Date:         Tue, 23 Apr 1996 11:19:23 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wabbott@mtest.teradyne.com (William Abbott)
Subject:      Unbalanced V6, gas prices

	Steve,
	You might have something there- isn't the traditional Detroit
unbalanced engine helped by a harmonic balancer which is an
excentricly wieghted pulley with a bonded rubber hub coupling? 
Most of my experience is Rabbit/Golf/Type II/IV so maybe one of
our Mustang owners can help??


	Regarding gasoline prices, wholesale prices in California
have apparently gone from around $0.50/gallon to $1.00/gallon since
February. Rotten Robbie says they are selling below cost at the moment
to preserve their market share (How much did they used to make so
that they can cover now??). 

	PUC and various consumer groups are saying they'll investigate.

	One interesting possibliity I've heard is that oil companies had cut
on-hand inventories to the bone anticipating that Iraq would finally
sell up to $US 2,000,000,000.00 worth of oil. Iraq still hasn't gone
through with this, as Sadam, etc, feel their soverignty is infringed
by the T's & C's. When the refineries went to refill the jug, they got
hit with higher-than-market prices by those what had and had been
spurned only weeks before.

	So, politics and economics majors, it goes from each of us 
according to our ability, to those in need, namely those brave and
resourceful individuals who bought tankers full of oil when nobody else
seemed to want them. Hard work and initiative rewarded!

	Perspective:
	A recent story in Aviation Week and Space Technology discussed
the Space Shuttle, which has cost $95 Billion in current dollars and,
after 75 missions, is unlikely to meet any of the original goals set for it. 
Expendable boosters would have saved money and gotten things in orbit
years earlier. That same 95 Billion would purchase 3,166,667 Eurovans
at $30K each, or 158,333 every year of the 20 years the Shuttle program
has been spending serious money. Since T2s and T3s were cheaper than
Eurovans, probably more could have been bought... amazing, isn't it?

	Bill