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Author Topic: Gas Prices in your area Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-21-2008 06:35 PM                     quote: Chris Hipp I suppose we can take some satisfaction knowing that these idiots who are buying oil for over $200 a barrel are going to take a lot bigger hit than we are when the bubble does pop. I don't know about that. The high price of oil is pushing up prices for many other everyday necessities, like food. That's ramping up the misery index for lots of middle class and lower income workers. Some financial experts (people I see on the Bloomberg channel) are now throwing around the term "demand destruction," saying we're getting dangerously close to that. At some point these conditions are going to cause a lot of people to just go broke. Credit card companies have been releasing some disturbing numbers regarding consumer debt and rising levels of defaults. Others with little money left to spend are just going to stop spending money on anything outside of basic necessities. We're looking at consumer retrenchment. That's a very bad thing considering 70% of our economy is driven by consumer spending. With oil prices and prices of other things going ever higher at ever faster rates, that may create an equally quick inertia for a downward slide. Many investors already know the oil market is "frothy" and getting propelled upward by speculative fear and greed. The prices have nothing to do with fundamentals of existing oil supply and demand. The trick for investors and speculators is figuring out just when to sell before the bottom falls out. They just don't want to lose money by selling short. I think if oil gets well into the $150-$200 per barrel range it will plunge the United States economy into a deep, prolonged recession. Many developed nations and emerging economies depend on America's appetite for imports. With a serious recession in America a lot of that demand will be gone. A great deal of the growth that took place in China, India and other developing nations in recent years was funded by American consumers and businesses. Serious recessions in the US have spawned worldwide downturns in the past. As to who really gets hurt when the oil bubble pops, I think the average working class folks are going to get hit harder than any wealthy investor. Sure, some investors are going to get hit hard when that bubble bursts. But I don't think they're going to go broke the way a middle class person with little financial cushion can.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-21-2008 08:33 PM                        I listen quite often to Bruce Williams (talk show host, financial advisor) -- he thinks we'll see $6.00 per gallon in the next two years.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-22-2008 03:56 AM                     quote: Mike Blakesley he thinks we'll see $6.00 per gallon in the next two years. ...to match the $7.25/hr minimum wage in 2009...  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 05-22-2008 05:52 AM                     quote: Mike Blakesley I listen quite often to Bruce Williams (talk show host, financial advisor) -- he thinks we'll see $6.00 per gallon in the next two years. My prediction is that it will double within 2-3 years, and reach $25 per gallon within ten years. I don't think it will be the end of the world as we know it. People will make less long journeys, they will walk more for short ones, as they used to. We are just going to have to get used to the idea of energy being expensive. There will be more incentive for improved efficiency, We'll see more of waste heat recovery from air conditioning systems and industrial processes, and that sort of thing. Plastics are also going to get a lot more expensive too, and we're going to see a lot more recycling of them, which is really only just starting to happen now. I also think we will have a lot less of things like strawberries in the middle of winter, as we can get now, as the cost of flying them half way round the world, or growing them under controlled conditions becomes too great, but we never used to have them all year round, and life wasn't too terrible then.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-22-2008 06:12 AM                        My guess on this is somewhere between Stephen's and Bobby's. At the core of the issue is this: are we dealing with a commodity price bubble of a similar sort to the recent house price bubble in the US and Britain (and, more to the point, will it go pop in the same way?), or is the underlying cause of this Peak Oil? If the former, then I guess we're in for another one of the boom and bust cycles which have characterised developed economies since the Industrial Revolution, with the rapidly developing economies of China and India changing the details and timing to a certain extent. But if Peak Oil has arrived (and I find OPEC's 'we won't pump more oil' statements a tad suspicious - won't or can't?), then the goalposts have been permanently moved. We'll have to use existing energy sources more efficiently, and develop newer and more renewable ones. During the era of cheap fossil fuels, it simply wasn't cost effective to do the latter - it was far cheaper to pump the energy we needed out of the ground, and then to use it in a relatively inefficient way. If that's no longer the case, I agree with Stephen that there are going to be big changes in all of our lives in the coming years and decades. All that's up for debate is the how and the when.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-22-2008 06:14 AM                     I bought gas in Orem, Utah for 3.529 a gallon yesterday. Normal prices here are around 3.699... go figure... Mark  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 05-22-2008 05:41 PM                        The expensive station in San Francisco was $4.239 the other day. The more reasonable ones on 19th avenue were $4.039 this morning and usually they're within one or two pennies of the suburban prices so it's not just a big city gouging. I can't wait for gas to be more than the cost of a movie so customers can stop complaining. I pumped gas a few weeks ago and found it amusing that at $3.75 a gallon the meter kept adding up like the bargain matinee tickets did when I first started in theatres in 1994.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-23-2008 01:35 PM                     Anybody's theatre prices (either/both box and conc) taking an increase due to this fuel pricing crisis? Another question that I have to ask and that is: with the price of fuel nowdays (which is forever increasing day by day..and obviously we're not getting any cost of living increases in our wages due to this situation) - Has this caused any form of re-budgeting your pocketbooks, driving habits, change of vehicles, methods of travel, et.al., so one isn't being hurt too bad with these fuel increases?  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-23-2008 05:21 PM                        Has anyone working in theatres that can only be reached by car (e.g. multiplexes next to a city's outer ring road) noticed a drop-off in trade? I'd have thought that city centre venues from which most of the customers come either on foot or by public transport would now be in a stronger position than those which can only be visited by car. But there again, if a couple or family is prepared to spend £30-40 on a trip to the pictures and all the incidentals that go with it, an extra 50p for the petrol to get there and back isn't going to be a deal breaker, I guess.  |  IP: Logged Jean-Marc Toussaint Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Paris, France Registered: May 2008 posted 05-24-2008 09:15 AM                        I know this is no competition, but for the sake of conversation, I made some comparisons with gas price over here (Paris, France)... It's an average 1.55 euros per liter for the cheap gas. There are 3.8 liter to a gallon (US). It means that we pay 5.89 euros (USD 9.28) per gallon. Food (or gas) for thought.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-24-2008 09:33 AM                     Stephen, I would highly doubt that gas will hit $25/gallon (in the States). It would shut down this country...which is the sort of thing that wars are made of. This country is rather spread out and has always pushed the transportation of the day. The very nature of States as individual sovern entities within a common "united" collective is, at the root, how this country runs. Without transportation by road/air...etc in an economical fashion will kill not only the economic infrastructure but the whole way of life. $25/gallon based on current income levels (or even rosy projected income levels 10-years from now), would effectively strand people and kill them. At $3.00/$4.00 per gallon it is already showing its affect on our economy entertainment businesses have already felt its affects. How many miles does the average American drive in a week? For me, it is in the hundreds, just to get to/from work (not the miles at work, in a company vehicle). Call it 300-miles for me. My vehicle seems to get about 30miles/gallon or about 10-gallons a week. That is $250/week or $13,000/year for gas at $25.00 a gallon. For some, it would be notably more...for some a bit less but either way...rather parallizing. Then again, at those gas rates...most won't be able to go to the theatre so my income to drop to make things even more dire. In a day when people still talk about the difference of a few pennies over a loaf of bread, the difference of 300-400% in a gallon of gas to get that loaf of bread would seem to finanically kill the shopper (note, the loaf of bread would also go up in price more than pennies since the transporation costs of getting it to market would also go up 300-400%). Steve  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-24-2008 09:33 AM                     Jean, I can certainly see that price happenning here too in the near future! The high prices certainly DOESN'T seem to have ruined any other countries economy... in the long run it will actually strengthen ones economy and bring forth much more public transportation that we should have seen happen long long ago. Mark  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-24-2008 02:09 PM                     I believe the US must get more passenger rail systems built and have more bus service running in other areas. Unfortunately this country has a lot of challenges when it comes to mass transit. The United States can't seem to get a public transportation system built these days without it turning into some corrupted, cost-overrun infected boondoggle. I find it amazing this country had so many passenger rail lines 100 years ago. It would be impossible to provide that level of service today. Countries in Europe and Asia are better able to get mass transit systems built since their population densities are so much higher. They don't have to build as many miles of track. At the peak of America's rail system, it had over 200,000 miles of track. Now we have the property of a lot of former rail lines being converted into trails and bike paths -if they're not covered up by housing development and other stuff. Then there's the matter of the "car culture" in the United States. Americans love traveling in their own vehicles wherever they want and do so on their own schedule. quote: Steve Guttag I would highly doubt that gas will hit $25/gallon (in the States). It would shut down this country...which is the sort of thing that wars are made of. I'm a little foggy history, but didn't we have an oil embargo running against the Japanese empire in 1941? Isn't that one of the factors that pushed their military into bombing Pearl Harbor? If gasoline shot up to $25 per gallon, or even $10 a gallon any time soon it would cause a hell of a lot of political crisis. The US dollar would need a lot of inflation/devaluation along with workers having their pay increased a lot to make up for all that inflation for $10 per gallon or $25 per gallon gasoline to keep from starting wars, causing famine, etc. One thing I'm holding out hope that will happen is these high prices will force a much more aggressive, faster conversion to cars that run on fuels other than gasoline. American car companies are losing billions of dollars doing business as usual. Airlines are in a state of crisis. Ethanol is a big scam and costly distraction from doing something that will be truly effective in getting this country off the oil tit. Whether we need to be driving electric cars, cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells or whatever, this country seriously needs to get on the ball to converting to that within the next 10 years, if not sooner. Sticking with gasoline is just going to cause this country more and more trouble.  |  IP: Logged Jean-Marc Toussaint Film Handler Posts: 60 From: Paris, France Registered: May 2008 posted 05-25-2008 08:49 PM                        If you haven't seen it yet, try to grab "Who Killed the Electric Car?" about th elife and death of the Saturn EV1. Quite an enlightning documentary...  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-26-2008 05:02 AM                        I'm not sure that direct comparisons between European and US petrol prices are that helpful, because a much larger proportion of the European retail price is tax (currently 81% for petrol in Britain, against a European average of around 60%). Perversely, this cushions the blow when the price of the actual liquid goes up, because the overall price we pay for it increases a lot less, proportionally. I dread to think how much a high speed rail link across America (using similar technology to France's TGV and Japan's Shikansen) would cost - the thought reminds me of the scene in The Iron Horse in which President Lincoln signs the railroad bill, sightly nervous of what a huge project it represented. If the money could be found, I guess it would be possible to build a rail link that could take you from New York to Los Angeles in one long day (15 hours or so). But even the Channel Tunnel rail link (55 miles or so) cost £2 billion here. Multiply the cost of that over 3,000 miles, and the only possible way I can see of making it happen would be to impose European levels of taxation on road fuel. Given that the average American has to travel much longer distances routinely than the average European, that would impose massive hardship. I'd also be interested to know how the energy input needed to take a TGV-type train across America would compare with that of a 747 or an A380 (which carries around the same number of passengers) making the same trip.  |  IP: Logged

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