Very true. But I do kind of wonder if the U.S. government can afford the $10 billion hit (in lost taxes) on top of the war costs. The dollar is already weak enough; I'd hate to destroy all international confidence in the U.S. economy and make it into a Weimar Deutschmark.Not the Deutschmark. Our new american currency will be the Amero ! The Amero is the new currency being developed right now between America, Canada, and Mexico to make a borderless community like the EU.
Don't forget Bush signed on to the North American Union. � The North American Union is a supranational organization, modeled on the European Union, that will soon fuse Canada, the United States, and Mexico into a single economic and political unit. The details are still being worked out by the countries' leaders, but the NAU's central governing body will have the power to nullify the laws of its member states. Goods and people will flow among the three countries unimpeded, aided by a network of continent-girdling superhighways. The US and Canadian dollars, along with the peso, will be phased out and replaced by a common North American currency called the amero.�
This guy gives you THE details. ok, not really but he's fun to watch.
Actually that is the Christian Union of North America. The Commonwealth Used a Black hole weapon on those Nazi bugs and created the USA and Canada to free the world of them. Looks like we will be doing it again.
PS their Currency is not the Amero. It is the New Florin.
Earth is Commonwealth Property. Anyone who doesnt want to be Commonwealth should leave now!
Where did Mexico go to?
I've already had to look for and find a closer (albeit better..) job to stop working just so I could have gas to work.
If it happens again.. I'll have to get something that has better MPG and get rid of my Mustang
As my wife Lynora mentioned, I drive from Ann Arbor to Sterling Heights in MI each day for work. Like William Pall, I fill up every other day (about 3 times per week). Based upon my job, I don't have a choice so I will continue the drive. Of course, we also just bought a house in Ann Arbor, so getting close to work isn't an option either. We were considering a second car, but now that is a definite no. We have begun to limit our personal driving and will probably do more as gas gets to $4. We drive across the state to our relatives as well, which might decrease substantially.
On a separate note, my father just bought a Harley and one of the rationalizations he used was the gas mileage. :)
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Where did Mexico go to?
Mexico? Oh you mean the nifty Commonwealth state which includes Mezo America, Cuba,The Gulf States and what used to be the Gulf of Mexico? They invested their resources locally and have become the second nation to land on Mars.
We are a bit concerned about the wall they built to keep North American Refugees out though.
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As my wife Lynora mentioned, I drive from Ann Arbor to Sterling Heights in MI each day for work. Like William Pall, I fill up every other day (about 3 times per week). Based upon my job, I don't have a choice so I will continue the drive. Of course, we also just bought a house in Ann Arbor, so getting close to work isn't an option either. We were considering a second car, but now that is a definite no. We have begun to limit our personal driving and will probably do more as gas gets to $4. We drive across the state to our relatives as well, which might decrease substantially.
On a separate note, my father just bought a Harley and one of the rationalizations he used was the gas mileage. :)
Gas Mileage: to what? Wheels?, Passengers?, Weight?, Nuclear Fuel Pellets?
For me, there is no such point, at least not a realistic one - no public transportation in my area. I live about 5 miles from work.
What will happen is that I'd make more of an effort to find some folks to share the ride and carpool.
Right now, there's two other people I know that are very close to me that works in my same department, on roughly the same hours. One lives a quarter-mile away and the other a half-mile. In six years, the first guy and I have shared a ride 3 or 4 times, usually when one or the other has a car in the shop.
So, what would it take for us to be more proactive in sharing a ride? The cost would have to overcome the inconvenience. I'm in an academic environment where sometimes I go in at 7 AM, other times at 8 AM, depending upon whether I'm teaching at the beginning of the day. Same when leaving, the time varies.
If one or more of us worked around the other's schedule, I figure it could easily add some "waste" to my schedule. For argument's sake, and because it's an even number, assume I experience an hour of inconvenience each week. (That's only 12 minutes per day - not an unrealistic assumption)
At $4 per gallon, 20 mpg car and 10 mile daily commute, my cost of gas is $10.
So, if I split the ride with someone, I save $5 per week at the expense of an hour of inconvenience. So, the question is - how much is your time worth? How much would you pay for an "extra hour" of time?
For me, that price is MUCH higher than $5. Using the math above, gas would have to be about $30 per gallon before the weekly savings were equivalent to an hour of pay. Now, I think my personal breakpoint would be somewhere in between - but I can't predict where.
Washington DC Area / I-95 Commute
A couple years ago I was on temporary duty in the Northern Virgina area for 2 months. Every morning and every afternoon I watched as 4-5 lanes of stop and go I-95 traffic crawled to and from, while the HOV lanes (High Occupancy Vehicle) had only a trickle of cars flying along at or above the speed limit.
The high gas prices were in the news then, but it did not seem to alter the ratio of single driver vehicles to those using the HOV lanes. The only logic I could think of is the same as that above - the inconvenience factor (or opportunity cost) of carpooling was still HIGHER than the gas expense of driving alone.
At the time, whenever anyone complained about the high price of gas I simply told them: As long as the commuter lanes are empty, the other lanes are full, apparently the price is not yet too high!
Well, I'll keep driving because I have to. My workplace is practically unreachable by public transport, at least form where I live.
Right now, after a rise in the price, I have to pay about 1,5€ per litre (for premium), that's about 2,3$ per litre, or not quite 9$ per gallon. How much are you guys paying?
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Currently in Toronto, gas prices have hit 1.22/litre, which isn't as bad as Europe, but getting there. To convert, 1 litre is about 1/4 of a gallon, so we're currently paying about 4.68$/gallon. And the local public transportation just went on strike. Luckily, I live 2.2 KM (1.6 miles) from work, and walk every day, getting a ride when I can.
See, when I was a kid, I found out that cars cost a lot of money, and I prefer to buy geek stuff and use the bus when I need to. So when I got my first job in a city, I made sure I was close enough to work. My girlfriend's car, on the other hand, will probably stop using the car beyond 1/week at 5$/litre (20$/gallon).
I'm also looking into buying one of those low distance, electric/pedal cars (165 KM, equivalent MPG: 600) in about 5 years.
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Well, I'll keep driving because I have to. My workplace is practically unreachable by public transport, at least form where I live.
Right now, after a rise in the price, I have to pay about 1,5€ per litre (for premium), that's about 2,3$ per litre, or not quite 9$ per gallon. How much are you guys paying?
Wow...you could get a bus and set up a monopoly on Mass transit services between "the real world" and "planet isolated".
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The prices in Europe and the UK are outrageous by US standards! But here's a few questions for European drivers:
1) How often and how far do your drive each day?
2) Diesel?
3) How big is your fuel tank?
My Jeep has a 17.5 gallon tank, and gets around 290-330 miles, depending on how much highway vs. city (stop-and-go, under 40 MPH) driving I do in a week. It's around $64 to fill my tank each week.
My wife's R320 has a 21.5 gallon tank, but it's diesel and gets around 600+ miles to the tank; it's around $92 to fill the tank, but she drives less than me, the fuel goes farther, so she gets by with one trip to the station every 17-21 days.
I figure, rough-average, my wife's vehicle and driving is closer to a European standard. So, while it costs more up front, in the end, it's way cheaper to drive her car... except, she's not driving to work 10 miles away every day, daily in-and-around driving, etc.
2) Diesel?
The price of diesel has snuck up on gas over the last couple of months and is now poised to ambush it at any given moment.
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The prices in Europe and the UK are outrageous by US standards! But here's a few questions for European drivers:
1) How often and how far do your drive each day?
2) Diesel?
3) How big is your fuel tank?My Jeep has a 17.5 gallon tank, and gets around 290-330 miles, depending on how much highway vs. city (stop-and-go, under 40 MPH) driving I do in a week. It's around $64 to fill my tank each week.
My wife's R320 has a 21.5 gallon tank, but it's diesel and gets around 600+ miles to the tank; it's around $92 to fill the tank, but she drives less than me, the fuel goes farther, so she gets by with one trip to the station every 17-21 days.
I figure, rough-average, my wife's vehicle and driving is closer to a European standard. So, while it costs more up front, in the end, it's way cheaper to drive her car... except, she's not driving to work 10 miles away every day, daily in-and-around driving, etc.
In Europe they drive for the sake of Driving...
"I challenge you to a race down the Autobahn from Berlin to Paris."
"Agreed! My v16 Bugatti against yours."
300 km/h later..."Care for lunch at the top of the Eiffel Tower?"
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The prices in Europe and the UK are outrageous by US standards! But here's a few questions for European drivers:
1) How often and how far do your drive each day?
2) Diesel?
3) How big is your fuel tank?My Jeep has a 17.5 gallon tank, and gets around 290-330 miles, depending on how much highway vs. city (stop-and-go, under 40 MPH) driving I do in a week. It's around $64 to fill my tank each week.
My wife's R320 has a 21.5 gallon tank, but it's diesel and gets around 600+ miles to the tank; it's around $92 to fill the tank, but she drives less than me, the fuel goes farther, so she gets by with one trip to the station every 17-21 days.
I figure, rough-average, my wife's vehicle and driving is closer to a European standard. So, while it costs more up front, in the end, it's way cheaper to drive her car... except, she's not driving to work 10 miles away every day, daily in-and-around driving, etc.
I'll try to answer.
Normally, I don't drive most days (though I did today - 5 minutes to the station - as I got delayed posting here earlier this morning - don't tell the wife!) but instead walk to the train and then use public transport. I suspect, however, I am somewhat atypical - we bought the house where we are specifically so I could get to the station and grab a train to London. My wife, on the other hand, drives 15 mile to work and back every day.
We drive petrol cars, though I suspect that any new car we buy might be diesel. However, if you don't do a fairly hefty mileage, the extra cot of a diesel engine counteracts the savings in fuel, so I suspect it would be marginal for us.
My car (admittedly, old) just cost £65 to fill up from empty, at a cost of about £1.10 per litre. That makes the capacity of the tank about 60L, ot something around 17 US gallons. How long it lasts depends on a number of things, including how fast you drive. I'm not sure how often my wife refills, but when I was doing the same commute in the same car, I probably filled up once every week and a half or so, but that was very dependent on what we were doing at the weekends (both sets of parents are 2hrs+ drive along motorways).
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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My Jeep has a 17.5 gallon tank, and gets around 290-330 miles, depending on how much highway vs. city (stop-and-go, under 40 MPH) driving I do in a week. It's around $64 to fill my tank each week.
My wife's R320 has a 21.5 gallon tank, but it's diesel and gets around 600+ miles to the tank; it's around $92 to fill the tank, but she drives less than me, the fuel goes farther, so she gets by with one trip to the station every 17-21 days.
My car is a fuel-efficient little Suzuki Aerio (32 highway MPG) and 80% of my commute is conducted on a highway at 75 MPH, so I count myself fortunate. I only need to fill up once a week, which costs me about $36, unless I do a bunch of "extra-curricular" driving (like this week). Still, over $120 a month for gas is pretty brutal and it's caused me to become even more of a stick-in-the-mud than I was previously. I practically never leave the house except for work and groceries anymore.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well Dante's a Ford Ranger, I kept him and my mostly ex kept the civic. Right now I'm driving my friend donna's Versa, since I'm staying with her, and it's a 20 mile jump to work. Running Dante costs about $10 a day. The Versa's about $5.
I'm trying to settle a condo so I can go work at home, which will save lots of money in the long run. Plus it's only 9 miles from work.
I'm all for Gasification of coal, more drilling and more refineries. The state government (Ohio) just announced they're not cutting taxes on anything.
OTOH, Toledo just said they're going to stop enforcing the smoking ban. 40K spent to get back $636 in fines? That should save the city money. Maybe Mayor Coleman can take the hint.
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Let's see, being unemployed with no places calling me back for interviews means I'm right about the point that I'm going to have to stop driving. Right now, most of my driving is job searching. Which means with no driving means my likelihood of finding a job plummets, which means my wife will stay sole income contributer and at $9.18/hr that's not a lot.
Yikes.
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Not the Deutschmark. Our new american currency will be the Amero ! The Amero is the new currency being developed right now between America, Canada, and Mexico to make a borderless community like the EU.
They will never take away my loonies and toonies! Not without a fight, at least!
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...I see a lot of people with SUVs/Jeeps/sports cars who are upset about the price of gas. This fact interests me.
That's an interesting conundrum in which I find myself, and if I were buying a vehicle today, I would not buy a Jeep.
I bought my Jeep almost three years ago, when regular gas was still not too bad, and the consensus was that things would get better before they got worse. I've driven a Jeep since I've been driving, and the future price of gas was never a consideration...
Now, my Jeep is more than half paid off, but barely worth what I owe on it (and I'd probably have to really hassle a dealer to get full Blue Book value in today's market), so trading it in is sticky if you look at the best likely deal.
We more recently bought my wife's car and specifically held with the idea of getting something safe, comfortable, good gas mileage, and long-term trade-in/resale value. My wife's car is heavier than mine!...but gets more than twice the mileage, drives like it's going through vacuum, and when I put both carseats in the back, I can still sit in the front without kissing my knees. The only thing the Jeep has over the Mercedes is ground clearance.
If we garage a vehicle, it'll be the Jeep. :-)
I don't know how many litres go into a gallon but 20 miles per gallon seems to me a real bad mileage. I just bought a car and now it does 14 km/l which I find to be real expensive, but if 4 litres go into a gallon that means my mileage rocks compared to the aforementioned Jeep.
So the solution is: buy a fuel efficient car, just like the rest of the world.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I don't know how many litres go into a gallon but 20 miles per gallon seems to me a real bad mileage. I just bought a car and now it does 14 km/l which I find to be real expensive, but if 4 litres go into a gallon that means my mileage rocks compared to the aforementioned Jeep.
So the solution is: buy a fuel efficient car, just like the rest of the world.
Easier said than done DJ.
When we bought the truck, the express purpose was to have a second vehicle to haul around building supplies to renovate the house and help friends, as well as have a second vehicle for other use. We had a gas efficient vehicle. This is back when I was married. Now it's a choice of a truck or no vehicle at all.
Your solution is as flippant as if you'd said "Well, find a wife who won't cheat on you."
It varies a bit - the Germans can actually drive as fast as they like down the Autobahns
Not everywhere, though. We don't have a general limit, but that doesn't mean we can go from Saarbrücken to Berlin without ever stepping off the gas.
1) How often and how far do your drive each day?
2) Diesel?
3) How big is your fuel tank?
1) 70km (43 miles) or more. The 70 is from home to work and back.
2) Nope. When I got this car, it didn't pay to get one (since the cars are more expensive, and you pay more taxes.) And right now, it's probably getting back to the point where it wouldn't pay, what with the prices for diesel getting ever nearer to those for gasoline.3) 50 litres (13 gallons)
In Europe they drive for the sake of Driving..."I challenge you to a race down the Autobahn from Berlin to Paris."
"Agreed! My v16 Bugatti against yours."
300 km/h later..."Care for lunch at the top of the Eiffel Tower?"
Oh yeah. We Europeans totally drive around all day. And we all have big, expensive cars. A neighbour of mine only has one of the medium BMWs and we all make fun of him and throw him 100€ bills we have left over to mock him and call him a beggar.
Personally, I have a Ferrari (F50), two Audis, of course a Mercedes and a BWM (wouldn't be a real German if I didn't).
But of course, I only drive them when there's no helipad where I want to go.
I don't know how many litres go into a gallon but 20 miles per gallon seems to me a real bad mileage. I just bought a car and now it does 14 km/l which I find to be real expensive, but if 4 litres go into a gallon that means my mileage rocks compared to the aforementioned Jeep.
So the solution is: buy a fuel efficient car, just like the rest of the world.
Easier said than done DJ.
When we bought the truck, the express purpose was to have a second vehicle to haul around building supplies to renovate the house and help friends, as well as have a second vehicle for other use. We had a gas efficient vehicle. This is back when I was married. Now it's a choice of a truck or no vehicle at all.
Your solution is as flippant as if you'd said "Well, find a wife who won't cheat on you."
Can't you sell the truck?
I wanted to make another flippant remark, but decided against it. I guess you probably already heard it or said it to yourself ;>
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Can't you sell the truck?
I wanted to make another flippant remark, but decided against it. I guess you probably already heard it or said it to yourself ;>
Not and be able to buy anything useful. already trying to get a condo closer to work to have a roof over my head, priorities man.
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...I see a lot of people with SUVs/Jeeps/sports cars who are upset about the price of gas. This fact interests me.That's an interesting conundrum in which I find myself, and if I were buying a vehicle today, I would not buy a Jeep.
There are actually dealers refusing to purchase cars that get bad mileage, because no one wants to buy them anymore.
Ironically/sadly, my little 1995 car gets equal mileage to my friend's 2007 version of the same car, at right around 30 mpg.
"Experts" are talking about how once oil prices hit $200/barrel, demands will drop rapidly and the price will roll back down to around a stable $50. These are the same experts who forecast that $100/barrel would do the same thing of course, and who are now blaming speculation and the weak dollar for the inflated prices, as opposed to any gap between supply (dwindling as fields deplete and exporting nations find themselves getting wealthier and thus burning their supplies at home) and demand (escalating as former exporting countries begin to import and importing countries such as China and India rapidly boosting their industrial infrastructure).
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Being from Alaska, and having voted against digging up the Tundra, I've read Industry reports (and for a while it was all anyone in AK talked about) that there's as much untapped oil in the US arctic as all the Middle East. Getting to it is very difficult; getting it out is even harder, and there's the side effect of the process virtually destroying the present ecosystem.
I've also heard it bandied about that there's more than a substantial amount of oil just off shore in US territorial waters, that we have yet to tap.
Getting close to that $4.00 mark.
Better go buy a new bike, helmet (viking helmet), shoes, and a camel back for my wine. I should get a GPS while I'm at it.
Oh, and a bell! ring.. ring..
Being from Alaska, and having voted against digging up the Tundra, I've read Industry reports (and for a while it was all anyone in AK talked about) that there's as much untapped oil in the US arctic as all the Middle East. Getting to it is very difficult; getting it out is even harder, and there's the side effect of the process virtually destroying the present ecosystem.
I've also heard it bandied about that there's more than a substantial amount of oil just off shore in US territorial waters, that we have yet to tap.
Yep, there's lots of oil out there, just waiting for us to come get it.
And I don't agree that it's that deleterious to the ecosystem. Remember all those gripes about the pipeline destroying the caribou populations? And what happened? Their numbers increased! Drilling in Anwar, by the way, is like drilling a spot the size of a postage stamp in a lot the size of a football field.
Incidentally, concerning the offshore deposits in Florida, we should definitely be allowed to drill it. Florida really screwed up that decision. Responsible, regulatable companies can't legally get to that oil, but China (for one) can. The environmental impact of their operation is already being felt, though they only started drilling off our coast recently. And what can we do about it? Short of starting a war, nothing. It makes much more sense to me that American interests should get the oil off our own coasts rather than letting our enemies harvest it.
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Yep, there's lots of oil out there, just waiting for us to come get it.
Fair warning: This Is Going To Be A Rant, and not one friendly to the "We just need to drill more!" crowd.
And most of it is locked up in hard-to-access forms. For example: Bakken oil formation that's getting called the 'Saudi Arabia of North America'? With the most cutting-edge technology, you're lucky to have wells breaking 100 barrels a day, and the majority produce roughly 70/day. Sure, there's oil. But we should be looking into other energy resources, not pouring our economy away chasing a nonrenewable resource that get progressively more expensive to exploit. If all you care about is OMG MOAR, why not go lobby to dig up orimulsion, instead? There's estimated to be well over a trillion readily accessible barrels of it, and the only drawback is having to worry about sulfuric acid raining from the sky.
It doesn't matter how much we have available. What was sufficient a few decades ago to keep us going seemingly indefinitely is not, any longer, as the demand for petroleum keeps rocketing upwards, particularly as oil-producing countries start improving their standard of living and thus consume more and more of their own supply. It doesn't have to run out to 'peak', it just has to have the demand outstrip the supply. Haitians are already feeling what that's like, when they have to make 'cookies' out of mud, vegetable shortening, and salt to quiet their stomachs because they can't afford the cost of food, because the price of everything is affected by the price of oil. Nearly everything in modern civilization relies on oil in a lot of ways.
The debates about whether we should drill or not make me think of the quip about the guy who says he doesn't care if oil's a problem, he'll just bike to the store, not realizing that the fertilizer won't be made, the food won't be delivered, and the power won't be on because we all rely on oil so much that the worst drug addict seems rational when scrambling for a fix compared to our daily need. We should be trying to get renewable power, alternative sources for the oil-based products, and other practices that aren't going to leave us with a barren ball of nutrient-free dirt and poisoned water for a world.
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Yep, there's lots of oil out there, just waiting for us to come get it.
Fair warning: This Is Going To Be A Rant, and not one friendly to the "We just need to drill more!" crowd.
[spoiler omited]
Agreed; and this is partially why I voted against drilling back home in Alaska. Personally, I'm hoping to see hydrogen fuel cells take off. Honda is having great success with their trial run in California.
Perhaps we should start a new thread about alternative sources of energy?
I'm inclined to respond so the last couple of posts, but they have taken quite a tangent from the original topic.
I have a 30 min commute. My monthly bill for gasoline when I started my job (with a car that was a bit of a gas guzzler) was $70/month. It is now over $140/month. [edit - to clarify, I now drive a toyota matrix, which gets about 5-7 miles a gallon more than my old tank of a buick)
To get within range of decent public transportation, I'd have to sell my house and get an apartment at over twice the monthly payment on my mortgage. That's if I was willing to move and give up my two wonderful pugs.
Also, moving closer to my job moves my husband further from his.
That said, I am rapidly reaching a point where I am ready to give up going out except for groceries and going to work. We already do most of our grocery shopping at a wholesale store... if we got a freezer and a foodsaver we could probably avoid going out more than once every 2 weeks for groceries.
We're not quite there yet, however.
- Ashavan
Yep, there's lots of oil out there, just waiting for us to come get it.
Fair warning: This Is Going To Be A Rant, and not one friendly to the "We just need to drill more!" crowd.
[spoiler]
And most of it is locked up in hard-to-access forms. For example: Bakken oil formation that's getting called the 'Saudi Arabia of North America'? With the most cutting-edge technology, you're lucky to have wells breaking 100 barrels a day, and the majority produce roughly 70/day. Sure, there's oil. But we should be looking into other energy resources, not pouring our economy away chasing a nonrenewable resource that get progressively more expensive to exploit. If all you care about is OMG MOAR, why not go lobby to dig up orimulsion, instead? There's estimated to be well over a trillion readily accessible barrels of it, and the only drawback is having to worry about sulfuric acid raining from the sky.It doesn't matter how much we have available. What was sufficient a few decades ago to keep us going seemingly indefinitely is not, any longer, as the demand for petroleum keeps rocketing upwards, particularly as oil-producing countries start improving their standard of living and thus consume more and more of their own supply. It doesn't have to run out to 'peak', it just has to have the demand outstrip the supply. Haitians are already feeling what that's like, when they have to make 'cookies' out of mud, vegetable shortening, and salt to quiet their stomachs because they can't afford the cost of food, because the price of everything is affected by the price of oil. Nearly everything in modern civilization relies on oil in a lot of ways.
The debates about whether we should drill or not make me think of the quip about the guy who says he doesn't care if oil's a problem, he'll just bike to the store, not realizing that the fertilizer won't be made, the food won't be delivered, and the power won't be on because we all rely on oil so much that the worst drug addict seems rational...
I never said finding more oil was the whole solution. The point is, we need oil for at least a while until something better comes along. And unless you know some way of recycling the crap that comes out of your exhaust pipe, that means we need more oil. Aside from that, the primary reason gas is so expensive is simple supply and demand. If you want to bring the price down, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply.
I never said finding more oil was the whole solution. The point is, we need oil for at least a while until something better comes along. And unless you know some way of recycling the crap that comes out of your exhaust pipe, that means we need more oil. Aside from that, the primary reason gas is so expensive is simple supply and demand. If you want to bring the price down, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply.
But NOT drilling for that extra oil might hopefully speed up the search for alternative solutions.
Don't forget Bush signed on to the North American Union. [i]” The North American Union is a supranational organization, modeled on the European Union, that will soon fuse Canada, the United States, and Mexico into a single economic and political unit. The details are still being worked out by the countries' leaders, but the NAU's central governing body will have the power to nullify the laws of its member states. Goods and people will flow among the three countries unimpeded, aided by a network of continent-girdling superhighways. The US and Canadian dollars, along with the peso, will be phased out and replaced by a common North American currency called the amero.”
Never happen - well not without a very significant cultural shift. Most Canadians are fairly certain that the movers and shakers in the United States eat deep fried toddler for breakfast lunch and dinner. They'd be adamantly opposed to any kind of single union. Its not like the small (and rather busy) Canadian army could control the population and how else could he force us to agree? Harsh language?
Not to say that people have not been kicking around the idea of an Amero for some time. Economists love the concept - it would probably save money and make things more efficient. There are good rational arguments in favour of such a currency and these good rational arguments are opposed mostly buy irrational arguments based on fear and/or nationalism. But there is no prospect that the gut level opposition to this is going away anytime soon. The idea is dead in the water - especially with the American dollar so weak.
To answer the original question...For me, as I suspect is true of many people, it would take a complete lifestyle overhaul in order for me to be able to stop driving. I simply live too far from work and too deep in a suburban area to be able to reasonably consider not driving.
Alternative: public transport. It would take me between two and two and a half hours to get to work on the public lines, so four to five hours a day round trip. It would also cost me three dollars a day. At my car's gas mileage, I use ~1.3 gallons each day getting to work and back, or about $4.90. It takes me ~30 minutes to get to work. The point at which I start taking the bus is when four hours of my time is worth the difference between the cost of gas for my car and the bus. I estimate that to be about...$20 to $30. Note, as the gas prices rise, so will the cost of public transport. At the current rate, gas would have to be about $17 a gallon for me to switch to the bus. Granted, I would have to cut some other expenses (because I have so much room in my budget right now), but that four hours a day is very dear to me. Depending on how tight my budget gets (which is not an unrealistic consideration, what with the prices of everything in sight rising), that might go down as far as $10 a gallon.
Alternative: move closer to work. As anyone who pays much attention knows, Paizo is located in Bellevue, a hub city of Seattle. Not a cheap place to live, I assure you. I live 18.5 miles away and pay half the rent. I pay about $110 a a month in gas to get to and from work. Assuming Paizo doesn't move the office, gas would have to go to up to the point that it's about a quarter to a third of my rent for me to consider moving. At this rate, oh, call it...$15 to $17 a gallon, after you factor in all the other costs of moving, flattened over a year average.
So, for me to seriously consider not driving, gas would have to go to about $15 a gallon. Interestingly, this is higher than I expected it to be when I started responding.
Far-fetched alternative: drive a hybrid or electric. Gas would have to be so high that the difference between my current car payment and the payment that I would be making on a hybrid is feasible. Not to mention depreciation on my car.
I never said finding more oil was the whole solution. The point is, we need oil for at least a while until something better comes along. And unless you know some way of recycling the crap that comes out of your exhaust pipe, that means we need more oil. Aside from that, the primary reason gas is so expensive is simple supply and demand. If you want to bring the price down, the only real way to do it is to increase the supply.
Or let the price rise and thus stimulate the search for an alternative solution. Not that we are all that close to really flipping out just yet.
The OP seems to assume that $10 a gallon is a lots of money and would make most people change their behavior. I suspect that this is far to low considering the experience of other nations with far higher gas prices then a measly $10 a gallon. Not to say that it won't effect behavior at all. Some people will change how they operate or buy fuel efficient cars or use alternative methods of transport - most people, I suspect, will just increase the amount of time they gripe before and after they fill up their tank.
I live 18.5 miles away and pay half the rent. I pay about $110 a a month in gas to get to and from work.
About an hour or an hour and 15 by bike and you'll never have to worry about going to the gym 'cause your trip to and from work will take care of that.
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I agree that, holistically, Jeremy and Chris are right--$10 per US Gallon is not extreme on a developed nation-scale. I think petrol in London was something like $10 a gallon the other day. But for your average American, $10 a gallon is (superficially, at least) a lot of money. If you glance back through the posts you'll see that some of us (like me), because of the car we currently drive, would be spending upwards of $200 a week, if gas rose to $10 or $11 a gallon.
The original post assumes retaining ownership and use of the current vehicles, and does not take into consideration the purchase of a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. For example, if I drove a a Civic or a Prius, gas could rise to $25 a gallon, and I would still drive. My Jeep (which, in stop-and-go traffic, under 35 MPH, can average 7 miles to the gallon) is a different story altogether.
What happens is eventually the middle to lower class Americans that drive older used cars because they cannot afford a newer car will no longer be able to afford the gas to get to their low paying job. So, now they can't even get their so they eventually lose their job. As I would guess that our nations public transportation isn't that great across the board. I know Indiana bites at it.
So, now we have a good majority of Americans losing their jobs because they can't get there. Then.. they can't pay their bills...etc.
All because gas is too expensive for their older gas guzzlers. Too bad they can't afford a $30,000* hybrid.
Edit:
*I don't know how much hybrids cost.
As others have said - it's supply AND demand. It's not just about increasing supply, we can also lower demand.
One person choosing to carpool would not do that, but a whole bunch of people doing so, across the nation, could make an impact.
But there's another thing that gets me - all these folks talking about switching to hybrids or electric cars.
They still have to be recharged. That electricity, for the most part in the U.S., comes from plants dependent upon fossil fuels.
Granted, they are most likely much more efficient, but it's still a "demand" - we need to invest in known current alternatives (i.e. Nuclear Power) as well as investigating alternatives.