on trucks,no matter how high the price of fuel gets.If you want to eat,you better figure on it getting hauled by a truck.Mine or the National Guards.Now aside from the little dig at each other we have all the time,a little ground we can agree on.Im not going to drag it all through why you are wrong,and all the cussing and name calling,but lets just say that people who have just a little bit of opportunity to see whats going on,know that people like we have had running the United States are a sorry bunch.If they call themselves nnalert,besides being sorry they are dumb on top of it.If a nnalert can advance the country one step towards the future,the nnalert drag it back two steps.nnalert and their taxes,nnalert and their stupidity.I dont want to work myself to death for slave wages any more than anybody else does.In real life its feast or famine,nnalert being responsible for the famine of working folks,feast for the rich.You and I would not get along on a good day.I dont allow you to push me around,and you think you have some right to push people around.
I will put it like this,you will get everything you did on a truck,still on a truck.Things that are easy to put on a train,still will get put on a train.If it used to go by a barge,its still going to go by a barge.Just the price,that you will pay for transportation,because of the stupid nnalert,will be lots more.I have nothing against the rich people making a profit,just as I want to make a profit.To some people I am a rich person.I want fair pay.I want those folks that work in factories in any country to be able to support their familys,pay their bills.I want them to be able to have transportation.Should we conserve,sure.Do we need mass transit,yes.Do we need a bunch of starving people in other counties,and maybe our own,no.If we have food in the world,like we do,people should not starve.Kids catch the worst of poverty,and then women,especially ones with kids.Nobody I know wants to now,or ever to see women and kids homeless,starving,living in the street.If you drive around the country and see what the United States is,its a huge country,based on agriculture.Because we can grow a huge amount of food we are blessed.Nothing justifies whats going on in this,or any country that is just ripping off the workers,thats going on.Nothing justifies this stock market run up of oil prices as well as commodity prices.Just as soon as there is commodities on the market,they go down,drastically.Manipulating markets like this is not right.Anybody with part of a mind knows better.In a warped sort of way,the prices now are right for about 20 years ago to the farmer.Whats wrong is the profit is made by speculaters and middlemen,not the farmer.Thats wrong.Should there even be speculators?With how they show what they will do with what power they have,shows how stupid and greedy they are.Payday comes.Even rich people run out of money when faced with unfavorable conditions.You may be bragging today,healthy,happy,and faster than you can imagine be sick,broke and hungry and suicidal.You have to be real rich to be in the exclusive club these crooks represent.Plain and simple,dont gloat,you can jinx yourself.That non named country,thats being"protected"by the United States in the Middle East.Well that doesnt even have the goodness it once did.Whats going on now is criminal.I get mad thinking about it,and all of them that are in our government.Dual citizenship,yeah right.Fox guarding the chicken house,in this case for the military and equipment.The only thing good about all this is that George Bush is about done.He and his cronies need to get the heck out of Washington DC,the sooner the better.I think we can find somebody to take his place until January.It wouldnt take much,one of those fake people they put clothes on in a store window,or just lots of other folks,couldnt do any worse,and then you have a bunch more of them in congress that need run off as well.Proud of the Supreme Court on the second amendment,was only right,and the first time in years they were right about something.

Trucker40. I must admit to agreeing to a majority of your last posting.
I"m trying to avoid sounding like a bragger. The words "pride goeth before a fall" etc are all too true.
I know all too well after almost dying last October from a hemorrage.One can have grand plans and in a few minutes instead end up talking face to face with the All Mighty.

we've all lost it! and who's to blame? greed and laziness. not demos or pubs... the speculators are retirment funds and other such groups as well as some enron type wallstreeters. members of both parties finding a way to make money at the expense of our economy. so to cast blame they told us to blame opec. gotta get them to pump more damn oil! when the arabs said oh no ya do'nt! we have'nt decreased production the problems in your own house, they got you politicos griping at each other, they hold hearings in congress in which exprerts testify it can be curbed with easily and legally passed legislation, all this speculating on oil futures. but nothing has happened yet.why? both parties will posture themselves in a way to get the most political gain from this. in the mean time? we all watch as prices soar and the economy tanks because of an oil shortage that exist on paper and not in fact. it can be fixed, should be fixed, will be fixed(i hope,)but should have already been fixed. you guys are right when you say our lifestyles of the easy buck and instant gratification are at fault.. "THROUGH INACTION NOTHING REMAINS UNDONE". I USED TO BE A nnalert, BY THE WAY.IN NORCAL! NO LESS.. NOW I'D JUST SETTLE FOR US ALL BEING GOOD AMERICANS. JEFF.

I wonder if they work on tractors?