Dammitall!!

[~K~]

http://www.minnesotagasprices.com/

It's available for all 50


FWIW Here the lowest is $2.42. i was suprised when i looked at the MN chart because it is considerably higher out there

[~K~]

Cruse oil roughly costs about $4 a barrel to get out of the ground yet has been sold over $70 recently. So the blame the Arab nations ? Yet again, hardly. Here are the top 4 Nations we imported oil from in 2002.

Oil is sold and traded as a comodity IE highest bidder gets the gold. Chinas consumption has gone through the roof so we effectively have to bid agaist them to get our gasoline...

That doesn't mean there isn't price gougine going on. Last year the oil companies claimed gas was up because of the higher cost of producing the winter blend. Once the summer blend came around low and behold bang ...oops we had to take our refineries offline for maintentence .. B.S!

Let's face it, we are all a slave to the game and short of not driving there isn't much we can do about it ..

Besides now that they have broken $3 they have you conditioned to think $2.50 is a bargain ... next year $4

[Vass]

I enjoy the boo hoo hoo from politicians "feeling our pain" and demanding a "profit cap" or "windfall tax" when a company makes money. Notice however nobody even broaches the subject of rolling back taxes, which make up a huge part of gasoline costs.

The same people crying about oil company profits are the same people crying about global warming & the same people that insist on prohibiting drilling in ANWAR & the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil shortages of the 70's were NOT caused by OPEC's embargo. They were caused by Nixon's price controls. Limit the ability of a company to make a profit, and you limit the amount of product available. For easy example of this please see "Supermarkets, Soviet Union".

Hugo Chavez has placed price controls of this sort in Venezuela, primarily on "staples" like bread, cheese & meat- Consequently, these staples are in short supply, while the shelves sag under the weight of all the fruit rollups and other garbage food that isn't price controlled.

Politicians are not your friends. Especially ones claiming to "give" you something or do something "for the little guy". They're populists at best and demogogues at worst.

Anyway.

Punish the oil companies? At your peril. You would likely end up with a situation where you wouldn't be able to find gasoline at any price.

Some may find the profit motive ugly, but it is one that is easily understood, straightforward, and honest. It's all those claiming to act altruistically and "for your benefit" that are the ones you really need to watch out for.

EDIT FOR MAYDAY- I hear you bud but there's more to it than that, and more than a grain of truth. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There are so many different fuel regulations in different states that what is 100% enviromental super fuel in one area doesn't cut it in another. Refiners have to tool up to handle different blends. They make one gas that is great in Nevada but no go in California. So they tend to make the fuel that is most profitable and only when they have that taken care of do they re-calibrate the equipment to make some of the smaller market fuel, which of course is costly & slow.

There's an effort to harmonize fuel standards nationally to combat this, but it won't be an easy sell.

If there's any bad guys it's probably a few foriegn heads of state. Alot of the premium in oil right now has to do with "risks" to supply- Iran, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Iraq, hurricanes, etc etc etc.... these lurking threats, none of which have actually advanced past the "threat" stage, have built a big premium into oil prices over the last several years.

To wit: Any time prices start to fall, Ahmadinejad in Iran, Chavez in Venezuela, or some other oil-rich country's leader spouts off something insane about vaporizing Israel, or says they're thinking about nationalizing assets, or whatever, and like day follows night prices spike and the oil gravy train keeps flowing their way.

Traders may be a bit culpable here too.

http://epa.gov/otaq/boutique.htm

Vass

[chrisolson]

http://www.minnesotagasprices.com/

It's available for all 50

The good news is that the cheapest gas is only about 250 miles away! I use that website quite a bit though.

[chrisolson]

I
There's an effort to harmonize fuel standards nationally to combat this, but it won't be an easy sell.

That would be nice, but it's a pipe dream. Especially with all the people making sure the "Ethanol Subsidies" stay in place. Cripes, Minnesota is doing everything in it's power to mandate 20% ethanol. Every gas company has it's own "special blends" & detergents - I think they should force that to happen at the tanker level - no more wasting of refinery resources for that.

If it did happen, however, I would bet we'd see gas prices back under $2.00.

[Vass]

Agreed Chris.

Another chapter in the Law of Unintended Consequences- Mexican protest due to tortilla prices shooting through the roof, and (SONOFABITCH) a shortage of prime beef for NYC steakhouses.

Peter Lugar's won't let you do takeout anymore, and lots of places are trying to pimp up cheaper cuts of meat because it's too hard to get the good stuff on the menu unless you have a good connection with your meat man.

Vass