WTF Gas Prices

[jgcable]

No more accurate words could be spoken.

Last time gas creeped this high I would say 50% of the people I worked with were car pooling, including myself. Well I'm back to car pooling, bought a more fuel efficent cars ( now my f150 sits in the barn most days ). I bet less than 5% are back to car pooling now. It is the old " How do you cook a frog" saying. You do it slowly. We are accepting the spikes in gas prices and that will keep the price high and slow any retreat.

Exactly. My friends all went back to driving big SUV's. I drive a Sentra, a Neon and an Escort. I also take the train to work.
If more cut their fuel consumption we could really make a difference. Unfortunately that will NOT happen.

[charvelguy]

After 9/11, if I'm not mistaken.. a barrel of crude was less than 20 dollars!
I think it went down to 16. You could buy shares of Exxon oil for cheap bucks. Before that.. during Clinton's Admin.. so within the last 6 years.. OPEC set the price to stay for a barrel of crude to cap around 22 bucks a barrel..
Gas was a buck a gallon.
Good ole you know who dragged feet on getting legislation passed for more efficient SUV's and setting into motion better vehicle fuel standards during first term. Four more years of.. "I hope your happy when it comes time to reach into your wallet after you fill your tank."

Anyone who is buying into bigger has to be absolutely loaded or out of touch or a multi vehicle family with one of each.

100 bucks a barrel? I'm getting a nice small 100cc or 120cc motorcycle..problem solved till cold starts. Then give me a Carmen Ghia.

This is IMO partly about countering against the Hamas being voted into power in Palestine and cutting off funding to them...and a little payback for other diplomacy.

[jgcable]

I am looking into a folding bike that I could ride to the train station and take on the train instead of driving the 3 miles. I refuse to pay $3.00 a gallon and will only do so when absolutely necessary.

[horns666]

Fuggit...you know..

Just Fuggit and Fuggum!

[atomic charvel guy]

All I need is my skateboard and hot rod bicycle at Black Crowes Beach in the summertime.That's like having a freakin' convertible Jaguar

[fett]

Where I live. I can walk to a bus stop. That requires work!!!!! and about 15 minutes. $1.25 can get me to all the thriftstores I hit. And my favorite pawn shop. And back. If I find something that I can't carry home, I could just have them hold it for me; take the bus home and come back with the Areostar. I have done that before and it ain't half bad in good weather. Now, I am just lazy but I am getting real close to doing it again.

[RacerX]

Going up every day, it's now $3.07 average in LA, but a Beverly Hills station is charging $4.04!

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...cal&id=4102916

[Inearthed]

They're just adjusting the price so that they can make a killing and then when Hybrid cars take over and Americans are consuming less gas the pricing will be the same as if they were driving normal vehicles. Now, where's my tin foil hat?

[sambencuda]

We have a 01 Durango R/T with a 5.9 L V8 and a 02 Grand Cherokee Limited with a 4.7 L V8. I drive 70 miles a day for work so I'm in the Jeep alot. Since I started driving, I have always had a truck or an SUV. We have three boys that play multiple sports and I play out so we need something thats roomy. I'm 6'4" and there is no way I'm sqeezing into a tiny hybrid for my 2 hours of commuting each day. I'm not going to get a smaller car to make someone else happy. I hate hearing the "it's the people who drive SUVs" bullshit.

I'm not happy about gas prices, but what can I do? We could squeeze into tiny cars, but I'm not willing to do that and I'm not willing to have my family do that either. We all have our own priorities. I may not like it, but I'll pay the $3 or $4 per gallon. Bill nailed it. They have us by the shorties.

Thats why I won't bitch about it.

[kmanick]

Just watch, IRan controls over 20% of all globally exported oil. If any of you were around last time we had issues with Iran (20 or so odd years ago)the same thing happened then as well, oil prices went thru the roof.
Nigeria is also a huge exporter and now they've got anti American sentiments and aren't producing sh*t for us.
This is all political. As long as we have a nuclear issue with Iran, prices will keep going up.
Cut ties with Israel, pull out of Iraq and ....................wow gas costs $1.25 a gallon again.
But that will never happen, Israel would be gang attacked by every Muslim country around it and we'd have the start of WW III, with Iran leading the way.
Crazy M*ther F*ckers

[GodOfRhythm]

Unleaded 95: .1.45 euro / litre
Unleaded 98: 1.5 euro / litre

That's $5.5 and $5.7 per Gallon.

[horns666]

This whole things is a bunch of horseshit!!!

[ApeDosMil]

Its the assclowns that bought SUVS during the SUV popularity peak that are fucking us over

I bet the Gas companys somehow had something to do with that too.

[jgcable]

We have a 01 Durango R/T with a 5.9 L V8 and a 02 Grand Cherokee Limited with a 4.7 L V8. I drive 70 miles a day for work so I'm in the Jeep alot. Since I started driving, I have always had a truck or an SUV. We have three boys that play multiple sports and I play out so we need something thats roomy. I'm 6'4" and there is no way I'm sqeezing into a tiny hybrid for my 2 hours of commuting each day. I'm not going to get a smaller car to make someone else happy. I hate hearing the "it's the people who drive SUVs" bullshit.

I'm not happy about gas prices, but what can I do? We could squeeze into tiny cars, but I'm not willing to do that and I'm not willing to have my family do that either. We all have our own priorities. I may not like it, but I'll pay the $3 or $4 per gallon. Bill nailed it. They have us by the shorties.

Thats why I won't bitch about it.

Hey Jim, when I said "it's the people who drive SUV's bullshit" I was talking about the people who drive them out of luxury and not necessity. For instance.. I have a friend who drives a Ford F350 Crew cab. He is married with no children, he doesn't tow anything and he doesn't use it for business. I have another friend who has an Excursion, a 30th anniversary Cobra and a souped up Mustang 5.0. Same thing applies. Our other friends just bought an Expedition and another bought an Escalade because the prices were so low on them. Niether of them need a truck for any reason. Thats what I am talking about. 6'4" guys like you with an active growing family need big vehicles. Your the ones who are getting screwed at the pump because you have no choice. The people who don't care and are charging all of their gas so they can eventually file for bankrupcy when they can't pay their car payments or charge card dept are the ones who are screwing all of us.

[horns666]

This is USA today's report on this crap!

So much for the hope that prices would return to more "normal" levels once production rebounded after the hurricanes. And so much for the notion that price spikes are caused only by actual events, such as storms and embargos. This time oil has surged, pushing gasoline to the $3-per-gallon range, primarily because traders are bidding it up.

A tempting response might be to blame the speculators. They, like multinational oil companies, make good targets. A more productive approach, however, would be to learn the broader lesson of $70 oil. Put simply, it is that America is too dependent on oil from unstable regions of the world, and too vulnerable to a supply disruption.

This argument has long been made on an intellectual level - President Bush did so in his most recent State of the Union address. Now it is being made in a more compelling and tangible way by the energy traders.

Perhaps the best way to look at surging prices is as what insurers call a "risk premium." Markets are imposing this higher cost on consumers for the risky nature of the nation's energy policies, or lack thereof. The United States has made itself reliant on oil from places such as the Persian Gulf and Nigeria. With the war in Iraq, growing tensions with Iran and unrest in Nigeria, this reliance is a major problem. Markets view it as a risky behavior, not unlike how an insurance company might look at a young driver with a history of accidents who just bought a Ferrari.

While markets are not in the insurance business, many of their participants are. Energy-reliant companies insure themselves against the catastrophic consequences of a major supply disruption by buying oil futures. This guarantees them the fuel they need in the future at a price they have locked in today. It also pushes up prices.

Another way to look at the oil markets' behavior is as the world's de facto energy policy, at least for the near term. With rising demand from China and India, there's almost no room for error on the supply side. For lack of any other solution the market has, in effect, hiked the gas tax by 55 cents a gallon in the past two months. This is painful to most drivers, particularly low-income commuters. But there is little doubt that a market-imposed tax of this size will spur conservation.

However one looks at today's prices - as an insurance premium or a tax - they're the new reality. High gasoline prices aren't going to blow over like summer storms. If traders can bid up the price of oil so easily, then the best thing consumers can do is assume that these levels either are here to stay or will return with some regularity.

The best thing policymakers can do is concentrate on long-term strategies to develop alternatives to oil. That would involve a good bit more courage and perseverance than they've shown so far. But it's better than being dependent on oil from unreliable sources.