"Swingman" wrote in message
...
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/317...ar_Stearns.asp

Old news that just proves a few sheep are finally looking up, but much too
late.

Your freedom and sovereignty has been bartered to the highest global
corporate bidder by your politicians. As of this week in NOLA, this
country,
once cherished and fought for, is history, and there is not a damn thing
you
can do about it.

Besides, who gives a rat's ass as long as you can watch American Idol,
right
after the network evening news.


Take in mind also the further proof that politicians and big business are in
bed together.

My son was looking at the Exxon annual report, public information, between
2003 and 2007 Exxon's sales have almost doubled. No doubt, the gasoline
prices have almost doubled. The gross profit however has almost tippled.
So when they say the prices of oil has gone up they also mean that their
mark up on those prices have increased by an additional 50% over the last 4
years also. Congress investigates to appease the public and we hear nothing
except that there was no law broken. What Congress does not tell us is
really why the price of gasoline is going up. They don't want to look for
a solution, like getting rid of the law that prohibits new refineries from
being built. They don't want to show how the oil company mergers have wiped
out half of their competition. Then take into consideration that the oil
companies don't participate in price fixing. HA! For price fixing they
would all have to get together to agree on a price. That would be illegal.
Let the ignorant media do that dirty work for us. One of the oil companies
will indicate to a reporter that oil prices have gone up and gasoline prices
are going to go up in a few weeks. The reporter on national TV reports this
information for all to see including all the other oil companies. The news
report is the trigger for all the other oil companies to raise their prices
and oddly all on the same day.
Do you remember in the not so distant past when the news rarely mentioned
anything about gasoline prices and those prices were more stable? I agree
that the rising price of oil is part of the problem but the rising price of
oil does not cause gross profits to increase an additional 50% in 4 years.

And then this morning there was the Expert from Consumer Reports indicating
that is a waste of money to put premium fuel in a car that only requires
regular fuel. That was true before there were computers, knock sensors and
fuel injection in the modern car. I assure you my son and I both get about
10% better gas mileage by using premium fuel over regular.
Simply put, higher octane fuels help to decrease the chance of engine knock.
The computer can control engine knock/ping by listening through the engine
knock sensor. If the computer hears a knock it retards the ignition timing
electronically. Retarding the timing gets rid of the knock and decreases
power and fuel economy. If the computer detects no knock it will advance
the ignition timing until knocking is detected. Advancing ignition timing
increases performance and in turn fuel economy. Remember, higher octane
fuel is less likely to create engine knock than regular fuel.
Premium fuel is a benefit if the mileage increase percentage is more than
the price difference percentage. As fuel prices increase the percentage of
price difference between premium and regular fuel tends to be less. Many
years ago premium was commonly 50% more expensive than regular. Today it is
about 8% more expensive.

Rant off. ;~)