Any Concern Over the Price of Crude?!?!?

First off... people, don't buy the bullshit about Social Security failing. It's just another scheme by Republicans to privatize another industry to enrich themselves and their cronies. The formula of Republicans creating panic and fear in US citizens to promote their own agenda is getting old. Isn't it funny that when the heat comes down on this administration, something manages to change our focus away from the real story. Immigration is just the latest tactic to divert our attention away from how incompetent and corrupt this government is. They've even managed to divert my attention with immigration. :(

Hell, Social Security is about the only part of the government that isn't horribly broken. Here's an interesting read if you are worried about Social Security.

Jeeeez! I go to the gym (our home away from home) and look what happens!

Cam and I were talking re: the topic of higher prices (as we sat at the Exxon fillin' up the old Jeep) and came to the conclusion that we will be facing tight months ahead (as we watched the little digital read-out soar upwards at break neck speed! (Thank God the Bentley Continental GTC is not shipping yet!)

All kidding aside, labor and modeling costs will begin to increase, along with utilities catering costs and, other production costs - DVDs are made from crude - and chicken feed near our family home in Delaware will rise raising the price on the chickens that go into daddy deAngelo's chicken cacciatore - along with the growing and shipping costs for the local CA grown organic tomatoes, etc…not to mention shipping costs for sending all of our DVDs around the globe…
This is not a pretty picture

HOWEVER, I can tell you one thing for sure, no matter how quickly people will start to cut back, cocktails and porn will survive - somehow - tobacco too

Don't you think?

When I first worked for Radio Shack like a dozen years ago, my first store was over on the east side of Austin in a mixed latino/UT student apartmentland area. My first ever big sale was to this hispanic family who walked in and bought a camcorder. Now back in those days, that was a $1200 product. Then with an extended warranty and extras, that was $1500.

Now, they could barely speak English. But they knew what they wanted and they paid by handing me fifteen one hundred dollar bills.

So Tandy Corporation made money off that sale, plus even a little extra cause it was a cash transaction, without the merchant fees. And I made a nice commission off that, which I guarantee was used and appreciated when I paid the rent for my apartment that month.

I seriously doubt they were in the country legally. If they stayed in Mexico I would have worse off that pay period. Now why don't we just multiply that trabsaction out to every purchase every illegal makes just here in Texas.

Any idea why our economy is doing pretty good now? We depend on what those people do here very much. It is much more then a bunch of unwanteds grovelling for menial jobs. I bring that up to illustrate how just anyone working any ol' job would be seriously effected if those people were exiled out.

The biggest mall in San Antonio is Northstar Mall. It's bustling, which means big rents to the landlord Simon Properties (a very well performing REIT). They also have their own credit card there for Mexican nationals, who go there constantly to buy everything. Simon's mall in McAllen (The Mall del Norte) is humongous and extremely dependant on their purchases. And those people just don't buy beer and tacos. The Abercrombie and Fitch in McAllen is one of the highest grossing stores in the entire chain.

We benefit from anyone coming here and working in our society. Turning the United States into a closed society.... like building a Berlin Wall along the Rio Grande would mean big woes. And I do not understand why people are scared about the death of the English language from immigrants. For crying out loud, have you listened to rap music lately???

One last thought - making it a federal felony to be in the country illegally, plus federal penalties to help or hire illegals: We all know how utterly ineffective the Feds are with 2257 and federal porn laws. There is nothing more tedious, expensive, potentially abusive to civil rights, and ineffective then the federal criminal legal system.

In general, why would adding even more criminal penalties to the federal code do any good for anyone? Just ponder that. Just on that alone, I would seek alternatives.

Steve

PS: Living in Dallas.... if it is like people I know in Houston, their beef with people sitting around, not doing anything and collecting welfare is NOT people from Mexico. You know who I'm talking about. In Houston, they are called Hurricane N*****

Sorry for hijacking your thread Anthony. I promise that this is the last I will say on the topic of immigration in this thread. I just want to remind Desslock that I did say in a previous post that the only tax illegals pay is sales tax... which is A LOT less than I pay for the privilege of living in America.

And I am completely for legal immigration as long as ALL employable American legal residents are fully employed and living above the poverty line.

no problem - for the hi-jack... at least its not at gun point and at 35,000 feet!

just kidding...

I'm just trying to hang here for a while amidst the LEGAL work force of carpet installers, gardeners, housekeepers, painters, dog walkers care-givers, assistants, etc...and, everyone else that keep the DeAngelos and everyone else here in BH and surrounding LA happy! I'm talking about talented Philipinos, Koreans, Japanese, Mexicans and people from all over the world... BTW, they all get 1099'd and W2d (is that a word?) and written off too!

I just don't know. My mom immegrated legally from Brazil; my dad's family immegrated legally from Italy, Great Britain and points East...

My folks sponsored people and gave them work when they moved here legally...they set stuff up and helped families get a start here in the US...why can't people just figure it out?

Well perhaps that was before 1986. Yet another part of the KNARL is that if you are a skilled professional, the tiny number of work visas issued every year are completely snapped up way before the end of the year. (H1b visas)

Imagine Marie Antoinette throwing out crumbs and coins to the hungry masses of Paris.

Since the 1980s, there's a lot more software companies, tech companies and such needing programmers, engineers, etc from other countries. So even coming to America "following the rules" means lots of red tape, and enriching immigration lawyers with big bucks....if you can get it.

As always, time and human innovation typically does not smile upon a federal legal creation.

A few years ago, a friend of mine fell in love with a German student named Robbie, who was getting his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Texas. When it was time to gradulate, that meant it was time to return to Germany, unless he pursuaded a US employer to sponsor his H1b visa.

I know for about two years, he couldn't ever get anything through, and they were already paying a lawyer some money for counsel. And this was a PhD in Math! My friend moved to Phoenix, so I don't know how it worked out. Of course Robbie could have married a woman and become a citizen that way...

Steve

So what does all of this have to do with the price of tea in China...

Well, as the need for more better bigger and huger dominates the shelves of WalMart stores who continue to drive prices down and demand up and ship our jobs overseas...the US no longer turns toward Mexico to build Apple computers and everything else so the tide shifts to the east and the east pumps more nitrates into the atmoshpere (ad nauseum)

when does it end? where does it all lead?

Personally, I think its a great thing that some of this years' stars and red carpet walkers showed up in Toyatas in place of their stretch limos...
that's the kind of signal and message we should be broadcasting...

...not this Paris Hilton Bentley shit that thrives on greed and waste and is fired by the compressed remains of pre-historic vegans that once roamed the planet...

Its Passover in LA!

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Originally Posted by LiveTwinksCam

We should be getting it for free. Spending 100's of billions in Iraq and we are paying the highest amount we ever have for gas. Makes zero sense.

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It makes perfect sense when you consider that Daddy Bush and Baby Bush are both involved heavily in the oil industry in Texas and are personal friends of the kings and prince's in Saudi Arabia who visit regularly at the Bush Ranch in Texas and the Bush Compound in Maine or CT or wherever the hell it is.

It was announced just this weekend that the expected "average" price of a gallon of gas will be $2.62 a gallon assuming no major catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina occur.

I sometimes wonder where they get those "averages" from. I left California last week. A gallon of gas in Palm Springs was about $2.86 a gallon. I arrived in Delaware yesterday. The average price here is $2.57 a gallon.

Bill

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Originally Posted by hdkbill

I arrived in Delaware yesterday.
Bill

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I'm sure glad we've got someone guarding the chicken coop back home in Delaware...

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

But they do get much better mileage than regular combustion engines.

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Yah, you're correct, they do get better mileage, but I simply do not understand why people are so apposed to diesel hybrids.

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Speaking of which... what ever happened to cars from the late 70's-early 80's that got 50 mpg? Didn't Honda Civics get 50 mpg in the early 80's now your lucky to get 30 mpg from the smallest new car. WTF?

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I know, isn't it ironic: technology is suppose to make life easier etc, however it looks to be taking us down a different road. My first VW Rabbit (1976 gas-jobbie ) had better fuel economy than todays version ... WTF sup with th@ ? (sorry about the 'F')

I think its great that people are beginning to take car pooling seriously and are trying to reorganize their lives and move closer to work!

I always lived close to work until I moved to LA, where cars rule and isolate people from each other inside moving metal capsules...

In LA, there's always someplace better there than wherever you are...or like Gertrude Stein wrote about Oakland, "There's no There There." Having lived in Oakland while I was in art and design school, I can attest to that...but, there IS a BART there and soon to be an extended Red Line here...

right on with mass transit, even if it costs 5 billion dollars!

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

But they do get much better mileage than regular combustion engines. Speaking of which... what ever happened to cars from the late 70's-early 80's that got 50 mpg? Didn't Honda Civics get 50 mpg in the early 80's now your lucky to get 30 mpg from the smallest new car. WTF?

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Jim,

Back around 1983 or 1984 I had a Chevrolet Geo. If I remember the engine was actually a 3 cylinder made by Suzuki. It average 52 mpg on the highway which is why I bought it because I was commuting to work 60 miles and 60 miles back home each day. Damn thing was efficient but small and cramped....not sure that today I'd even be able to get in the damn thing, really, as I look back on it, I don't think it was much bigger than a rolleskate.

Gas prices went down, supply went up and people weren't interested in buying small cars so the auto manufacturers fazed them out.

Oh well, guess those were the good ol days.

Bill

I guess it all it just about price collusion. The gay porn movie studios collude to set the sales prices of movies so easily, it's just clear as an unmuddied lake that naturally the same would hold for oil.

Steve

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Originally Posted by desslock

I guess it all it just about price collusion. The gay porn movie studios collude to set the sales prices of movies so easily, it's just clear as an unmuddied lake that naturally the same would hold for oil.

Steve

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Man do I disagree with that. The biggest problem I see, at least in the particular genre we sell in, are studios selling their films for $29.95 and $39.95. Our films have always been in the $59.95 to $64.95 and for other studios who make similar type films to sell them at a $29 and $39 price point just devalues the entire genre.

Bill

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Originally Posted by hdkbill

Man do I disagree with that. The biggest problem I see, at least in the particular genre we sell in, are studios selling their films for $29.95 and $39.95. Our films have always been in the $59.95 to $64.95 and for other studios who make similar type films to sell them at a $29 and $39 price point just devalues the entire genre.

Bill

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Just wait its going to get worse as bandwidth cost goes down, free videos clips are going to get longer and longer, hell maybe even full-length “older” movies too will be available for free. The you will see what devaluation really is, just like the pic situation is now. I personally think the studios did this to all of us, by being to greedy, and letting everyone, give away all of their content for free. Now pics are not worth even paying for, people don’t care about your pics in a members site, they have seen it all before on about every site for free. But what do I know, I am just a newbee at all this anyway. :honest:










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