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More than likely, the King Ranch has their stinger out for anyone they think may intrude in their Kingdom, although none of them did a thing to build the place.
I think it's a King vs. Armstrong thing.
Probably about money.
More than likely, the King Ranch has their stinger out for anyone they think may intrude in their Kingdom, although none of them did a thing to build the place.
Republican Mel Martinez debunks the China-Cuba Oil connection - '60 miles from the Florida Keys" - yeah, right....
if you change everything about the car then it isn;t still that carThey kept making the Caprice. They just restyled it a little to look less like a beached whale, souped it up into a muscle car, and called it the Impala SS.
If you got 28 mpg out of that 5.0L, you were probably driving like a... well, grandpa. But that V-8 only put out 170 hp, which is about what a 4-cylinder will do these days.
I rented a 4-cyl Camry LE a couple weeks ago on vacation. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was roomy, has nice big buttons and letters on the radio so "wiser" eyes can read it, and it gave me 32 mpg. So maybe somebody does still make 'em.
el camino doesn;t exsit because a s10 exsits
Why would your Health Maintenance Organization care about cisterns?
Man, I wouldn't want to live in such a regulated neighborhood.
Better yet, build a neighborhood that encourages efficiency in energy and water.
The economic benefits of energy efficiency in the future will make such places pay for themselves.
Senior moment. I meant HOA, Homeowners Assn. Please forgive me. Thank you for your consideration.Why would your Health Maintenance Organization care about cisterns?
Man, I wouldn't want to live in such a regulated neighborhood.
Better yet, build a neighborhood that encourages efficiency in energy and water.
The economic benefits of energy efficiency in the future will make such places pay for themselves.
I don't belong to a HMO.
Heh, I figured that.Senior moment. I meant HOA, Homeowners Assn. Please forgive me. Thank you for your consideration.
I don't belong to a HMO.
Well, if I ever get around to doing some real estate development, and I make my "green" HOA, I'll send you an invite. You can leave your garbage can and recycling bins out if you like.
Low Mexican Gas Prices Draw Americans
By ADAM B. ELLICK
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — When George Terrazas was mugged at gunpoint in this Mexican border city several months ago, he vowed never to return.
That, however, was before gasoline hit $4 a gallon in his hometown, El Paso, just across the border.
On Saturday, Mr. Terrazas was back in Ciudad Juárez, wooed by its irresistibly low-priced gasoline — around $2.66 a gallon — even if not quite unfazed by the indiscriminate gunfire from dueling drug cartels that has contributed to a 2008 average of three killings a day in the city.
“I don’t feel comfortable here,” he said, “but I can’t even fill the tank on the U.S. side.”
Mr. Terrazas, a 48-year-old maintenance worker, is among a flow of American “gas tourists” who, Mexican service stations near the border with El Paso estimate, account for a 50 percent surge in gasoline sales here over the last several months. (Similar increases are reported along the border all the way to Tijuana.) Even the Mexico Tourism Board is promoting the journey.
At the Servicio Herrera service station here, the manager, Jorge Salinas, estimated that Americans were now 30 percent of his customers. They arrive at all hours, Mr. Salinas said, from 6 a.m. to midnight.
On his visit Saturday, Mr. Terrazas saved about $20 filling his 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. He said that when he returned to El Paso, he would monitor the bridge traffic from his house, and that once it waned, he would come back to fill his other vehicle, an S.U.V., for an even bigger saving.
And while here he would pick up six-packs of Tecate beer and produce like passion fruit, and even visit an orthodontist. In all, he expected to save $200. The border, he said, flashing a mouthful of braces, is “our advantage.”
The low gasoline and diesel prices that draw Americans here are a result of subsidies provided by the Mexican government to curb inflation and make fuel affordable to the poor.
The moment may not last. Severe gasoline and diesel shortages, caused by the increased demand from Americans and delivery problems as well, have been reported from here to Mexico’s border with California. (On Friday the government-owned monopoly oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said that it would provide a one-time allotment of an extra 300,000 barrels of diesel fuel to meet increased demand along the border.)
Moreover, experts question how long the government can continue providing gasoline subsidies, which will amount to more than $20 billion this year.
For now, though, many South Texans are buying all the fuel they can south of the border, and little wonder. Four of the seven poorest urbanized counties in the United States are along the Texas border, including El Paso, according to a 2006 Census Bureau report.
El Pasoan desperation shows in the leathery face of Jimmy Gann, 57. Mr. Gann’s employer, a family trucking business, is on the verge of bankruptcy, he said, and to help the owners stay afloat, he makes three 32-mile round-trip sprints across the border each day. Once here, he fills a 100-gallon tank with diesel — which is going for $2.20 a gallon on this side, compared with $4.55 on the other — then returns north, unloads the tank at his employer’s business and does it all over again.
One Texan in the trucking industry, who declined to give his name for fear of being prosecuted for tax evasion, said he saved $12,000 a month by fueling his four-truck fleet in Mexico.
On the El Paso side, service station employees say business is down about 40 percent, even at a Chevron station that may have the best deal in town: gasoline at $3.89 a gallon. Just two months ago, stations on the Texas side attracted many Mexicans, who crossed to buy what they considered higher-quality gasoline that was more expensive but still affordable.
“We keep saying, ‘Have you seen so-and-so?’ and the answer is always no,” said Rocio Salazar, 30, a station attendant in El Paso. “It used to be like rush hour on the freeway in here.”
The drop in business has made all the worse along the Texas border what were already hard times for many owners of American service stations. The e in gasoline’s price has caused many customers to cut back, and that, coupled with increased fees of credit card companies, has “put an increasing number of retailers on the brink of bankruptcy,” says the National Association of Convenience Stores, which represents convenience and petroleum retailers in the United States.
Jose Alfredo has worked at a Chevron station in El Paso for 18 years. With no convenience store to cushion a 50 percent drop in business, the station has laid off five of its eight employees.
“Everyone knows Mexican gas is watered down, but customers don’t care anymore,” Mr. Alfredo said with a shrug.
Managers of Mexican stations deny that accusation. They also say that most of the gasoline they sell is refined in the United States. But one American oil executive noted that the sulfur content allowed in gasoline by the Mexican government was higher than what is allowed in the United States, and said that over time, the higher level could compromise vehicle emissions systems. In addition, Mexican refineries lack a capacity to produce low-sulfur diesel, which is standard in the United States.
The Mexican diesel is “not a good thing for the air, but it’s a good thing for people who want to save money,” said Tom Kloza, a chief analyst at Oil Price Information Service.
Edith Marquez is one American who has so far resisted buying Mexican gasoline, citing quality concerns. But she visits Juárez every Saturday for the $15 saving at a weight control doctor, whose office is attached to a Pemex station. “I’m afraid for my car, but I’ll let the doctor here put vitamins in me,” Ms. Marquez said with a laugh.
For gas station attendants in Mexico, who earn $100 a week, the surge in sales has meant extra money to tuck into the pockets of their olive green overalls. To tip attendants is the custom here, and one of them, Alejandro Jurado, flashing a brick-size wad of pesos and dollars, said, “Americans tip better.”
LINK
The funny thing about that is that the low gas prices in mexico are subsidized by the Mexican Goverment's cash cow, Pemex (petroleum de mexico), the oil company owned by the government that is selling oil to... the US.
Oooh the irony...
Are they subsidized? Now I'm not saying they aren't, just I don't believe they are. Mexico has it's own oil and it can be brought to market for likely under $20 per bbl. Mexico may simply choose to keep their prices down and not participate in selling all they can at the world market price. I'll bet they still profit on it.
Read the article, they are subsidized.
I didn't take you as one to believe what the NY Times says.
At the price they can take it out of the ground, I'm pretty sure there is no need to subsidize it. It also depends on your definition. Liberals tend to call reduced taxes a subsidy for example. If subsidy means making less than you can, then it's really not a subsidy.
When the state owned oil company sells gasoline to consumers for less than they could sell it elsewhere (and in many cases, less than they purchased it for)... that is pretty much the definition of a subsidy.
I actually read about the subsidy on a Spanish newspaper a while ago. I just happened to come across this story and thought it was interesting.
A whole lot of Latin American countries subsidize their gas, including non producing countries like Argentina. The reason is that the way they measure inflation includes gas prices. In the case of Mexico, their central bank projected the inflation to be 3%, +- 1%. They're currently at 4.63%, just slightly over their projection. If they remove the subsidy, it would jump to more than 6%. That's a problem, because a lot of the multi-stage loans they receive from the IMF and the World Bank are tied to performance. Unfortunately, the side effect of these subsidies and price controls is a distorted economy.
Gasoline subsidies are actually a topic that deserves further note here.
There has been a pretty steady increase in the demand for gasoline in emerging nations the last few years, and part of the reason is that gasoline is subsidized in many of them. Cheap gasoline has been fueling growth, which begets more gasoline demand, and the next thing you know you have a global demand boom.
Just another in the long list of reasons gasoline and oil prices are up significantly.
It is also worth nothing that a lot of those governments are starting to rethink that. China's recent increases for one, and Iran for another. Neither was very popular, but such fuel subsidies in an environment of high oil prices become unsustainable.
...says the guy who thinks Ann Coulter has a good track record with the truth...
I am a bad person for not being able to let that one go by.
A question for scott:
Chysler is offering a promotion on their dodge durango (13 mpg city, 18 mpg highway), where they will pay you the difference per gallon of gasoline from @2.99 for up to 12,000, i.e. if you buy 10 gallons of gas at $4.00, they will give you 10*$1.01. This is for 3 years, and is in addition to $2,000 in cash.
They offer a choice of this option, or $6,000 cash.
From a budget standpoint these incentives must be calculated as being equal to each other.
Meaning that the gasoline incentive must equal to them about $4,000.
I crunched the numbers, and calculated that this means THEIR calculation of what a gallon of gas will cost in three years is roughly $7 a gallon.
12,000 miles divided by an average of 15 mpg is 800 gallons that they would be paying on.
For the net present value of their outlays in the next three years to equal $4000 now at a 10% cost if capital, would mean that they roughly expect the price of gas to go up by about a dollar per gallon per year. Meaning that in the third year, they expect to spend roughly $2500 on those 800 gallons. 2500/800= $3.125 difference that they are paying.
$3.125+2.99= $6.12 dollars per gallon of gasoline.
NPV=$4,000= sum of npv for 3 payments, once per year
Assumed cost of capital= 10%
(higher costs of capital would make the price paid for the gas in future years higher, meaning that if this is too low, the ultimate predicted price of gas would be higher)
Given that I was very probably a bit conservative in my guess about their cost of capital, I would guess that their bet as to where the price of a gallon of gasoline will be in 3 years is about $7.00 per gallon.
Does this all sound about right?
The logic is valid except for this.
Argentina = non producer of oil.
Mexico = large producer of oil.
It does not need to be subsidised because of the price they can bring it to market. They are not buying oil at market price. Argentina must.
I agree. There needs to be additional incentives for the auto industries to make cars more fuel efficient. The US car companies are in such bad shape right now - they need a way to get high mileage cars in the hands of consumers more quickly where there is not a huge price differential to go the hybrid route. Perhaps a tax inventive for individuals to buy hybrids would be good to smooth out gasoline demand issues.
Domestic exploration and refinery expansion is a good idea to relieve supply issues as well as price speculation. A larger, more stable supply of oil produced domestically would be a good thing in my opinion. Regulations brought in by enviromentalists and their friends in state and federal legislatures has been a huge problem.
By the time I buy a new car, hopefully it will be capable of 35-40 mpg versus 25-30 with my current 4 cylinder sedan.
A company I went to in my audit work is an air freight company on the east coast. They do a lot of work in latin america and business is done in Venezuela.
The govermnent owned oil company there is allowing 20 cent per gallon gasoline. The price may be higher now, I'm not sure. However, the prices charged to put oil out there in the world market allows them to do this.
The socialist government there pays litttle attention to environment problems. The guy I talked to at the company I visited said that in the city he was working in, the air quality was so bad you would have lines of soot under your nose at the end of the day.
At least the Venezuelans have government health care to take care of their respiratory problems after they wait 6 months to get in to a doctor.
Your logic would be valid if Mexico would be the only oil producer in the world. But they aren't. The price is not dictated by the producer, but by market value. Every time a mexican buys gas at under market value, the oil company (in this case the government) is losing money (they could have sold the same gas to another country for more money). In the case of Argentina, they do produce some of their own oil (Repsol/YPF), just not enough to cover the entire demand of the country. Over there, it's not a subsidy like Mexico. What they have there is government mandated price controls. They dictate what the max price for each type of gas will be. So the companies producing/importing the Oil are the ones losing money. To the point that S threatened leaving the country a couple of times.
Since when is selling under market value a subsidy, especially if there is still profit? A loss of potential profits is not a loss of profits.
I'm sorry, but I get pissy about some words being incorrectly used. Political pundits misuse the word subsidy and its various forms all the time.
Taken straight from Wikipedia:
In economics, a subsidy (also known as a subvention) is a form of financial assistance paid to a business or economic sector. A subsidy can be used to support businesses that might otherwise fail, or to encourage activities that would otherwise not take place.
If it would be the oil company decision, they would sell all their oil at market price where they can maximize their profits. Basically, selling at under market value will simply not take place. How is it a misuse of the word?
I guess only a lawyer would try to skew the meaning of a word. I'll give you a break because this is a form of art you use without thinking twice.
OK. You say it's a subsidy. Who is being paid? A break in cost is not a subsidy. The customer getting gas at below market value is not a subsidy. Everyone involved on the business end is still making a profit. Just not a free market profit. Is the government of Mexico paying anyone to sell cheaper?
Think about it. If we could drill all our own oil at under $50 per barrel, and was mandated that only excess production beyond our nations needs could be sold at market value, we could have far cheaper gas today.
Remember, we are talking about Mexico. Not the USA.
To answer someone else that brought this up: As for the gas being shipped back across the border from here to there, that is because they are using our refineries to process their oil. It is not the necessarily the same diesel or gas we make for their market either. They are simply paying a fee to the refinery to process their oil.
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