It's bad here already. I saw on WRAL-TV.com where a man and a woman got in a fight at the pumps. Stupid people! She tried to pull in in front of him and hit his car. And that's how the fight started.
I guess on the bright side, there are not mass brawls. I don't know how some people can be so damned entitled. Maybe it was fear that drove her. Maybe she was almost out of gas. If that guy in front decided it was not worth the fight and let her in, he's got 50 cars behind him ready to beat his butt, possibly thinking he just did a friend a favor. I've seen it. One spouse gets in line, a while later the other shows up.
I can see how that would happen. I've experienced that a few times at checkout counters. Someone ahead of me in line will tell someone else that they can go ahead. He gets the thanks, while I get to have one more person in front of me. I've never started a fight over it, though. Add the stress of a gasoline shortage to the mix, and I can see how it could get ugly.
I've done that, Ken. If the person after me has only 1 or 2 items and I have a basketful, I tell them to go ahead of me. And I have had others do that for me. If I only need 1 thing and I'm in a thousand hurries, I really appreciate it.
I saw it back in the early 70s, and that was before cell phones. I don't know if folks rolled the dice on timing, or if they sat in parking lots across the street until the time was right. It wasn't real often. 99% of people don't do that stuff. I think our controlled behaviour in the face of the stress the government has already put us under the past year is evidence of our high level of tolerance.
I lucked out during the Carter gas shortages. Hoerner-Waldorf, the company I worked for, allowed employees to use the company tanks once a week, ensuring that we were able to get to work and back. Since we were all on salary and paid whether we worked or not, that was important to them, I suppose.
I'm the same way. If the person directly behind me has a few items or is a store employee obviously on their break time, I'll "swap positions" with them so that it does not affect anyone behind us. If it's just me in line, I'll let someone who just walked up go ahead. Interestingly, with Walmart (and most grocery stores) having Self-Checkout centers with 6 registers each, it's not that big of an issue since the line moves pretty quickly. We're not queuing at a single register.
According to some "pipeline guru" i listened to, the minor parts of the pipeline will be up in a day or two, but the large diameter parts of the pipeline will take weeks to get going again. As he described it, this is not a single pipe but a group of pipes each carrying a different product. He did not elaborate on what was carried in each of the pipes, and he said this was all made more difficult by the state affected having different requirements. In the old days, gasoline was gasoline, but now different states have different compounding requirements set by "politicians who don't have a clue about energy supplies", but bathe in the cheers they get for making everything less efficient. I think he said that California had 54 different blends of gasoline depending on what part of the state uses it. According to him, Alaska is now shipping our crude to China for refinement and then buying it back from them, since the major refinery in the Northwest cannot upgrade or expand because environmentalists sue them every time they try. He also said he had seen young girls as young as thirteen working in the Chinese refineries and earning about a dollar a day for their troubles. And, of course, China is very mindful of all the environmental impact.
I was not aware that we were now shipping our crude to China. We did have two refineries in-state, but one shut down several years ago due to groundwater contamination issues. As far as I know, the other is still in operation, but it is small and cannot meet the needs of the state. The "expert" said refineries operating in warmer areas are more efficient since they don't have to heat the crude as much, thus Texas and Louisiana have many more refineries than does Minnesota.
What do you think of the drugs like that that help only one person out of 64 (or 67?) give or take a few ? Compared to the other methods, non-ama, that may often help everyone it is used on ?
I understand, and I don't necessarily disagree, although nothing is absolute. But you started out talking about cost, not efficacy. And I knew that the issue of statins would raise a debate. But I still submit that a lot of this is demand-pull. I read that the average body temperature has declined because our metabolisms are slower. Gee, I wonder why. So good luck getting people to change their diets, get more rest (damn you, Edison!) or exercise more.
Just remembered, back in the 80's or 90's, the people often found relief at the health food section or vitamin section for almost anything ailling them. And it only cost a fraction at the time of what a doctor's visit or the drugs cost. The drug manufacturers came up with a plan - offer discounts to be lower than the cost of vitamins. (this was quite obvious at Walmrt when they started $3/mo or $5/mo for rxxxss). The drugs did not improve nor start doing better at all - they still cause d a lot of problems , side effects , and deaths, but since they were less expensive than vitamins, people started using the drugs more often. Meanwhile, the drug makers and doctors profits increased skyrocketing as people got sicker, and as government with tax dollars or as insurance paid what the people did not have to pay. i.e. the people still pay, but to them it looked free almost, or less expensive at the time. They pay with dollars in taxes, dollars for insurance, and with declining health requiring eventually more doctors and hospital visits, and more drugs.
I'm not sure if there is any debate ? The statins , regardless of cost, are ineffective - less effective than placeboes . Right about people though - overall they just don't care, even when it greatly affects babies and children's health as well as their own.