Monday, March 18, 2024

Surging gas prices just hit a significant milestone

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https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/business/gas-prices-inflation-russia/index.html


Surging gas prices just hit a significant milestone

A customer pumps gas at a gas station in Hercules, California, US, on Thursday, March 14, 2024.
New York CNN  — 

Gas price inflation is back.

For the first time since late last year, prices at the pump are now higher on a year-over-year basis. It’s a trend that industry experts expect to continue in the coming weeks and months, especially if Russian oil facilities continue to get hit by drone attacks.

This is an unwanted development for consumers heading into the spring. It’s also a problem for White House and Federal Reserve officials hoping to declare victory over inflation.

The recent jump in gas prices is already causing headaches on the inflation front. Gas was the main culprit behind last week’s hotter-than-expected consumer price index and a disappointing wholesale inflation report.

All of this is casting doubt on when the Fed will be able to start cutting interest rates. Hopes for a March rate cut have faded, and investors are now betting on June or July.

“Gas prices are going to keep going up,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. “This is going to cost the consumer more money. And that of course is not good for the administration.”

The national average price for regular gas climbed to $3.47 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s up from $3.45 a year ago and the highest price since Halloween.

The last time gas prices were up on a year-over-year basis was late December 2023, according to AAA.

The highest recorded price for unleaded gas was in June of 2022, when a gallon averaged $5.02, according to AAA.

The national average has jumped by seven cents in the past week and 19 cents over the past month. Gas prices are up by 40 cents since mid-January.

Drone attacks in Russia lift prices

Much of this late winter increase in prices is normal.

It happens every year as refineries shut down for maintenance and switch over to more expensive summer fuel. Demand for gas also increases as people drive more in the warmer weather and longer days.

But refinery outages caused by extreme cold this winter have also contributed to the gas price jump.

Another problem: Russian energy infrastructure has been targeted in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, told CNN that recent drone attacks on oil refineries deep inside Russia are boosting gasoline and oil prices.

“It appears pretty clear that Ukrainians have discovered the best way to attack Vladimir Putin is to attack him in his wallet. That means knocking out refineries,” Kloza said. “It’s a wildcard we’ve never had to deal with before.”

Kloza noted there is growing speculation that Russia will need to take the unprecedented step of importing gasoline to meet internal demand for fuel.

“If they continue to target petroleum infrastructure, you could see global price rise higher,” said Kloza.

Gas prices surge in Michigan

And the concerns about Russia’s energy facilities is on top of the Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. Those attacks have forced some oil tankers to be rerouted away from the region, adding time and costs to the voyage.

US oil prices climbed nearly 1% to $81.70 a barrel on Monday, leaving crude 20% more expensive than this point last year.

Meanwhile, OPEC+, the producer group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, continues to restrain supply in a bid to boost prices. OPEC+ recently agreed to keep its production cuts in place through June.

Kloza noted that one problem for the White House is that some battleground states are at risk of seeing significantly higher gas prices.

Drivers in Michigan, for instance, are now paying an average of $3.65 a gallon, nearly 20 cents higher than at this point last year, according to AAA.

“People have this visceral reaction to higher gas prices and they look to fix blame,” said Kloza. “But this is all about OPEC+ and drones, not the Biden administration.”

Still, the good news is that analysts are not forecasting a spike in gas prices like the one that drove the national average above $5 a gallon in mid-2022.

The United States is pumping more oil than any country in history and OPEC+ has the firepower to add supply, if needed.

Unless there’s a major hurricane that strikes US Gulf Coast refineries, Kloza does not expect gas prices to hit $4 a gallon this year.

Something seems to have happened this winter which ended America's love affair with Electric Vehicles

I think it began when this winter was wetter and snowier than expected and colder at times than expected which caused Lithium batteries to not charge right or sometimes not able to be charged at all. This started to devalue a lot the value of all Electric Vehicles.

Now it has become a cascade of loss for electric vehicle owners and makers alike and whole divisions of car companies that make electric vehicles are shutting down. It seems to me to be a reflection of how electric vehicles generally have 35% to 75% more mechanical and electrical problems than most cars do.

There is a reason for this which is that Gasoline and diesel Engines have been perfected for at least 120 years or more so far. This is not true of Electric Vehicles so they have a long way to go to be as good as Gasoline and Diesel vehicles now or in the future. So, you might have to wait another 120 years for electrical vehicles to be as good as gasoline and diesel vehicles are right now.

Hertz Sold it's 20,000 EVs and got rid of the CEO who bought them in the first place

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https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/business/hertz-ceo-departure-ev/index.html

Hertz CEO out following electric car ‘horror show’

A man photographs a Hertz Tesla electric vehicle displayed during the Hertz Corporation IPO at the Nasdaq Market site in Times Square in New York City.
New York CNN  — 

Trouble and turmoil continue at rental car company Hertz.

The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.

The company announced that Stephen Scherr, who came to the company two years ago after nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, is stepping down at the end of this month. He’ll be replaced by Gil West, former chief operating officer of Delta Air Lines and General Motors’ Cruise unit.

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In the most recent quarter, Hertz took a $245 million hit to its earnings due to a drop in value of the EVs it was selling.

While the number of EVs bought by American customers surged 40% last year to top 1 million for the first time, there was less demand than some of the traditional automakers had expected as they moved to offer EVs. Tesla, the leader in US EV sales, started a price war for EVs just over a year ago, driving down the value of both new and used EVs, such as those in Hertz’ fleet. And the drop in prices hit Hertz bottom line since it reduced the money it could expect to get from reselling the vehicles.

But the problem for Hertz wasn’t necessarily that the cars were electric, and customers simply do not want to drive electric cars. The problem was how Hertz handled the fleet in general, according to industry analysts.

“The execution and marketing of EV’s [by Hertz] was a horror show across the board,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities who follows the EV market. “It’s a black eye they couldn’t recover from.”

Part of the problem for Hertz was that even people who might want to buy an EV wouldn’t necessarily want to rent one while on the road, when they don’t necessarily have the ability to plug them in to charge them as they would at a private home. There might not be a charging station, or enough time, for a rental car customer to charge an EV, Ives said.

By hewing to charging rules the way Hertz has enforced refueling rules, it may have dissuaded customers from wanting to rent an electric car. Without building any charging infrastructure at its rental locations, Hertz may have hurt its own business.

“They don’t want to go 20 minutes out of their way at five in the morning to find a charging station,” Ives said.

Hertz had announced it would buy 100,000 EVs from Tesla in October of 2021, just before it had its initial public offering following its emergence from bankruptcy. The hope was the promise of being on the cutting edge of growing demand for EVs would attract investors and lift its stock price.

It subsequently announced plans to buy up to 175,000 EVs from General Motors and 65,000 EVs from Polestar, the EV company co-owned by Volvo and its Chinese parent company Geely. But Hertz’s total EV fleet only reached 60,000 before it decided to pull back. Still, that was enough to amount to 11% of its fleet.

Even without the drop in value of the cars it bought, Hertz struggled with collision and damage repairs on an EV running about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle, Scherr told investors on a 2023 call.

Other problems beyond EVs

But even without the $245 million hit to its bottom line from the problems with its EVs, Hertz would have lost money in the fourth quarter and the full year. That compares to profits at rival Avis Budget Group, which reported record revenue and the second-best adjusted operating profit in its history.

And the EVs were not the only black eye for Hertz. In December 2022, the company agreed to pay $168 million to settle 364 claims related to the company falsely reporting rental cars as stolen. These cases sometimes resulted in Hertz customers being arrested and even imprisoned. While Hertz said a “meaningful portion” of that expense would be covered by insurance, it was another blow to its reputation.

Scherr wasn’t the one who decided to make the big bet on EV demand by rental car customers. That was his predecessor, Mark Fields, a former CEO of Ford who was named interim CEO in October 2021, just weeks before Hertz announced plans to buy 100,000 Teslas, the largest order ever for Tesla from a single buyer.

Fields’ predecessor as CEO, Paul Stone, stayed on as president and chief operating officer of Hertz, posts he held until resigning this past September. Stone had taken over just days before Hertz filed for bankruptcy in May of 2020. While the entire rental car industry was battered by the pandemic and the plunge in demand for travel and rental cars, rivals Avis Budget and privately-held Enterprise were able to ride out the storm without filing for bankruptcy.

Where Hertz, which has been renting cars since the days of the Model T, was once the world’s largest rental car company, in 2023 its revenue was 22% less than its publicly held rival Avis Budget.

I think I sort of agree with Purple about all this:

Why?

First of all you have the Galactic Time Guard. Then you have the Lemurian Time Guard here on earth run by His Oneness who has been Time Lord of Earth for 40,000 to 70,000 years so far. Then you have what might be called: "The United Nations Time Guard" which started just after World War II caused by mostly the Nuking of HIroshima and Nagasaki. All these time Guards function interactively for a variety of reasons. But, the biggest reason is no one wants all life on earth to go extinct and no one wants to see Earth another Asteroid Belt. So, what Purple is saying here is likely what is actually happening in real time here on earth. Do I have any real physical proof of this? No. I don't. 

So, all we can do is to take the best information we can garner together and move forward individually  as a member of mankind here on earth.

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https://thespiritualpath888.blogspot.com/2024/03/i-saved-this-copy-of-rebuilding-and-put.html

Moksha: "It's true most of us haven't lived as long as you but Purple has. What do you think Purple?"

Arcane smiled because this might be really good.

Purple Delta 7: "Though Arcane is right I have a completely different perspective on all this. I see the universe in the sense of order. Since there is so much outright chaos in regard to so called evolved beings with cultures I strive to bring some order to the Chaos so more cultures can survive. However, my perspective is that individuals are not maybe what is important but what is important to prevent groups of people going extinct. For example, right now we are trying to prevent human beings in the 21st Century from going extinct by hiring the Space Marauders from Ganymede that Moksha is still the de facto King of and I am his consort still too. So, bringing order often has consequences unexpected. 

But, if you see humans sort of like any other species on earth or beyond, what is important is for the genetics and actions of the group as a whole to prevail. It's less about individuals within that group surviving and more about some of the group surviving.

It's a lot like "Survival of the fittest" in the sense of all creatures on earth. I have spent literally millions of years now studying the evolution of all life forms on earth. And what I have learned is from the hard reality of my experiences is that "The ones who survive almost anything often you could not really predict that in the short or long run."

"So, in this sense it is often a surprise even to me on who survives and who doesn't."

"And this doesn't just apply to human beings but all creatures and all plants and all organisms on Earth."

Arcane: "This is actually something I wanted to talk to you about, Purple. You experience of literally millions of years might seem cynical to us humans but at the same time it is likely the scientific Truth."

Purple: "The real truth humans mostly cannot deal with ever, Arcane. If they truly believed the truth they might commit suicide in the womb of what each of them are going to have to face during a lifetime. So, unless you have some fairy tale like thing to believe in often you are dead before your time."

Arcane: "Though that pragmatically is true I find it difficult to face myself sometimes."

Purple: "So, the best we can do is to try to keep the human species alive here on earth. It is actually less important what happens to any given culture or cultures because they come and go through the ages. I have this perspective because I was able to go back and study as an anthropologist which I was inspired to do by You, Arcane, My teacher, and Celeste your present Wife."

Celeste: "Though this is true I need my fairty tale for now that everything is still okay for ARcane and I for another 500 years or more at least at this point."

Purple:"Please accept my apologies. It is because of the way that Arcane and I were discussing thing like a scientific experiment as anthropologists here on earth traveling through time. However, I forgot you are also beyond being a planetary Anthropologist also Arcane's husband and mother of his children too."

Celeste: "Apology accepted, Purple. I know you would never intentionally cause me harm. It's okay."

Purple smiled a strange smile and moved on. She said, "Arcane. Perhaps we can have this conversation at another point in time?"

Arcane: "Why don't we have this conversation in another time and come back in one second? Would this be okay, Celeste and the rest of you too?"

Moksha and Celeste especially realized the importance of them having this conversation and agreed to Arcane's idea.

As Moksha and Celeste watched it was sort of like Arcane and Purple flickered on and off for no more than a second while they spent some time discussing this in another time than the one that they were in.

Arcane: "Which version of time will prevail, Purple?"

Purple: "Time is always being refined in various ways by the Galactic Sentience or the Created Sentients with his approval alter time continually."

Arcane: "Why is it done this way?"

Purple: "I'm not sure a human mind would completely understand this but I will try to simplify it enough so it makes some sense. There are consequences to ANY alteration of time and when those consequences become severe enough we are forced to do something because of the consequences generated.

For example, one of the consequences of preventing human extinction in the latter part of the 21st century also caused Trump to be chosen as a way to prevent human extinction. However, there is also the danger that Trump's actions will cause human extinction anyway. And it's not just Trump that is a potential extinction maker for all life on earth, Putin and Xi and even the leader of North Korea are also potential extinction makers for the human race and all life upon it too.

So, the reason we constantly alter time and also the reason why the Space Marauders who have been hired to find ways to keep humans from completely going extinct during the next 3 centuries are extreme measures we have employed because we refuse for everyone to die and all life on earth to be no more.

So, literally thousands to millions of time changes will occur between now and 300 to 500 years from now in order to help mankind through this presently very rough patch that they are going through right now trying not to go extinct.

So, we will MAKE SURE mankind do not go extinct and we will MAKE SURE that all life on earth doesn't go extinct either. However, living on earth might not be much fun for some people because of the time changes we will be forced to make in order for life to continue to exist on earth.

And the consequences of EACH time change could be extreme too."

ARCANE: "I had no idea that it was quite that horrific in nature."

Purple: "If you were not a Galactic Saint and member of the galactic Time guard I couldn't have shared this with you in this way."

Arcane: "I understand."

Purple: "I think we should get back to Moksha and Celeste and my son."

Arcane: "I agree."





 



 

 

Potential Consequences of not being able to make 464 Million dollar bond:

Is that his assets would be sold off one by one by the state of New York. The problem with this is it is almost always true that he wouldn't get fair market Value for these properties because things would likely be auctioned off one by one by the State of New York. So, we might be witnessing the basic Financial end of at the very least Trump's businesses in New York State. I think this might upset him more than having to go to jail because of his way of viewing things in his personal reality.

Trump is unable to make $464 million bond in civil fraud case, his lawyers say

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When I looked up Tinnaba I found this single dose medication for the treatment for Giardia

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Single-dose tinidazole for the treatment of giardiasis. - PMC

by P Speelman1985Cited by 99A single oral dose of tinidazole is a highly effective treatment for giardiasis and is equal in efficacy to a 3-day therapy with metronidazole. Full text. Full ...
Missing: tinnaba ‎| Show results with: tinnaba
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If you are traveling to someplace like India it is important to realize that giardia as well as other illnesses are endemic to that area

When I traveled to India and Nepal for around 4 months with my family in 1985 and 1986 we all (except for one of us got giardia within the first two months sometime. At one point early in this trip we had been buying supposedly bottled and boiled spring water but as I left the island we were snorkeling on I noticed someone taking these bottles and filling them with a hose. This is one of many different reasons why since we were being misled regarding water that we could have gotten giardia then. Later there was feces in the dust in Kathmandu Nepal also which could have been a contributing factor then in 1985 and 1986. The people who live there and survive are much heartier than those of us from europe and the Americas for example because they all have giardia in their intestines BUT they have survived like this for maybe the last 1000 years.

So, when westerners to to places like India and Nepal and eat food or drink the water there they sometimes get giardia or dysentery from drinking the water (for whatever the reason) and they either just get sick or sometimes they die.

I presently have friends traveling there that have now been sick at least 1 week of their so far 2 week journey through India and now Nepal. My friend was telling me he had to get up once every 45 minutes the night before so he didn't poop his bed from Giardia. So, he and his girlfriend and another lady they are traveling with all have both Covid (from there) and Giardia (from there) at the same time. His girlfriend had 4 to 6 feet projectile vomiting last night for example.

So, the reason I'm writing about all this is I'm actually worried at this point about getting my friends home safely from over there and not having their health debilitated for the next year or worse so I felt that I should write about the dangers to westerners (people of the western World and not the far East) mostly because I'm worried about my friends now getting home safely from there by April sometime.

Another thing that might be useful to know. when I was there in 1985 and 1986 when I had giardia we came back and all of us were very thin from the giardia eating our food in our intestines. then I also saw spots before my eyes a lot as I returned home through Thailand and Japan. 

Then we went to a foreign disease specialist who told us then in 1986 that any medication she knew of then would harm our livers and our children's livers so her recommendation was to just let the giardia slough off because we were where it didn't live well because giardia is completely different here in the U.S. than the variety in India. Was this a good idea to not take anything? Since then I have learned about something called Tinnaba which is what my friend and his girlfriend are taking now over there. However, I didn't even learn about this until about 10 years after I had giardia. One Aryuvedic Western Nurse told me that a hypothyroid condition that I had was one of the results of having Giardia in 1986. So, this might be useful for you to know too. Because she also said that a hypothyroid condition or an autoimmune disease could also be the result of having Giardia from Asia too.

So, if you have either of these conditions now and traveled to a third world country somewhere on earth it would not be surprising. For example, most people who have been in the Peace Core overseas in third world nations have had some exposure to the local varieties of Giardia in their intestines.

Also, it took me personally about 6 months to be able to gain weight again to where I didn't look like I just came from a World War II Concentration Camp in Europe then in 1986 when I was by then likely 38 years old.

This is one of the reasons why I'm not over there traveling with them this time because though I would like to visit Pokhara and Kathmandu and Dhramshala I really don't want to have to die to do this. I remember how bad giardia actually was for 6 months and I remember all the dead people in the streets then too. Even though it is likely much different now than then in 1986.

Why do people go to India?

I think it's because people are so ALIVE there. Death is so near that people grasp every moment of life. Here in the U.S. it is like we all are the walking dead in comparison to how people are there. So, if you wonder why people go there it is for the aliveness of those still alive wanting to talk to you and engage with you because you are a westerner. It is an overwhelming experience going there both good and bad.

But, you will never be the same for better or worse or usually both if you go there.

I know that I perceive everything on earth differently after being there about 4 months time from December of 1985 to April of 1986 because it was like going to another planet doing this then because it is so very very different than being here in the U.S. in every way.

Presently 67 degrees Fahrenheit on it's way up to 70 here in Santa Barbara today

Yesterday I wrote about the super bloom beginning in California especially from San Francisco to San Diego. It's not at it's peak. It's just beginning so I'm not sure when the peak of the Superbloom of Wildflowers will be different for each location depending upon how much rain and the weather in general there has been and will be.

However, today is a beautiful clear day here and the kind of Day people move to places like Santa Barbar to experience in the first place. The air is clear and the wind is only 3 mph too which is nice.

Here is the weather here today and this week:

Results for

Santa Barbara, CA
Mostly sunny
67
°F°C
Precipitation: 0%
Humidity: 67%
Wind: 3 mph
Weather
Monday 12:00 PM
Mostly sunny
Temperature
Precipitation
Wind
677067595552516066676559555452616669665954555359666764585452505665666458565554576262635754525054616260565553515462646458545250546465645856545255646563565452515564646357
Mon
Partly cloudy
70°
51°
Tue
Clear
67°
52°
Wed
Clear
69°
53°
Thu
Mostly cloudy
67°
50°
Fri
Partly cloudy
66°
54°
Sat
Light rain
64°
50°
Sun
Partly cloudy
62°
51°
Mon
Partly cloudy
65°
50°
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Marine Weather Statement. Today. 71°/53°. 8%. Mon 18 | Day. 71°. 8%. SSW 8 mph. Sunshine and a few afternoon clouds. High 71F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.