I have nothing to gain by defending Zimmerman, with the exception of pointing out the usual media bias as they crucify him.

I offered up a flawed scenario of what might have happened, minus the full range of facts (which no one has at this time). Why did I suggest 'Evil Zimmerman' is a radical leftist theory? Because they're the ones that insist America is (still) an evil place inhabited by nothing but racists, and since Zimmerman is not Black--the only race that according to the left can "never" be considered racist--Zimmerman is therefore an evil racist.

The lower-than-whaleshit non-FOX media have turned this into a media frenzy, and don't think His Earness isn't grateful for the chaos, it takes attention off the shitconomy and soaring gas prices.

The question is NOT, "Did a kid deserve to end his life over this?" and if it is, you'd better be prepared for the answer to POSSIBLY be Yes. The non-Fox media have been very careful to only show the pics of 12-year-old Trayvon, not the 17-year old posing as a thug, tweeting about hassling Whitey, who physically is more than capable of killing someone.


Zimmerman could end up being as twisted as Dexter, otherwise I don't see a motive for his actions. It's one thing to pretend one is a bigshot, a whole other game to actually (needlessly) put oneself in a life-or-death situ where control is literally guaranteed to be lost in an instant.


>> ^VoodooV:

QM and Pennypacker resort to strawmans as usual. flinging terms like "radical left" without consequence. The sift needs some serious moderation around here.
No one has convicted Zimmerman...end of story, get that bullshit out of your heads. It really is quite irrelevant who the attacker is. The real question is:
Did a kid deserve to have his life ended over this? And the answer is most assuredly...
NO!!
It truly is despicable that this has turned into a left v right issue. This is the sort of thing that should be uniting us, not dividing us. EVERYONE, left and right should be ashamed.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Networks Hype Rising Gas Prices 4 Times More for Bush, Than Obama

Gas prices mentioned in 97 stories in one month of 2008 coverage, compared to just 21 in 2012.

It's much easier to accuse FOX of bias if you ignore that non-FOX media work on behalf of the Democratic Party.


Well, considering they rose about four times faster while Bush was president...

Why should we judge Obama more harshly?

Networks Hype Rising Gas Prices 4 Times More for Bush, Than Obama

Gas prices mentioned in 97 stories in one month of 2008 coverage, compared to just 21 in 2012.


It's much easier to accuse FOX of bias if you ignore that non-FOX media work on behalf of the Democratic Party.

>> ^conan:

I'd give my left arm for 4 USD a gallon. Right now we're at 7,57 USD a gallon (1,50 EUR per liter). And that's for diesel, which is subsidized over here. I'm happy i don't need Super (Premium you call it i think), regular isn't sold here anymore.


Yeah, I really have no time for americans complaining about gas prices. Forget a hybrid or a diesel, just buy a small car.

And OT: my main issue with hybrids is their environmental impact. Sure on road, they're a great idea, but not so much once you amortise the energy cost of the life cycle of the vehicle. You want to be environmentally friendly and save money. Buy an oldish car with a small engine.

Upvote granted. That is probably the best way to reply to that sort of argument too.

The real underlying problem with the "gas prices are going up because the Fed is printing money" theory is that gasoline is just one price, and "inflation" is a rise in the price of everything, overall. Economists say that to really spot inflation, you have to look at prices that are generally pretty stable; volatile commodities like food & gas which see frequent large shifts in both supply & demand are very poor measures of inflation, because there's just too much non-inflationary noise. Here's a much more in-depth explanation from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/core-logic/

Keep in mind that the methods economists use to measure inflation show that we've been in a period of record-low inflation. That should, for any rational person, be the end of talk of inflation. This constant cry of "INFLATION!" at every price increase is quite literally the economic equivalent of hearing hoof-beats and assuming it's zebras and not horses.

Most changes in prices happen in response to real shifts in supply or demand, not because the Fed is expanding the monetary base.

In reply to this comment by lampishthing:
I researched a comment on the sift for the first time in about 2 years. I would like an upvote oh sage one.

You might even find it interesting!!!!

I linked this on my social media sites as

"Fox news explains why Barack Obama can't change gas prices"

That printing money thing sounded reasonable to me so I looked up currencies for backup. Being in Ireland where the price of petrol is the equivalent of 8.33 USD per gallon which my driving friends tell me is up about 25% these past 6 months it seemed like a global thing to me. ANYWAY.

I found a cool applet for showing historical exchange rates.
Really neat exchange rate thingy
I found it informative to take base as USD and the foreign exchanges as Euro, GBP & Chinese Yuan

These websites show historical oil prices for all those currencies:

Oil_vs_USD

Oil_vs_EUR

Oil_vs_GBP

Oil_vs_CNY

I looked at 180 days history for the above graphs.


As you can see, all the oil price graphs have a similar shape and have indeed gone up about 25% for all currencies. Also, you can see that none of the currencies have moved very much with respect to the USD. So yeah, either they're all printing money (CHINA DOES NOT NEED TO, for defs, yo) or the oil prices are not cos America's printing money.

I did actually look for counter-examples in surging economies but even AUD and CAD show the same jump. If anything, that the exchange rates wrt these countries have gone down and the commodity price of oil has gone up for all of them at a similar rate is a positive for the states.


So yeah, I don't accept your hypothesis.
>> ^bobknight33:

Sounds right. Presidents don't have control of gas prices as the left blamed Bush back when he was president. But there is a big difference between Obama and other presidents.

Under this administration there have been massive amount of printing money. Remember QE1, QE2 and possible QE3 have done nothing except debase our currency which has caused inflation. Gas prices will not come down to any great extent but will only go up along with everything else.

I love how the comment thread is almost entirely about hybrid car battery failure, and not about gas prices or politically-motivated spin.

For me, these clips are cause for a bit of soul-searching. I honestly don't recall exactly what I was saying about gas prices in 2008, but I certainly was saying Bush was at least partly to blame.

I didn't really have much proof of that, it was mostly "Bush is an oil man, and under his Presidency gas went from $1.50 to $4, so he's got to have something to do with it."

Mostly though, I think the real answer is that we do live in a free market economy, and oil price is set largely by supply and demand. The global supply has been flat, and possibly declining, while demand has been growing (mostly due to economic development in places like China and India).

The truth is we should have been making serious attempts to get ourselves off oil since at least the 70's, and because we've let Big Oil and their political allies have their way, worldwide, we're now reaching the point where the consequences of our apathy and/or defeat are becoming impossible to ignore.

Now it gets to 80 degrees in March in Ohio, gasoline costs $4/gal, and still the only remediation our political system seems likely to implement is more investment in oil production.

That could change quickly, of course. All we really need is for the right to wake up. Or drop dead. I'd be satisfied with either one at this point.

Sounds right. Presidents don't have control of gas prices as the left blamed Bush back when he was president. But there is a big difference between Obama and other presidents.


Under this administration there have been massive amount of printing money. Remember QE1, QE2 and possible QE3 have done nothing except debase our currency which has caused inflation. Gas prices will not come down to any great extent but will only go up along with everything else.

Sadly who ever wins, things will get worse in the next 2 years. The devaluation of the dollar is starting to come to roost. Gas prices will go higher and everything else with it. To make things worse next year massive tax savings will end and everyone will pay more in taxes.

Its a ticking time bomb only with Obama putting the final nails in the coffin.

The economy is not getting better. Don't listen to the TV look around. Every month another store or 2 around you shuts its doors.

WE borrow 4 Billion dollars a day and have done this for at least a decade.
Another way to put it that the government borrows 0.43 cents every dollar. How long can that go on? It can't go past 50 cents.


Ron Paul, like him or not is the only one willing to cut now and deep government spending. All others only desire to limit the growth rate a little. He is like the only chance America has as long as we vote out long standing career politicians like John McCain and Nancy Pelosi

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Gasoline_inflation_chart.htm

Hey look, even if you account for inflation, gas prices are rising.

Try again, morons.

I agree in theory, but in practice I'm not so sure whether the speculators are doing this for rational free market reasons, or if they're specifically trying to drive up gas prices in the hopes of unseating Obama.

I realize I need to put on my tinfoil hat for that theory, but I'm not entirely convinced the supposed galtian supergeniuses running the investment banks are actually fundamentally different from your average teabagger in terms of their motivations and grasp on reality.

>> ^jwray:

All oil speculation is a perfectly legit market reaction to anticipation of future oil shortages. These stockpiles of oil created by speculators will help consumers at some future date when the stockpiles are sold. Prohibiting oil speculation globally is not feasable, and even if it were, it would only delay and amplify the inevitable rise in oil prices as global oil reserves are depleted. Free market speculation that raises the price of oil early will increase the incentive to develop alternatives to finite fossil fuel reserves.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The gold standard makes no sense in a modern world.

A typical fallacy of modern economics.


Anyway, the dollar is losing value = higher gas prices

>> ^bmacs27:

Alternative explanation: Gold is over-valued with respect to fuel.
Well, I guess not everyone.

@quantumushroom

>>> You think Obama failed because he wasn't liberal enough, is that correct? I saw no vision, just a clever media-protected imago who freely admitted he acted as a mirror or canvas for everyone to project their ideas onto him. Middle East failures are no surprise. He's an appeaser, his offered olive branch to the turbaned vermin was predictably shoved up his you-know-where.

No. I think he failed because he has no balls. He has done everything in half measures, trying to please everyone. If he just pushed his own agenda balls-to-the-wall, he'd be getting a lot more respect from the rest of the world, and Americans too. I think Americans value a strong President even more than one who shares their point of view. On that count, Obama is a ridiculous failure.

>>> It would do more good than fake solar companies. Special thanks to the current idiot Energy Secretary for admitting out loud what the rest of us already knew.

No, it wouldn't. A pipeline taking oil OUT of the country, including American oil couldn't possibly help. Other sources of energy that are used within the country could. In any case, neither choice has any real effect on gas prices.

>>> Where were you with this warning before the scamulus began (and yes, Bush conceived it but Obama supercharged it).

I said it several times back in '08. I may have even said it here.

>>> Back to leadership: a real leader can take it. FDR's scamulus was also a failure and revisionist history hides its lack of effectiveness, but at least FDR said of his enemies, "I welcome their hatred."

That's what I'm saying. Guy's not a leader. He's not even a speaker. He's a speech reader. He did a great job of that during the election, and hasn't done much else since.