Vamigre News Archive (Intro).

 

A brief intro foray into the weeds of T/T media coverage:

Post-Tourism Travel Journalism, Not Junketism.*   

In the global geopolitical sense, today’s travelers still face a very different world: namely a turbulent post-9/11 world enmeshed in a dangerous tangle of love-hate American style, explosive sectarian strife, and open-ended ‘Wars on Terrorism’ that threaten safety, freedom of movement at every venue, terminal, border and turn.

Looking back, an American (ever more militarily policed) state of the union had been led, at least until 2009, by an apparently anti-travel administration that used ill-defined, unilateral military-like campaigns and patriotic pandering to stifle legitimate news dissemination and debate—all while news gatherers/ reporters continue to be hunted, ambushed to unspeakable death worldwide (even more so in the U.S. these days).

Homeland Security directors still travel nowhere much, with little real mandate beyond issuing colorated sky-is-falling alerts. While a TSA reflective of a xenophobic conservatives with no world view beyond their home district pushes Cuba embargoes and Muslim bans—and a deadlocked, ineffectual U.S. Congress persists in being unable to lead or act.

So today’s reality is that while neo-Ugly/Smugly American might and culture still permeant the globe, a restless world resents and distrusts this protectorate-like hegemony and ‘cultural imperialism’. Moreover, foreign policy blunders and a hawkish Axis of Drivel, have fostered global backlashes impacting travelers everywhere. Only recently has this country begun a long overdue effort to smooth those international waters—whether such resets continue remains to be seen.

Thus is the abnormalized world today’s travelers must navigate—be it locked-down destinations, wholesale travel bans; crippling EU labor strikes and stoppages—air, sea and land; toothless IATA safety oversight, a wary Single Skies/Open Aviation Europe; the Malaysian airliner takedown in Ukraine; battle-torn Africa; Asian and Middle East terrorist minefields. Or a feast-or-famine Western Hemisphere (namely, shaky regimes, visa clampdowns; outdated sanctions and other bans/boycotts)—all ripe for exploration.

Around the globe, we are in the throes of fear-mongering, (van/bomb) aggression, abductions and piracy—strangling the life out of our world. A real, often surreal world in which the wonders of Paris, London, Beirut, Bali, Mumbai, Egypt, Sri Lanka suffer the soft-target destruction once visited upon Aleppo or Sarajevo. Where full airliners are terrorized with drones, laser pointers and shoulder launched man-pads, while cash hemorrhaging carriers are in no financial position to fully deploy such safeguards as ADSB satellites and DIRCM jammers—even amid rashes of negligent, coffin-ship crashes.

Still, travel we will: Resolved to firmly seize the geo-diplomatic initiative one on one, ‘congaging’ the only world we have for now; broaching trade imbalances, the ‘gapitalist’ divide; furthering a progressive internationalism—resisting intimidation and xenophobia through the proactive sharing of timely information, inspiration, enlightenment, experiences and editorial direction—always remaining truly, steadfastly Vamigré alert, active and alive…

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 *Plus, an extensive, cumulative online reference archive of travel-related coverage going back decades, from sources such as the WSJ and NYT…

**VAMBO=Visit as module builds out.

Travel’s In-or-Out Burger Archive…

GasTreatise: Gas Pains, Past and Present.
___________2016____________

* Firstly, where we’ve been: A Vamospective, rearview image on the era of exploding pump prices, just in case those gouging days should cycle in once again. And if Hurricane Henry’s early disruption in the Houston area is any indication, they soon may…

 Stirrings Of A Cure For Earlier Gastritis At The Pump, as 2018 prices rise once again…

ADDING FUEL TO THE TRAVELING FIRES.

It quite recently cost more to tank up one time than it did for an entire round trip to the mountains, sights or shore, not all that long ago. And despite the current price dip, gas prices will continue to yo-yo. And one this for certain is that it will be yo-yo mas sooner than later—bank on it.

So, what’s been up with that? As beleaguered drivers would have it, blame the corner gas peddlers. Listen to service station operators, and it’s the refiners; those refineries note overdue maintenance and crimped, NIMBYed capacity. The media cite egregious OilCo quarterly profits. Economists plot fungible supply and demand or emerging markets and the falling dollar; petro-wags finger crude market speculators, who blame stormy climes and supply disruptions/snafus. The ‘greedy’ corporate oiligarchs themselves decry onerous government taxation, costly exploration and enviro-drilling restraints—as well as long-spoiled, gluttonous (namely domestic) turned tapped-out drivers. And everybody flames on OPEC, which in turn points to insatiable Asia and the spectre of Peak Oil: Everybody deflecting responsibility for this intractable energy crunch (per-barrel price doubling in 12 months) as massive pools of macro-wealth continued transferring upward faster than Halliburton lobbyists through Dick Cheney’s phone tree.

However oil/pump prices may fall in recessionary times, they will only rise again as economies rebound. Plainly, this vicious circle of evasive fingerpointing and scapegoating has been getting travelers nowhere fast, leaving our heads spinning like the price dials/wheels on a vintage full-serve gas pump. Thus, a bit of further examination/exploration is in order, this time, from the Vamigré traveler’s perspective.

GETTING SOMEWHERE VERSUS JUST GETTING HOSED.

Airlines’s jet fuel woes aside, whatever petro conditions and true motivations pertain, current circumstances are serving to impede, rather than inspire/facilitate travels—domestically and worldwide. Anywhere from $3.50 per gallon (USD) to upwards of $10 (Euros>USD) per litre, with no ceiling in sight: Drivers and rider alike are knee-jerk reacting to relentlessly skyrocketing pump prices by staying put, scaling back, shifting modes, shaving itineraries, shortening their horizons. No doubt, $50-$100 fill-ups tend to tighten the purse strings, focus the wandering mind—threatening to drain much freewheeling élan from this driving season and beyond. Particularly if travelers stand by haplessly, helplessly with a pump nozzle tolling exorbitantly in our hands; then again, what choice do we have?

Day after day, we have been Shell shocked by numbingly escalating crude oil prices on world markets—benchmarks soaring, psychological barriers falling: $77, $86, $100, $126, $131, $145 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate or Brent ‘sweet’ crude—an unprecedented upward spiral far surpassing even OPEC embargoes and eruptions of the 1970s. Explanations, analyses have abounded along the way, from demand spikes, inventory declines and supply bottlenecks to Mideast tensions and other, uncharted global disruptions—imports comprising some 60% of U.S. daily needs—none of it much clearing the oily picture or salving/easing the pain at the pump. And even as crude prices decline some down the road, lessons have been learned more than ever, this oil shock has settled in for good: The hard truth is our budgets are suffering from a towering price climb, and the fruit of any dollar-per-barrel relief will not fall far from an overgrowing energy tree.

The consequences? This rocket/feather pump price imbalance has so numbed drivers and other travel consumers that each pain threshold–$3, $3.50, $4, $5 per self-serve gallon—is looked back upon with wistful, woeful resignation. Can it be long before $5 becomes the new $3/gal. throughout such overheated markets as Chicago and metro California? To be sure, an upwards of 55% average price run-up in little over 16 months has staggered travelers, upending our business plans and leisure dreams alike. And any pennies-on-the-gallon price relief will not soon cauterize their pocketbook wounds.

Yet fuel blocked though we are, a gasoline jones enabled by the lull of past years’ low-price stability and the lure of guzzling luxury and gargantuan SUVs or trucks is not easily kicked cold turkey, carefree driving habits not turned on a dime. Still, $3/per may have been groused at, but $4 is proving to be a sorely significant tipping point. Initial reactions have ranged from motoring more slowly to flat-out traveling less, and self-imposed rationing or topping off tanks like this is 1979. Tune ’er up, pump up the tires, tap on the brakes, lower cruise controls: such niggling measures only get travelers so far, leaving us grasping at any straw to sip cheaper fuel from—some sign that prices might somehow settle back down—so many travelers suffering like low heat gradually rising under a pan of helpless frogs.

GASONOMICS: Pickpocketing The Difference, Passing The Buck.

In the meantime, as drivers ease off the gas pedal, auto rental companies retreat, vehicle manufacturers scale back their full-size car/truck production schedules, spin off their Humvee Divisions, frantically retool for high-mileage and hybrid models to meet changing market demands. Broader stock indices suffer as fossil-fuel economies retreat in the face of continued oil shocks. The resulting dollar drain and exchange weakening further challenge travelers, particularly those anticipating journeys across the pond; conversely, Europeans seeing the U.S. as a travel bargain are saddled with acute gas price spikes of their own—at the same time work-weeks are being shortened. But with little hope of short-term relief, more and more travelers everywhere are swamping rail and other public transit (in numbers unseen in over half a century)—ironically right when government-level funding fades in this deficit-ridden era.

Lean, road-thirsty times, and travelers are duly reminded each time we pass our local gas station, the hosing runs deeper with every record gouging churn of the —.9 signs—by the day, if not the hour. But not our fault, claim service station operators, we feel your pain. For although their price tiles move ever upward, their pumps strain to contain the spinning meter wheels, gas retailers cite profit margins dipping, dripping in the other direction. Take away crude, production and distribution costs; a plethora/slate of taxes and credit card fees, not to mention station running overhead: operators bemoan per-gallon profits of a nickel or less. Supposedly that goes for majors and unbranded independent stations alike—with even Wal-Mart gasoline outlets getting caught in the squeeze—to where service stations say they must eke profits out of car washes, lubes, drinks, snacks, sweets, smokes, anything else they can, but more on that later.

So, if gas becomes something of a loss leader, whom do petro-retailers blame most directly? From their convenience stands, smog bays and bullet-proof cashier booths, operators largely point to the tandem trucks delivering varied octanes to their ground spigots, if not the refineries from which these gleaming tankers arrive. On the surface, it would appear the refining of crude oil products would indeed be a most profitable link in the gasoline supply chain. Barrel to truckload margins had long been widening, while refiner capacity has remained relatively constant at a time when consumer demand for petrol has tenaciously grown. Then, there has been the refiners’ trump card/ kicker (especially consolidated Big Oil operations): strategically idling overworked plants for ‘scheduled maintenance’ at the most propitious (and suspicious) seasonal times, so as to chokepoint supply and drive pump prices sky high.

Still, refiners contend that, with crude oil costs soaring (even outpacing pass-along prices at the pump), those margins ($.80+- per gallon) are narrowing as worldwide inventories remain comparatively high. Thus crack spreads—the difference between what refiners pay for crude and get for their finished gasoline or diesel—have shrunk, in some cases even going negative. Moreover, they say the complex logistics of formulating a ‘crazy quilt’ of EPA/café blends further strain their cost structure. Public pressure for more production runs up against stagnant refinery capacity in today’s overheated eco/NIMBY-bodies environment, along with the uncertainty of long-term plant investment as volatile energy tastes evolve.

So any disruption in the current refinery patchwork, be it via leaks, spills, fires or outright explosions, continues to prove costly all along the fuel chain, from pipelines on down—while giving refiners plenty of cover for rigging output up and down to suit their bottom lines. To where some refiners are shutting down or selling out altogether; in any event, more often than not, they, like the retailers, are pointing the blame further upstairs…up marble, gold-bannistered stairs, at that.*

Then again, it is difficult not to point an accusatory finger at BigOil, what with vertically integrated majors such as Exxon, Shell, BP and Chevron posting quarterly profits pushing into the tens of billions, in many cases doubling up on the cost of crude through their proprietary refining and distribution operations, with little or no transparency or public oversight. Transnational in scope as they are, even the U.S. Congress can’t effectively call them to account. Pulling down eight-figure annual salaries, oiligarchy executives deftly deflect legislators’s threats and protestations, rather pleading for further subsidies and tax breaks to weather “escalating” exploration and extraction costs, while paying no royalties for drilling on public lands, if they bother to do so at all (80% sitting unexplored), and then selling precious Alaska domestic oil away to Japan.

These oilcos don’t exactly help their cause by pouring a goodly portion of their windfall profits, which could go to ease consumer budgetary burdens and bleeding, into defensive lobbying and splashy, self-serving advertising campaigns. Therein they waste valuable media space and time strategizing to flak away motorists’ ire, while courting investors—pleading their dubious case with oversimplified PowerPoints, hollow tips and misleading pastoral landscapes. Or, as in Exxon’s case, they can plow $32B of their $40B profit into buying back their outstanding stock.

‘We’re doing what we can to safeguard and improve geo-resources as we responsibly meet your energy needs.’ So go the industry’s message and talking memos, laying the current culpability on forces beyond their control. Volatile markets, muscular state-owned producers, disrupted crude supplies, structural production bottlenecks, onerous taxation, unwieldy regulations and unyielding formulations: Add in periodic Middle East maniacs bent on nuking pipelines and blocking the Straits of Hormuz, and you’ve got oiligarchs maintaining that the energy business is no picnic or gravy train. But if not, what about all those obscene profits? Their reply: look to hostile, state-owned crude oil fields, take it up with OPEC, et al.

GAS PAINS ON A GLOBAL SCALE.

Not that the oil producers’ cartel will be particularly responsive. If forthcoming at all, these crude-besotted nations reflexively cite untenably voracious worldwide demand (adding in emerging markets, such as subsidized India and China); the resulting distribution strains, the physical and fiscal limits of incipient ‘Peak Oil’. OPEC member and non-member states alike (70% nationalized) bemoan the uncertainties of political unrest/ takeovers (e.g., Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela), blockaded shipping channels, explosive pipeline terror attacks, and widespread crude-oil blackmarket theft—let alone the tumult of Iran and a clamped down, war-ravaged Iraq.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (some 40% of oil production worldwide) meets periodically in secluded settings from Jeddah to Vienna, ministers decrying the weaker dollar peg, ‘fretting’ over soaring prices, the little slack in supply (2M bbl/day) and the portend of slackening demand—mulling adjusted production levels as heavy energy-consuming nations beseech them to boost supply/production for some measure of price relief. Fat chance, fat cat chance of that: After secretive deliberations over output targets, hint balloons of increased quotas and soft landings, recent OPEC communiqués have in the final analysis leaned toward the status quo, freezing spigots in place, if not predicting inevitable production cuts—amid a projected $1.5t wealth transfer to Mideast states between now and 2010-12.

This petro-dramatic Kabuki dance most recently featured the Bush/Cheney administration crawling hats in hand to the Saudi sheiks, ostensibly begging for increased output (wink, wink), getting publicly rebuffed by the royal family (nod, nod). For these kissing cousins have their noses far too far under each other’s tents—from the Arabian Peninsula to Crawford, Texas—to in any significant way disturb this current supply/demand imbalance. What they (and the oilcos) have learned is this: Calibrate the right metrices, studiously dial back supply, and you’ll increase price and immediate demand. In other words, squeeze more income out of less product/capacity. This Axis of Oil’s new mantra: less is in fact more—a lesson, incidentally, not lost on the world’s airlines of late. Within reasonable, sustainable parameters; outside that, it could be ‘summit’ time for OPEC to intervene. Otherwise, OPEC pinpoints the latest target of blame in this oily game: a ‘crazy market’ and greedy speculators gaming both sides of the windfall, making it so.

GASPECULATION: Paper vs. Petroleum. 

More to the point, Saudi oil ministers recently declared that 40-60% of crude prices in the current run-up can be attributed to ‘speculative froth’—estimating the real per/bbl price should be $70-$80—reacting with alarm at the prospect of losing market by tweaking output and discounting to refiners just enough to suit their interests, not ours—with lessening effectual leverage, at that. They go on to claim the real culprits are the New York Mercantile and ICE Exchanges, where loosely regulated commodities traders (courtesy of the Communities Futures Trading Commission and earlier ENRON lobbying) parlay high liquidity, supply instability and market fluctuations, ‘perceptions’, fear/ inflation premiums, and front-month contract speculation into unprecedented crude price spikes: Oil as a financial instrument for market players and manipulators hedging dollar risks, fleeing equities and real estate—an asset class beyond any true reflection of real-world supply and demand. Pension, index and hedge funds continue to move huge sums of capital into the ‘safe harbor’ energy sector; individual lemmings also boost trading volume (many with only 5% down). Thus per-barrel prices for Nymex light, sweet crude and heavier, gooier, sulfur-rich industrial/diesel grades alike climb analysts’ bar graphs, like motorists’ blood pressure readings, well into the $130-$140 range and above.

Indeed, some insider bloviaters forecast oil futures through the $150 threshold on up to $200, to where economists warn of a commodities bubble—that is, asset prices that exceed fundamental value because current owners belief they can sell even higher. Thus this shortage psychology, these stampeding one-way bets (on shortages 3-5-10 years out) could be vulnerable to any hints of slackening oil demand. Conflicting day-to-day signals on worldwide (e.g., spot-market) crude supplies only seem to further cloud the futures boom, even portending precipitous downdraft market moves, particularly beyond the summer driving season. If so, speculators shouldn’t look to the motoring public for any sympathy, given that each surging settlement price soon finds its way to the retail pump while crude price declines don’t—no matter how much industry players propagandize otherwise.

Commodities traders counter that they are not the problem, that they are only a price discovery mechanism, providing vital liquidity, dealing in contracts, mere paper-barrel transactions, not directly affecting actual supply and demand. If not for the market-correcting, risk-managing effect of oil futures, worse conditions such as 1970s-era hoarding and stockpiling in the face of shortages and disruptions; look instead to the weakening dollar, trade imbalances, Fed-futzed interest rates and a flood of recycled hot petrocash. They above all lay blame on the U.S. Federal Reserve, which by lowering interest rates, has made commodities by contrast cheaper and safer than the weak dollar. Besides, if somehow barred from U.S. commodities markets, these traders (70% of Nymex oil trading) will simply speculate elsewhere—keeping price levels high via less-regulated overseas exchanges.

Still, under increasing public pressure, U.S. regulators no longer seem to be buying that bill of goods: even paper barrels must be accounted for in the larger marketplace. The CFTC, for instance, though a historically weak enforcer, has undertaken a nationwide probe into ‘possible’ oil-market manipulation (20 times more barrels traded daily than delivered) and resulting price distortions—into abuses such as storage capacity misreporting, index-fund collusion and commonly accepted insider trading, hinting at end user-only and boycott clauses to stem the flow.

Question is, how will ‘heightened’ scrutiny and greater transparency by such a notoriously weak Congress and enforcing body ultimately benefit the beleaguered motoring public? To wit, who is overseeing the unforthcoming CFTC’s oil-futures market oversight on behalf of travelers like us?

GASOPOLITICAL GYRATIONS: Paralysis In Public Service.

U.S. drivers now spend over 6% of their income on motor fuel, while a lost-leader Congress again fails to pass any energy relief legislation. And we travelers should be leaving our fates and fortunes to politicos and government honchos? Going back to the 1970s, political hacks have postured and pontificated over U.S. energy independence and alternative sources. President Nixon pushed price controls, the Trans Alaska pipeline, and railed against Arab oil boycotts (allegedly due to western support of Israel); Carter vowed to win the ‘energy war’; Clinton called for increased fuel-efficiency and renewables, both Bushes have preached reducing dependence on (foreign) oil, W. going so far as to invade and occupy Iraq, with one of the world’s largest pool of extractable crude. Current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sees ‘no quick fix’ on oil prices, while the Senate shoots down a climate/higher mileage bill; alarmed G-8 members meet to wring their hands, but otherwise wash them of these complex multilateral energy and monetary issues. Resulting progress thus far: $130+/bbl., $4-$5/gal. fuel.

Some current candidates recently proposed a gas tax holiday through this peak summer season—a per-gallon price ‘vacation’ which was dissed by others as a ‘transparent gimmick’, and dismissed by the oily Bush administration altogether, without any serious consideration or debate. This policy paralysis dovetails with the more general standoff over fuel taxes, whether too high, too low, or necessary at all, depending upon the state and locale—and how such taxation impacts trust funding for highways and other transportation infrastructure.

In response, as prices continued climbing, Congress wrangled over bills to impose a 24% windfall profits tax on Big Oil to fund investment in alternative energy and undo $17B in tax breaks to oil and gas companies. By and large, Democrats sponsored such legislation, Republicans filibustered and blocked it, rather calling for more refineries, industry tax breaks for R&D, increased Arctic and coastal drilling. All we netted from this dysfunctional round of bickering and bombast was more useless inaction and CYA. Earlier on, senators had once again called oil executives to account, hearings yielding a familiar spectacle of Capitol Hill fuming and concerted industry dodges.

The Judiciary Committee was no match for these petro-titans, who were now presiding over mega-investment as well as major oil companies, testifying to sky-high exploration/recovery costs, domestic drilling bans, competitive world market demand in this current up-cycle—that they were doing all they could to ease consumer pain. Senators blustered on camera about suspicious price disconnects, unconscionable profiteering, indeed questioning the very patriotism of these oligarchs playing victim to world market forces while causing America such economic distress in ‘wartime’. But despite calls to crack down on gaming and gouging, nationalize the U.S. energy industry, close the ‘Enron loophole’, sue OPEC under an OPEC anti-trust plan, leverage arm shipments to Saudi Arabia—ultimately the chains of our petro-slavery moved nary a link. Salting that trend, the U.S. House has just rejected legislation to rein in oil speculators.

So, nothing much new and helpful here, beyond high-profile browbeating IOCs and vague nods to oil shale and drilling, nuclear redux—or leave it to Cheney and resurgent Iraqi fields. Meanwhile, Federal Trade Commission anti-trust regulators could find but inconclusive evidence of domestic gas price gouging or manipulation, a thoroughly predictable inconclusion.

Constituent reaction to this latest Congressional charade has since force legislators to halt Bush’s oil-industrious topping off of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (@70k bbl/day), while they propose to tax oil trades, and raise margins/collateral, or taking-actual-barrel-delivery requirements on the energy markets. Not that these controls will ever come to pass, for the oily little secret is, governments at all levels are hooked on the tax revenues higher pump prices generate for their coffers. Here’s yet another instance where various vested interests ultimately seek to keep the status quo, no matter what they say or spin our way. Thus Congress continues to play partisan campaign games, kicking the gas can down the road, as we get more migraines by the mile.

GAS-TRACKING: GaSlick Coverage, At Best.

So where else do we turn, travel-wise? Media coverage and watchdogs? Please: most corporate petro-pologists dismiss any notion of industry connivance with their usual shorthand mantra, ‘oil is fungible’—simple supply and demand; that price spikes are not that severe when ‘adjusted for inflation’; or ‘more taxes= less energy’. American Petroleum Institute lobbyists blanket these mass media with talking point advertisements blaming increased worldwide demand for supply squeezes and higher crude oil costs. Oil company interviewees add Gulf storms, pipeline mishaps (BP/Alaska, for one) and reduced refining capacity, due to pre-scheduled maintenance and burdensome environmental/fuel formulation requirements—ignoring such monkey business as off-lining California refineries en masse, or shipping local gasoline product to neighboring states, resulting in the Golden State’s highest national p.p.g. average. Faced with this perfect PR storm, media reporters and talking heads ordinarily just nod and beg off without follow-up.

Then there are fuelitist opinion leaders (e.g., Tom Friedman of the NY Times) who pooh-pooh any tax/price relief for the motoring public, harrumphing from his rich, padded throne that “higher taxes mean tighter fuel standards”, and “the cure for high prices is higher prices”, thereby forcing battered, tanked-out drivers to go green and/or ride ‘smarter, safer’ public transit. Another ‘gastor oil’ case in point: recent Op-Ed page lockstep belittling of the gas tax holiday proposal, dismissively offering off-hand ridicule rather than rigorous, serious debate on its merits and effect on highway funding, with no alternative avenues of such immediate consumer relief—much less explanation why a temporary gas tax suspension fiscally paid for by massive oilco profits was merely a ‘disingenuous gimmick’, while broader economic stimulus checks are not.

Further, industry enabler/ stooges from AAA to Trilby Lundberg coyly rationalize the rocketing pump prices and feather off-season landings, explaining away these historic benchmark-buster increases as the logical manifestation of driver gluttony, peak oil, a shrinking planet and environmental fear mongers—i.e., taking the European view: America, get over it—cute and clever (and useless) as Chevron’s cartoon cars. Thanks for nothing: these media stoolies are not truly in travelers’ corner, any more than the tourism shills who keep trying to sell us on Vegas, Branson or OrlandoWorld. Indeed, if current media (more fully surveyed elsewhere in this larger presentation) are actually serving traveler needs, why were we so helplessly paying more to go than ever before?

GASTRACTION: Taking Stock, Seizing the Wheel.

So that leaves us with…us, and with much to cover and coordinate, fuel-wise. How, then, can we begin righting these wrongs, unstacking this deck? In the longer-term, we track pertinent macro trendlines, but only from the Vamigré traveler perspective, be they Saudi/OPEC/OECD output and supply rattling to futures trading excesses/regulation to refinery manipulation to run-ups at the pump.

Firstly comes the accurate real-world balance between supply and demand. Clearly, a growing (Malthusian) planet is consuming vast stocks of crude oil (now some 85m bbl daily), and discovering new sources becomes increasingly problematic under these demand-fed market conditions. However, that’s by and large where any broad consensus ends. On the one hand, Peak Oilcolytes report IEA projections of plateaued worldwide production, lagging Saudi output amid more complex extraction, for instance, from its Khurais and Manifa fields. Energy analysts predict a serious Russian supply slump, North Sea sources are depleted, volatile Mexico and militant Nigeria are leaking reliability. The oil industry flaks warnings of dire shortages if North American fields are not tapped, lobbying to reverse the Federal moratorium, whether deep water drilling in the Gulf, the Arctic fields of Alaska (bear huggers, be damned) or reclamation sites, Pennsylvania to California.

On the other, business headlines routinely tout huge new oil discoveries in offshore Brazil, Canada’s sands, under the Dakotas, in the great basins of the western U.S. Wherever the extractable realities lie, some industry insiders claim the world has consumed only about one of 12-16 trillion barrels underground, suggest we have at least another 50 years’ supply at current production rates, that the Peak Oil tipping point comes somewhere between 2045 and 2067. Enough to where the oiligarchs (Exxon/Mobil, Shell, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips) can comfortably continue fudging on new-fuel research/development, no matter what they may slickly posit in commercials and full-page ads.

In any event, if it is in fact no longer feasible either economically and environmentally, if we can no longer simply drill our way out of this hole in the near term, whether in the Gulf, ANWR or the Continental Shelf off Santa Barbara, we travelers should travel a different route to energy independence in the near and longer term: that is, our own. McCain’s empty campaign promises and call for rescinding the federal offshore ban gets us nowhere slowly; the oil-slick Bush administration stubbornly preaches more industry tax breaks and Arctic drilling (despite a scarcity of equipment and expertise, and with product payoff 10-15 years away), while ‘declaring war’ on America’s ‘addiction’ with a sly wink and nod to alternative fuels.

Therefore we must seize the initiative, call for our increased unburdened mobility in general, and true, equitable gas pump prices in particular. We must faithfully yet skeptically follow the research and development of viable energy/transportation alternatives, leading when and where necessary, to get us out of this fossilized box.

For after decades of the lull and slumber fueled by relatively cheap petrol, of painful but economically absorbable pump climbs, this latest price rocket is hitting us unbearably in the gas tank, with little prospect of ppg’s feathering down significantly anytime soon. Whether due to supply ‘shortages’ or financial flows, this current olive shakedown forces a radical rethinking of our vehicular preferences. Suddenly, SUVs, RVs and other gas guzzlers are being idled in favor of smaller, Smarter econo-models, subcompacts and hybrids along the lines of Prius and Honda Accords—a rapid downsizing not seen since the 1970s.

Even battered GM is scrambling to re-tool its product mix toward more efficient domestic models that better comply with EPA and states’ CO2 emission rules—not to mention shifting consumer demand. The evolution to these cleaner burning, more fuel/mileage mindful vehicles (e.g., smaller, leaner X-overs, SUVs—even cycles and scooters) will be a key area of Vamigré traveler coverage, through relentless overviews, surveys and reviews.

Similarly, advancements in fuels themselves will be diligently monitored and analyzed with travelers in mind. Beyond today’s debates over peak oil, ‘spec’ oil, weak dollar-pegged oil and consumption or windfall taxed oil, lies the emerging, progressive promise of low-to-no emission alternative fuels. Clean fuels, green fuels, wind/biofuels, renewable fuels, gasohol, fuel cells: Be it gas or diesel based, independent R&D continues full steam on supplanters to pricier, increasingly problematic oil-based petroleum. That’s not to say such alternatives, electric to hydrogen to switch grass, won’t come on line without growing pains; a prime example: ethanol.

What began as a biocraze has devolved into a cropland bonanza, this corn-based fuel is now proving to get bogged down in newfound unfavorable enviro-emission trade-offs as it scales up commercially. Moreover, the growing of these feedstocks is rapidly running up against land constraints, what with farmers gold rushing to plant this heavily subsidized crop (per a Congressionally mandated five-fold increase in ethanol production via the 2007 energy bill), as corn has jumped 50% in per-bushel price in just over a year. The boondoggle in turn has precipitated sudden food shortages worldwide, as well as the wrath of livestock farmers and producers hammered by the rising cost of a shrinking feed supply.

This corn-mania imbalance has also resulted in a glut of ethanol distilleries, with an inadequate U.S. network for delivering this swelling, corrosive fuel output to potential consumers. Add to that an oil industry rather loathe to distribute even E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gas), seeing a clear threat to their oil profit gushers from non-petroleum product—this, despite pocketing a $.51/gal federal subsidy for each gallon oilcos actually blend.

Growing pains, to be sure; still, more ‘advanced’ second-generation ethanol formulations (e.g., cellulosic, Biobutanol, perennial grasses, other biomass) are on the horizon. Or the U.S. could look to the cheaper sugar cane-based ethanol of Brazil, instead of tax breaking domestic producers while back breaking that imported fuel with $.54/gal tariffs. Which is great for the farm belt and political husk huggers, but means only more belt tightening for us travelers. Point of fact: corn ethanol yields less than 2 units of energy for every unit expended to produce it; the sugar cane ratio is more than 8 to 1, efficiencies achieved on much cheaper tropical land, at that. Perhaps recently flooded Midwest farm fields will otherwise serve to somewhat damp this price-sinking corn ethanol overflow, once and for all.

More promising though less immediate post-petroleum fuel-ternatives include (range anxiety-aleviating plug-in hybrids, lithium-ion battery electric (Tesla, Nissan-Renault, dual-energy Chevy Volt, etc.), hydrogen and other fuel cell vehicles (e.g., Honda FCX Clarity).

However such paradigm-changing technologies will require an ‘AlterEnergy’ PowerShift Initiative on a scale of the Manhattan Project of WWII, Eisenhower’s interstate highway program of the 1950s, the 1960s’s moon-landing program—building a cohesive and sustainable plug-in and hydrogen infrastructure throughout the land, particularly after years of national neglect. And we will be watching (e.g., is John McCain’s $300m next-generation battery prize really just another ‘gimmick’ or actually a worthwhile incentive to innovation?), riding and steering along that road every clean, green mile of the way.

GASEOUS BAND-AIDS AND BEYOND.

In the meantime, we can’t help but witness the increasing ire and desperation of the motoring public, domestic and worldwide. Drivers die at service stations, hunger striking against soaring pump prices; protesters gather in pray-ins to God for cheaper fuel; gas rage is busting out at stations, coast to coast. Truckers caravan to Washington D.C., honking in protest around the Mall, shutting down the nation’s goods/freight highway transportation system for Idle Days. Their European colleagues gather and shut down their rigs and motorcoaches, blocking roadways from London to Madrid to the ‘Escargot Operations’ across France—anger and frustration extending to Turkey and Indonesia. More targeted domestic protests erupt outside BigOil headquarter compounds and refineries; even shareholders revolt against unconscionable profiteering and climate neglect by Exxon and Chevron management. Consumer gadflies sue the oiligarchs and OPEC, alleging the price fix is in.

For all their troubles, motorists just get mere roadworn ‘tips’ and Band-Aid recommendations. Travel less, jettison more, hypermile like crazy, drive 55 mph, properly inflate those low-rolling resistance tires, check your filters and plugs for any little extra mileage, try out this fuel-saving/converter gadget or that: Then again, we could always eschew driving altogether and pile aboard system strained, underfunded mass transit—which for the most part also runs on…petroleum products. This will surely drive those prices down from the get-go, right? R-r-right, good luck with that—just don’t count on these Band-Aids to stanch the (travel) budgetary bleeding.

GASTRATEGIES: Gaspassing, Exiting the Prevailing Gasgrid.

And yet, travel we have. And we will continue to go places, with an estimated 40 million Americans, for example, hitting the road over the major holiday weekends—$4.00-a-gallon tipping point, or no. So the question is, how do we ease future gas pains, and effectively break Big Oil’s seasonal shakedown syndrome? Granted, all well and good is the slow, steady migration toward hybrids and cleaner, cheaper energy—from bio to flex-fuel to E85 Ethanol to alternative transportation. In today’s world, however, there is as yet no Prius in every parking spot; and hydrogen cells, much less practical electric cars, are a long way away from moving oil out of the transportation sector. So in the meantime, short on sustainable, carbon-neutral counter-technologies, we have but Vamigré travelers’s counter strategies—hedging against future manipulators, hoarders, fixers and hedgers. For instance, and in brief:

1) Driver’s side. Beyond turning to more fuel-efficient, cleaner burning vehicles, planning motor trips more prudently though not stiflingly so, we can implement a contexted and moderated online ‘ride board’ (e.g., WebRide USA.com)—matching demographically, geographically and temperamentally compatible travelers heading in similar, like-minded directions. Moreover, ‘going zonal’ vehicle pooling along the lines of local Zipcars, only on a much wider scale, so that a system of informal relay stations can facilitate the trading off of perhaps smaller vehicles for size and variety, point to point—not entirely unlike the stagecoach and Pony Express routes of yesteryear. Add in the counter-convenience of Lyft and Uber…

2) Supply side: Gas Actions. Travelers groundswelling from the mean streets up to demand a fairly comparative degree of compensatory relief at the pump—in the form of pump price discount incentives, price protection programs—perhaps even a Fueltures Exchange, wherein we can buy and trade pre-paid card programs, volume buys, etc.—traded like carbon credits, locking in prices for purchases down the road. Also, we will diligently monitor and rate comparative octane and additive claims (e.g.,
are Techron and V-Power just blowing marketing smoke?) and brands vs. indies, as well as tracking such online ‘price trackers’ as GasBuddy and AAA, via computers, cel/smartphones and PDAs.

3) GasCards, GaStamps, GasBanks. We will closely examine and evaluate the advent, evolution of discount cards and assorted price-break promotions for types, terms and conditions (e.g, lottery prizes). Further, as with the S&H Green Stamps of an earlier era, an organized program of prudent futures pre-buying and accumulated credits/rewards that results in significant per-gallon percentage discounts, independent of any current price levels. Participating service stations and dealers would gain certitude of demand—bankable, locked-in traveler purchasing levels, not to mention far steadier loyalty in an increasingly discerning, price-conscious marketplace. That is, rather than the enmity toward those brands and retail outlets which refuse to get right with the fuel stamp/card program.

4) Gasiprocity, Gaspensation. Travelers coalescing to demand a comparative degree of compensatory relief from the tourism industry, vehicle manufacturers, states, municipalities, destinations, etc.—in the form of pump price discount incentives, coordinated buys, price protection programs and gas passes, as inducements to potential visitors/consumers, bargaining for the best deals at any given destination, place and time. Such fuel sale promos are currently afforded by auto manufacturer (e.g., Chrysler’s $2.99/gal Pricelock, car rental companies’ free and/or discounted tankfuls, and various coop advertising contests/ coupons). All will be encouraged and closely scrutinized as to accuracy, validity, legality, transparency, monitored, rated with ‘gas can’ icons, gold to green to amber to red to toxic-black.

5) Squeezing back: Tapping, passing the weakest link. In the words of an unregenerate refinery CEO at the close of a recent Wall Street Journal interview, after the honcho’s harping on slimmer margins and tight enviro-regulatory-spawned capacity: “the consumer moves the market…has the power to open or close us.” If so, we travelers must seize that power instead of cowering at the petrol pump—must chip away at the gouging wall BigOil has erected between us and our freewheeling mobility, gallon by gallon—attacking at the fuel chain’s weakest link.

Throughout this latest onslaught of price rises, service station owner/operators have decried the squeeze they are suffering between lower margins and higher costs. Most claim they, too are at the mercy of oil companies and refineries that extract greater wholesale costs that cannot easily be passed on to the driving public, pressures exacerbated by creeping levels of taxation. They lament the rising fixed costs of land and physical plants. But in reality, these station retailers have been playing victim while hiding behind that oily wall. With the exception of oilco-owned outlets, these operators (unbranded or independent) have the discretion, have it within their power to shop for suppliers (at a variance of $.12-.15 from oilco-dictated rates), to set pump prices more equitably. Most demur, however—rather ever striving to pad their margins at our expense. So we can no longer afford to in any way enable, much less fall victim to their ‘victimization’. For they are clearly not on our side…

Thus let’s look more closely at the service stations’ plight. Most per-gallon pie charts factor in a retailer share of $.10-.14, after crude, refining, distribution costs, taxes, and credit-card transaction fees. Upon typically paying $.08-.12 of that in-station overhead, operators say, gasoline is basically a break-even proposition, at best. Yet seldom do they clearly explain or account for gross disparities in pump prices, market to market, region to region.

Nor do they own up to such suspicious, self-serving ‘glitches’ as faulty/cheater pump readings and ‘hot fuel’ energy dilution with inadequate official oversight. Then again, add in credit card swiping fees and costly technology investment in the likes of fingerprint pay kiosks and video surveillance, not to mention daunting increases in consumer gas rage, and it almost seems understandable why Exxon is selling off its 2,220 retail stations. So, what has become the cure for these owner/operator woes? Junk dealing, that’s what…

Peddling junk food, that is—and junk drink, junk gadgets, porn/gossip rags, gewgaws and googaws. Mini/convenient marts, hawking to mini-captive consumers at sweet and sour snacking/pit stops: This is what keeps far too many service stations in busi- ness—all of it overpriced and undersized, by and large served with a cynical sneer. Suddenly, those penny-poor gas margins ($.03-.06/avg.) balloon to $.30-.40 on booze, candy, chips, sugary/salty treats, and other unhealthful foodstuffs. Indeed, the profit margin on smokes and bottled water can reach 60%; equally profitable car washes supplant traditional, trusty mechanic ser- vice/repair bays. No wonder stations are cash-discount luring drivers into their paymarts. So it’s time to clear those arteries, filter the fuel tanks, demand more from double-dealing petro-pusher/whores. For after getting hosed at their gas pumps, who needs gas from eating their quick and greasy cholestercrap?

Indeed, let’s peel away the Band-Aids, and apply the steady pressure of a coordinated tourniquet. We begin by separating the gas from the service and goods, no long thinking of that next corner or off-ramp station as simply an indispensable commodity the price of which we helplessly, hopelessly cannot affect. Rather, we will exert concerted pressure from the bottom up, starting with the nearest, weakest, most exposed and vulnerable link in this oily chain of supply and demand. Mustering coherent, cohesive, discerning and keenly discriminating choices/action, we can begin to structurally right this imbalance over the long haul, signaling that the crude, heavy hand of market manipulation will finally be met with a formidable consumer counterforce. More pointedly, we will venture beyond mere competing price points/fluctuations—not just passively posting numbers (like Trilby Lundberg and good ol’ GasBuddy), but pushing back at the dis-service stations posting them.

Beyond pump pricing, we will, through our network of like-minded traveler generated (and attributed) reporting, monitor, track and blog/comment on underquality (e.g., octane ratings) and overcharging-in-extremis, location, availability of full service, mechanics bay/repair facilities, ancillary provisions, proximate crime rates and cleanliness/orderliness of the of the facility overall. As for payment, is a given station pre or post-pay, are cash-only discounts available; does it provide full card (credit/debit/discount) swiping (not bait & swipe-switching) and Fastpay—or are drivers forced to chumpwalk to the cashier’s booth (especially after dark)? From purely an environmental advancement standpoint, how clean is the petrol dispensed in such a station, how green is it in terms of vehicular additives and supplies?

Indeed, does the retailer provide comfortable rest facilities, on-apron video/ news, sports, etc. and musical entertainment as travelers pump away? When it comes to a station’s cash cow (i.e., mini-convenience store), how fair and healthful is its fare? From microwave ovens to refrigerated coolers, is its satellite minimart affording time-and trail-restrained travelers a good, quality selection of nutritious snacks and foodstocks that actually augment our endurance, beverages that replenish vitamins, heighten our alertness and concentration behind the wheel—particularly important highway safety-wise on longer rides? Or are they simply peddling more salty, fatty, sugary flavored, caffeinated poison?

For if we can pit service stations against each other, tighten their competition, squeeze their margins, crimp their pump traffic even more, these big (and small) retail wheels will squeak their way up the fuel chain—protesting to and picking among their own pushers, taking it to the next oily level.

Pitting service station versus service station, we can at the same time effectively point travelers toward the best overall deal on a vital commodity in any given destination, mainly avoiding the greater of the evils—the rip-off pushers, the filthy pump-shorting shysters. And if the latter, what are a traveler’s recourses: gross outing bad actors through ‘fuel line’ alerts and advisories, cell TXT-cotting, GPS coordinates, blackEmailing and black canning them—in more egregious cases—hopping borders, dry tanking, grading down, running off in the extreme? Do tell. Similarly, we will gauge and overview existing gas-price sources and Websites for ongoing timeliness and accuracy.

Such are the gas-fueled stirrings of true traveler counter-activism. Clearly, we must at long last coalesce around stronger, sharper measures, and this should get us started. For motorists/ travelers have long been abused like a dog suffers a beating—taking it, not liking it in the least. But in the last analysis, travelers have once again been left fuming and running on fumes, urged to take the gas-gouging in casual stride, to get used to taking it.

This, while we face the hard-turn realities of waning American and European influence and leverage in this new Petro-World Order. While we suddenly cross over from Denaling, Range Rovering and Ford Excursioning into more manageable, responsible, climate-friendly transportation modes—as gargantuan, oversized RVs and motorhomes go Winnebagoing in the surging wake of electric and fuel cell advances. So we are hereby committed to tightening the tourniquet, taking it the hiking shorts no more. Because we refuse to be taken at the gas pump, trapped in the frying pan as crude/pump prices yo-yo up and down. For, pardon our French, we are not so many hapless, helpless, unsuspecting frogs.

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ergo, Vamigré Travel:

“For grown-ups who hone up and bone up,
who stone up and zone up,
who moan up and groan up,
who tone up, and even loan up.
Non ideological and non idiotlogical,
With no other axes or axis to grind.”
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* Case in point: With the onset of the ‘summer driving season’ comes the petroleum industry’s annual gougefest, fueled by the resigned acquiescence of the traveling public heretofore. This larcenous shakedown syndrome goes something on the order of: Rumors of a pipeline disruption or blow-up sabotage serve to spark spiraling speculation on the commodities/futures exchanges, pension and hedge funds driving crude oil prices to record highs; the spot market, shortages predicted by ‘neutral’ analysts, goes combustible in turn. Then transnational oil companies lament uncontrollable barrelhead costs and pie-chart their blame-deflecting, pass-along cost structure in pious mass media disinformation campaigns. Petrol refineries soon cite ‘untimely’ repair and maintenance shutdowns to explain away gasoline bottlenecks—crimping crucial supplies, further driving up wholesale prices—never failing to note taxes, formulation changes and environmental restrictions as the real culprits, obtuse spin facilly spread by supposed ‘watchdogs’, from AAA to industry plants like Trilby Lundberg. Ultimately, the nozzle hits the tank flap at service stations themselves, where drivers are constrained to self serve and fill with a pained swipe and smile. Retailers more often than not set their prices in tandem, regardless of the brand. Independents undercut the majors PPG by as narrow a spread/margin as the wager the distressed market will bear.

If the Lebanon and Iraq wars served to amplify summer, 2006 air travel disruption, Middle East conflicts among other factors have purportedly fostered just as much pain at U.S. gas pumps ever since. Right on schedule, already high spring price-per-gallon levels spike dramatically to even further all-time highs, ranging from $3.25 to upwards of $4.25 for self-serve regular. With each gradual upturn in Middle East and African turmoil have come accelerating upticks in p.p.g., intensifying the usual peak summer driving season spirals. Coast to coast, across the board, U.S. travelers have been paying more to gas up than ever before…but that spiral is now coming full circle…

Now, onward—shifting into a more current gear…