Go to Eastern King County (which contains Seattle) or Snohomish County (just North of King). If you have a few acres of land, good luck developing it to add any housing. Essentially the regulations in Washington mean that if you don't already have houses in an area, you'll never get houses in that area. Growth is restricted to already-developed places.
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That puts a LOT of demand into existing housing and larger existing housing lots. Which is why we see lots in the city and suburbs being endlessly subdivided, and why a house that sold for $200,000 in the city in 2000 now sells for $750,000.
There is a ton of land around Seattle, and if regulations weren't so onerous you could easily house twice the number of people without increasing density (and keeping commutes about the same as now). But that's not allowed - the vision of the county Executive, the city Mayor, and the local state representatives is for everyone to live in the new megalith condo/apartment complexes sprouting up. No need for your own house, or a place for more than one car, etc.
Regulation is driving half the value of the house. If that's desirable to you, great - you can afford it. But we're driving most of the affordable housing in Seattle to places more than an hour away - Tacoma, Arlington, Sumner, Puyallup, etc.
It's not just desirability that drives housing prices. In Seattle, for instance, the regulations applied to housing accounts for $200,000 "value" of the average $450,000 home. A not-insubstantial amount from regulations alone.
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Perhaps housing in many places is cheaper than Seattle or the Bay area or the LA/SD megalopolis not because of desirability but because of regulation?
Ni hao lin ju! I'm over in the Minhang District, two blocks north of the indoor skiing center. I live half my life here in China (mostly Shanghai, with time spent in Suzhou and Ningbo as well), and the other half in the US, and I fully concur with your statements. The reality is that China is not as oppressive as the Western media likes to make it out to be, nor is it as free as the US. But it is opening up more and more...
Anyone else remember 2004, when the Diebold CEO said he would "deliver" Ohio to the GOP?
He sure did. According to the exit polls (which had been rigorously redone after the questions around them in 2000), Ohio should have gone to Gore by several points.
Instead, in a situation that can only be called MAGIC (or theft), it went to Bush.
They are just setting the stage to do it again. Mark my words.
See, the election still would have gone to President Bush since Ohio would have split the electoral votes to Gore, rather than Kerry, meaning that Kerry still comes up short.
Exactly. If you're not smart enough to figure out a Scantron type ballot, something most first grade students can understand, I'm not sure you even SHOULD be voting...
GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?
CLARKE: No.
Simply put: the Clinton administration did not leave enough information NOR plans for the Bush administration to stop 9/11. It was a foregone conclusion by January 26th, 2001.
Now for your rant about "outing a CIA agent"? Maybe you need to readaboutwhoadmitted the leak. Hint: his first name is Dick, and his last name is Armitage.
Oh, and you might find this NY Times article enlightening, especially the following:
. âoeThere is still a lot of oil to develop out there, which is why we donâ(TM)t call this geological peak oil, especially in places like Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Iraq,â said Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs. âoeWhat we have now is geopolitical peak oil.â
Oil shortages are not from lack of desire by the oil companies, or lack of technology or existing resources. Oil shortages - and the corresponding high prices - are because Governments, who overwhelmingly control the oil resources (87%) are restricting supply.
And countries with huge resources - like the US - are sitting by, fiddling as the economy burns to the ground.
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So yes, the Republicans tried to increase domestic drilling, and for the last 20 years the Democrats have been the obstructionists.
And the Republicans were not in charge for 12 years; rather, there were 4 years total where they had a 1 vote majority with the Bush administration. Prior to that, there was a Democrat in the Oval Office. For two years at the beginning of the Bush administration the Democrats held the Senate. And the Democrats have held Congress since 2006.
Speculators in the oil market? Of course they're not betting on the US - the pattern and history are solid with Democrats opposing any and all additional domestic production. What kind of environment is that when companies will be prevented from exploration and production?
Senator McCain is calling for more domestic drilling AND nuclear, both of which Senator Obama opposes. The Republicans have been pushing for increased exploration for decades, and the Democrats have held up. And now it finally comes to a head with Nancy Pelosi refusing to even allow a vote on the issue.
NOTHING is going to make us energy independent in 1 term; in 10 years, yes. We can have all the oil we need flowing from oil shale within 10 years. We can have all the electricity we want with nuclear. And we can do it in a decade, and keep doing it for nearly 3 more centuries.
Why Obama and the Democrats refuse to allow us to use our own resources - at a price 1/3rd what we pay others to give to us - is simply boggling. It's politics and class warfare; no other reason could possibly make sense.
If you like $4/gallon gas, and $3.80/gallon heating oil, thank your DEMOCRAT Congress.
HOWEVER, it takes more energy to turn the Shale Oil into these fuels THAN YOU GET FROM USING THE FUELS.
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False. I point you to the second link I posted that contained the following:
(Shell) asserts a ratio of approximately 18 units of energy produced per unit used
and
A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil shale deposits as varying between 0.7â"13.3
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Yes, you get up to 13 to 18 units of energy out for every unit of energy in. Kind of counter to what you claim.
And why haven't we done it yet? Ask your Democrat Congress why they refuse to allow development of oil shale, or offshore drilling. Utah, Wyoming, and the oil companies want to develop the shale oil; the Democrats in Congress do not.
It's nothing to do with physics, it's everything to do with economics and usage of energy. Electric planes - and to a large extent, electric cars - simply do not have the range or capacity of oil burning vehicles.
Bottom line: Obama and the Democrats do not want to develop the resources we have, and that has a direct result in keeping gasoline and oil costs high.
We are not running out of oil, we have plenty here to use to continue running our society until we find a FEASIBLE and ECONOMICALLY REALISTIC replacement.
Please see this Wikipedia article about oil shale, and this Wikipedia article about the extraction of the same. Now you can go back to your troll hole and think of another idiotic comment...
I see, so we should increase taxes on businesses right now so we can further hamper the economy? Is that the plan?
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Seriously, between worry about recession or worrying about excess inflation, I don't know a single economist who would choose the former.
and the tax cuts affected the rich and big companies more than the small and poor, so the oil companies were the beneficiaries
Actually, this is false. Just like with the person income tax cuts the President Bush instituted. Percentage-wise, those on the BOTTOM end got more cuts. More people now pay ZERO income tax than did before the tax cuts. Sure, Mr. CEO is now paying 33% personal income tax on his million, rather than 39%, saving himself $60,000. But at the bottom end, you're paying 10% rather than 15%. And last time I checked, a 15% cut in tax rates (the top rate) is less than a 34% cut in tax rates (the bottom rate).
OK, so let Colorado prohibit oil shale development. Let Utah and Wyoming go. But no, the Slavery Party in control of Congress (aka Democrats) refuse to allow exploration, testing, development or production.
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Awfully hard to get the SLIGHTEST F_UCKING CLUE if you're prohibited from even trying... But it makes great sound bites for your extremist base!
How about the fact that they already pay $2.50 in taxes for every $1 in profit they make? What more justification is needed other than the fact they already pay four TIMES the tax rate of other large companies (like Apple). Even when that other company makes 150% more profit margin.
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And further, there were ZERO specific oil-industry tax cuts by President Bush. Tax cuts were economy wide, not targeted. About as specific as the tax cut President Bush targeted for you, via the income tax reductions. So how about you justify your targeted tax cuts first; what's that, there wasn't a bill targeting you? Same with "Big Oil".
You said it yourself - tax cuts encourage growth. When is encouraging growth a bad thing, especially in industries that essentially power and move the nation? What country has ever taxed itself into prosperity? Think about that when considering who really understands economics...
We have 100% of our total petroleum needs (20 million barrels a day) sitting right here, in the Continental US. And we have that supply rate for 270 YEARS. And at $40 per barrel.
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It's called oil shale. In 10 years the US could not only produce every drop of oil it needs on a daily basis, but export over 8 million barrels a day to other countries. And do it for nearly 3 centuries.
What's stopping this? It's not the Governors or State Assemblies of Utah and Wyoming. It's the Democrats in Congress who insist on maintaining the prohibition on oil shale production.
Good arguments. Like I said, Obama's not perfect. However, as it stands, after all the Bush tax cuts, the oil companies are undertaxed.
UNDER taxed? Does a 25% tax rate on GROSS receipts (a 250% tax rate on net profit) need to be higher?
Last year, ExxonMobil sold $404 billion worth of product. On those sales, they made $40 billion in profit (10%). They paid $102 billion in taxes (25% of gross receipts).
Compare that to the 15.3% profit that Apple made, while paying just 6% taxes (measured against gross receipts).
How ExxonMobil is undertaxed I'll never understand...
Pelosi is also the first speaker in 50 years to take the August break WITHOUT passing an appropriations bill. Why? Well, that would require talking about energy and oil, which is a death knell for the Democrat party...
Here's a stupid fucking question. So they had a net profit of only 8% of $11 billion. Exactly $0.00 of that was spent on drilling the undeveloped land they have
I see this statement time and again and shows an absolute ignorance of how drilling works.
Guess what - you do NOT need to drill every acre to get production from every acre! In fact, modern directional drilling means you need a single platform on every 800-1000 acres; break your lease into 30x30 acre areas, drop your rig in the middle, and you're ready to go.
So you only need to actually touch ~0.1% of your lease to produce all of it.
But if we listen to the Democrat spin, we have to put a drill on EACH acre before we can lease more lands. Yeah, that's smart! Next Congress will require that every single phone line and 100% of all bandwidth capacity be fully utilized before new lines or bandwidth is allowed...
Explain the 18% drop in the price of oil since the very day President Bush announced the repeal of the executive order prohibiting offshore drilling. Just 2 weeks, and we've had an 18% drop. Supply hasn't increased, and demand is still going up.
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It's the emotion and expectation that the Democrats will come to their senses and match the move that dropped the price.
President Bush, on July 14th, announced the repeal of the executive order prohibiting offshore drilling. On that day, oil was selling for $147 per barrel. Today, it closed at $125 a barrel, down 15%. Coincidence? I think not...
OK, the oil companies deserve that money. They make a 10% profit on revenues, and pay 25% in taxes on revenues. Compare that to Apple Computer who makes 15% profit on revenues, and pays just 6% in taxes on those same revenues.
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You know who's making the gross, obscene profits? The Governments making $2.50 for every dollar the oil companies do. And they pay a four TIMES higher tax rate than tech companies. If that's obscene and laden with special tax breaks, then I want to live in your bizzarro world... I mean, I'd be married to Katherine Zeta Jones.
Yes, ignore the two TRILLION barrels of proven oil reserves we have in our shale oil alone... Enough to run the US - at its 20 million barrels a day consumption rate - for 270 years.
Pickens is going for the $1 billion annual subsidies he'd get, not to "help the environment". Wind gets $23.37 per megawatt hour of production in Federal subsidies, and most states REQUIRE purchase of all "renewable" energy that's available at whatever the peak rate is.
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Pickens is no fool - he sees the political tide turning and smells a chance to make a few billion in tax dollars sent directly to his pocket.
Slashdot Mirror
Or we could have a black boy with less than two years experience take the reins...
That puts a LOT of demand into existing housing and larger existing housing lots. Which is why we see lots in the city and suburbs being endlessly subdivided, and why a house that sold for $200,000 in the city in 2000 now sells for $750,000.
There is a ton of land around Seattle, and if regulations weren't so onerous you could easily house twice the number of people without increasing density (and keeping commutes about the same as now). But that's not allowed - the vision of the county Executive, the city Mayor, and the local state representatives is for everyone to live in the new megalith condo/apartment complexes sprouting up. No need for your own house, or a place for more than one car, etc.
Regulation is driving half the value of the house. If that's desirable to you, great - you can afford it. But we're driving most of the affordable housing in Seattle to places more than an hour away - Tacoma, Arlington, Sumner, Puyallup, etc.
Perhaps housing in many places is cheaper than Seattle or the Bay area or the LA/SD megalopolis not because of desirability but because of regulation?
Ni hao lin ju! I'm over in the Minhang District, two blocks north of the indoor skiing center. I live half my life here in China (mostly Shanghai, with time spent in Suzhou and Ningbo as well), and the other half in the US, and I fully concur with your statements. The reality is that China is not as oppressive as the Western media likes to make it out to be, nor is it as free as the US. But it is opening up more and more...
Anyone else remember 2004, when the Diebold CEO said he would "deliver" Ohio to the GOP?
He sure did. According to the exit polls (which had been rigorously redone after the questions around them in 2000), Ohio should have gone to Gore by several points.
Instead, in a situation that can only be called MAGIC (or theft), it went to Bush.
They are just setting the stage to do it again. Mark my words.
See, the election still would have gone to President Bush since Ohio would have split the electoral votes to Gore, rather than Kerry, meaning that Kerry still comes up short.
Exactly. If you're not smart enough to figure out a Scantron type ballot, something most first grade students can understand, I'm not sure you even SHOULD be voting...
From CNN's transcript of the 9/11 Commission hearings:
GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?
CLARKE: No.
Simply put: the Clinton administration did not leave enough information NOR plans for the Bush administration to stop 9/11. It was a foregone conclusion by January 26th, 2001.
Now for your rant about "outing a CIA agent"? Maybe you need to read about who admitted the leak. Hint: his first name is Dick, and his last name is Armitage.
Sorry, but those ARE the facts.
âoeThere is still a lot of oil to develop out there, which is why we donâ(TM)t call this geological peak oil, especially in places like Venezuela, Russia, Iran and Iraq,â said Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs. âoeWhat we have now is geopolitical peak oil.â
Oil shortages are not from lack of desire by the oil companies, or lack of technology or existing resources. Oil shortages - and the corresponding high prices - are because Governments, who overwhelmingly control the oil resources (87%) are restricting supply.
And countries with huge resources - like the US - are sitting by, fiddling as the economy burns to the ground.
So yes, the Republicans tried to increase domestic drilling, and for the last 20 years the Democrats have been the obstructionists.
And the Republicans were not in charge for 12 years; rather, there were 4 years total where they had a 1 vote majority with the Bush administration. Prior to that, there was a Democrat in the Oval Office. For two years at the beginning of the Bush administration the Democrats held the Senate. And the Democrats have held Congress since 2006.
Speculators in the oil market? Of course they're not betting on the US - the pattern and history are solid with Democrats opposing any and all additional domestic production. What kind of environment is that when companies will be prevented from exploration and production?
Senator McCain is calling for more domestic drilling AND nuclear, both of which Senator Obama opposes. The Republicans have been pushing for increased exploration for decades, and the Democrats have held up. And now it finally comes to a head with Nancy Pelosi refusing to even allow a vote on the issue.
NOTHING is going to make us energy independent in 1 term; in 10 years, yes. We can have all the oil we need flowing from oil shale within 10 years. We can have all the electricity we want with nuclear. And we can do it in a decade, and keep doing it for nearly 3 more centuries.
Why Obama and the Democrats refuse to allow us to use our own resources - at a price 1/3rd what we pay others to give to us - is simply boggling. It's politics and class warfare; no other reason could possibly make sense.
If you like $4/gallon gas, and $3.80/gallon heating oil, thank your DEMOCRAT Congress.
False. I point you to the second link I posted that contained the following:
(Shell) asserts a ratio of approximately 18 units of energy produced per unit used
and
A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil shale deposits as varying between 0.7â"13.3
Yes, you get up to 13 to 18 units of energy out for every unit of energy in. Kind of counter to what you claim.
And why haven't we done it yet? Ask your Democrat Congress why they refuse to allow development of oil shale, or offshore drilling. Utah, Wyoming, and the oil companies want to develop the shale oil; the Democrats in Congress do not.
It's nothing to do with physics, it's everything to do with economics and usage of energy. Electric planes - and to a large extent, electric cars - simply do not have the range or capacity of oil burning vehicles.
Bottom line: Obama and the Democrats do not want to develop the resources we have, and that has a direct result in keeping gasoline and oil costs high.
We are not running out of oil, we have plenty here to use to continue running our society until we find a FEASIBLE and ECONOMICALLY REALISTIC replacement.
Please see this Wikipedia article about oil shale, and this Wikipedia article about the extraction of the same. Now you can go back to your troll hole and think of another idiotic comment...
Seriously, between worry about recession or worrying about excess inflation, I don't know a single economist who would choose the former.
and the tax cuts affected the rich and big companies more than the small and poor, so the oil companies were the beneficiaries
Actually, this is false. Just like with the person income tax cuts the President Bush instituted. Percentage-wise, those on the BOTTOM end got more cuts. More people now pay ZERO income tax than did before the tax cuts. Sure, Mr. CEO is now paying 33% personal income tax on his million, rather than 39%, saving himself $60,000. But at the bottom end, you're paying 10% rather than 15%. And last time I checked, a 15% cut in tax rates (the top rate) is less than a 34% cut in tax rates (the bottom rate).
Awfully hard to get the SLIGHTEST F_UCKING CLUE if you're prohibited from even trying... But it makes great sound bites for your extremist base!
And further, there were ZERO specific oil-industry tax cuts by President Bush. Tax cuts were economy wide, not targeted. About as specific as the tax cut President Bush targeted for you, via the income tax reductions. So how about you justify your targeted tax cuts first; what's that, there wasn't a bill targeting you? Same with "Big Oil".
You said it yourself - tax cuts encourage growth. When is encouraging growth a bad thing, especially in industries that essentially power and move the nation? What country has ever taxed itself into prosperity? Think about that when considering who really understands economics...
It's called oil shale. In 10 years the US could not only produce every drop of oil it needs on a daily basis, but export over 8 million barrels a day to other countries. And do it for nearly 3 centuries.
What's stopping this? It's not the Governors or State Assemblies of Utah and Wyoming. It's the Democrats in Congress who insist on maintaining the prohibition on oil shale production.
Good arguments. Like I said, Obama's not perfect. However, as it stands, after all the Bush tax cuts, the oil companies are undertaxed.
UNDER taxed? Does a 25% tax rate on GROSS receipts (a 250% tax rate on net profit) need to be higher?
Last year, ExxonMobil sold $404 billion worth of product. On those sales, they made $40 billion in profit (10%). They paid $102 billion in taxes (25% of gross receipts).
Compare that to the 15.3% profit that Apple made, while paying just 6% taxes (measured against gross receipts).
How ExxonMobil is undertaxed I'll never understand...
It should be referred to as velocity challenged.
Pelosi is also the first speaker in 50 years to take the August break WITHOUT passing an appropriations bill. Why? Well, that would require talking about energy and oil, which is a death knell for the Democrat party...
Here's a stupid fucking question. So they had a net profit of only 8% of $11 billion. Exactly $0.00 of that was spent on drilling the undeveloped land they have
I see this statement time and again and shows an absolute ignorance of how drilling works.
Guess what - you do NOT need to drill every acre to get production from every acre! In fact, modern directional drilling means you need a single platform on every 800-1000 acres; break your lease into 30x30 acre areas, drop your rig in the middle, and you're ready to go.
So you only need to actually touch ~0.1% of your lease to produce all of it.
But if we listen to the Democrat spin, we have to put a drill on EACH acre before we can lease more lands. Yeah, that's smart! Next Congress will require that every single phone line and 100% of all bandwidth capacity be fully utilized before new lines or bandwidth is allowed...
Except President Bush's statement came 8 days before Khelil's statement. And the price of crude was already down 10% by that point...
It's the emotion and expectation that the Democrats will come to their senses and match the move that dropped the price.
President Bush, on July 14th, announced the repeal of the executive order prohibiting offshore drilling. On that day, oil was selling for $147 per barrel. Today, it closed at $125 a barrel, down 15%. Coincidence? I think not...
You know who's making the gross, obscene profits? The Governments making $2.50 for every dollar the oil companies do. And they pay a four TIMES higher tax rate than tech companies. If that's obscene and laden with special tax breaks, then I want to live in your bizzarro world... I mean, I'd be married to Katherine Zeta Jones.
Yes, ignore the two TRILLION barrels of proven oil reserves we have in our shale oil alone... Enough to run the US - at its 20 million barrels a day consumption rate - for 270 years.
Pickens is no fool - he sees the political tide turning and smells a chance to make a few billion in tax dollars sent directly to his pocket.