OK, on Larry King's show,  Alan Greenspan makes a comment that zero
federal debt would be bad, and that get turned into this:

"The bankers whose friends and associates profit from lending the
U.S.
government the money when the budget runs a deficit were panicked
(Alan Greenspan has written about this) that the Clinton era tax and
spending levels, if continued, would result in ZERO debt, something
Greenspan saw as potentially disastrous.  Yeah - disastrous for all
his buddies who make enormous profits loaning our government the same
money they should be paying in taxes. "

Let's see what an independent source like the BBC says about where
Greenspan stood on reducing the federal debt:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/411973.stm
"But in a change of tack last month, the Clinton administration
indicated that it was also prepared to consider using some of the
surplus to reduce the overall government debt.

Such a course of action has long been advocated by Alan Greenspan, the
influential chairman of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.

He argues that reducing government debt should take priority over tax
cuts, as the move will free funds for private investment and lower
government spending."

That summary is consistent with everything I've heard Greenspan say in
testimony to Congress, speeches and interviews.

In other words, you've again taken something you don't understand at
all, and with jaundiced views, turned it into something it isn't.
Greenspan is right that zero federal debt would be a bad thing for a
number of reasons.   The main one being that the FED buys and sells
govt securities in the open market to affect interest rates.  If they
want to lower rates and stimulate the economy, they buy govt
securities.  Without those to buy, they would have to find some other
financial vehicle, which opens up all kinds of protential problems.
If at least part of that debt is used to finance long term capital
items, like bridges, roads, or an aircraft carrier, it's no different
than a homeowner buying a house with a mortgage.   The key here is the
relation of the total debt to the size of the US economy.  It's still
not anywhere near historic levels when compared to the economy, but I
agree it would be good for it to be lowered.   And Geenspan was always
in favor of reducing the present level of Federal debt and less govt
spending.

If you bought the book, you might learn something.   As for
Greenspan's stewardship at the FED, only a tiny minority would bitch
about that.  At the beginning of his chairmanship, the economy was in
a disaster, unemployment was 9%, inflation 7%, and govt bonds were
yeilding 18%.   He was there with Reagan when all that was reversed
through tax cuts and sound monetary policy, resulting in the longest
expansion in peace time history.

I'm in the same boat - I'm in Los Angeles.  It will drop into the 40's on a
regular basis but never less than 60 in my garage.

That's what i was wondering.

I see many posts - both here and on places like benzworld - where they
completely deride single-tank systems for using 100% WVO and the cold
climates. However, I wanted to hear a first-hand experience from a local
who uses either 100% SVO/WVO or a mix.

So you filter your own? Do you collect as well?  I'm thinking it would be
easier - and more convenient - for me to have it delivered already filtered
in 50 gallon containers. I see rates in the middle $2/gallon around here.

The bankers whose friends and associates profit from lending the U.S.
government the money when the budget runs a deficit were panicked
(Alan Greenspan has written about this) that the Clinton era tax and
spending levels, if continued, would result in ZERO debt, something
Greenspan saw as potentially disastrous.  Yeah - disastrous for all
his buddies who make enormous profits loaning our government the same
money they should be paying in taxes.

The Republicans have had a policy of devaluing the dollar for
decades.  They want the currency to be worth less.  I will leave it to
a Republican to explain why, but I think the theory is that our
products will then be cheaper when exported.  Unfortunately the robber
baron free trade agreements have resulted in most manufacturing moving
off shore, so there are few products left to sell.  In addition, we
import 4 million barrels of oil a day or something, so at $120 a
barrel we are going in the hole fast.  No way are cheaper prices going
to make up that kind of profligate spending.  The fact that the dollar
is still the preferred reserve currency and that the oil trade is
based on the dollar are about the only things keeping us afloat, and
if the downward trend in the dollar continues it is only a matter of
time until exporters of oil will no longer accept dollars.

Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter, EXPORTS  about 4
million barrels per day, each day, making now, at $120 a barrel, half
a billion dollars a day in profits.

By the way, it isn't quite true that oil sells for the same price
everywhere.  In Venezuela I think gas is $0.12, twelve cents, per
gallon.  In Iraq, before the U.S. occupation, gas was $0.04, four
cents, per gallon at the pump.  It was up to $1.26, I read, a couple
of weeks ago.  I don't know what the price of gas is in Russia, but as
an exporting nation they may have lower prices than we are forced to
pay in oil importing nations.

The U.S. is still one of the world's largest producers of oil, but we
waste so much that we have to import huge amounts besides what is
domestically produced.  If we nationalized our oil here, had fuel
efficient vehicles, and greater use of mass transit, we could have
cheap oil here too.  If we eliminated wasteful gas guzzlers and
implemented maximum alternative energy like wind and solar we could
live as well or better than we do now on only domestically produced
oil.

In message news:c1t714lolta65kcphrnlbsbdi93kehecrl@4ax.com, edward ohare
<edward_ohare@nospam.yahoo.com.invalid> burned some brain cells writing:

Care to document that?  And without needing to steal Social Security Trust
Fund money to mask a deficit?

The people of Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, Viet Nam, El Salvador, Panama, Korea,
etc. etc. etc. etc. would beg to differ.

I am old enough to remember gasoline at $0.18, yes, eighteen cents a
gallon, when I was going to college in Kalamazoo, MI in the early
1970s.  A few years later we heard rumors that gas was going to be
$1.00 a gallon, and we couldn't believe it!  It sounded like the end
of the world!

But when the Arab oil embargo happened and there were lines for gas it
became evident that there were limits to the amount of oil in the
ground.

I never forgot that, and so for the last 35 years or so, as I have
seen the enormous urban sprawl spreading out with no intelligent urban
planning in ugly big box seas of asphalt it has made me sad to see our
national treasure and the construction of my lifetime being wasted on
a mess that was utterly dependent upon the automobile, because it has
been apparent to anyone who paid attention that oil supplies were
finite and when they ran down to the point of making gasoline and
diesel too expensive for the average guy to afford unlimited amounts
of them a large portion of the structure of our country would become
obsolete and would end up having to be largely abandoned.

So when I have seen all these big box monsters of ignorance under
construction farther and farther out into the desert I have always
seen them as the next set of ghost towns that are destined to stand
crumbling as monuments to short sightedness and idiocy.  I hope I am
wrong, but it sure is starting to look that way.

Electrically powered mass transit is going to have to replace the car
at some point and retail and housing will have to be redesigned with
walking in mind.  If we get serious in changing the mind set from the
one that we were given by GM and Big Oil after WW II when GM bought
many of the streetcar systems around the country and junked them and
focus on mass transit and renewable production of electricity and
livable high density urban design we can have a much more pleasant
setting in which to live.

Not only is this car centered model doomed because of Peak Oil, it has
also turned out to be pretty much a drag.  Driving the freeways of LA
in my opinion is a horrible experience and I wouldn't miss it if I
never have to again.  Nobody talks about it, but 40,000+ people die on
the roads annually in the U.S. and half a million are maimed.  It's
kind of a lonely society too.  You can't mingle with the other
passengers on the freeway like you can on the TGV fast trains in
France.

I only bought one new car in my life, a 1985 Toyota Corolla, which I
still drive.  I like to say to myself that I am voting no with my non
dollars to the untenable societal model of the car centered society.

Strange posts these are for a car listserve . . .

I still love my Mercedes and two Toyotas, of course, and I enjoy
working on them.

And I suppose there is no political influence, lobbying, corruption
etc in the great land of Norway.   LOL