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Author Topic: Gas prices is creeping up again Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 06-18-2009 04:26 AM                     (Time to drag this one out again...) Has anyone notice that diesel is NOW cheaper than gasoline? Odd, aint it? $2.69/gal here in the Boise area.. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-18-2009 09:27 AM                     1.05 ca a litre in toronto last weekend  |  IP: Logged Julio Roberto Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 938 From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain Registered: Oct 2008 posted 06-18-2009 09:39 AM                    And you think you have it tough. Gas costs here close to 1€ per liter. At today's exchange rate and unit convertion, the exact amount in a random gas station in Madrid is $5.032 US per gallon.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 06-18-2009 12:25 PM                     According to an article in my local newspaper yesterday, the price of a barrel is traded around $70 USD and that the increasing prices are primarily due to speculation on the commodities market. The $70 is the commodities price not necessarily what OPEC is getting.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-18-2009 01:00 PM                     Gasoline prices have been rising like crazy lately. A couple months ago they were well under $2.00 per gallon. Now 87 octane fuel costs $2.63 per gallon. Commodity speculators are at it again, essentially making us pay a lot more now for what they think may be an economic recovery several months or more in the future. Some of these guys are even throwing out wishful thoughts of $150-$200 per barrel oil. I've got some news for them (which they already know but are too greedy to admit): more price gouging on energy will eliminate any economic recovery. The market will just go bouncing sideways if not testing new lows. There is no escaping the absolute fact consumers have only so much money they can spend. With unemployment rates being high this isn't exactly the kind of environment where just anyone can approach the boss about a pay raise. Consumer credit is still largely frozen unless you have a stellar credit rating (which translates into not needing any loans in the first place). In the end, the consumer has no wiggle room. If he is putting an ever larger slice of his income into fuel, utilities and food costs that's going to mean less money to spend in other areas of the economy. Very simple math. 70% of the US economy is driven by consumer spending. High oil prices are good for the oil industry, but it sucks for most other sectors of business. quote: Julio Roberto Gas costs here close to 1€ per liter. At today's exchange rate and unit convertion, the exact amount in a random gas station in Madrid is $5.032 US per gallon. There's a big factor that must be clarified. Most of Europe is well covered with passenger rail service, not to mention other modes of mass transit. That's far from the case here in the United States. It's much easier for someone to get by without owning a car in Europe than it is in the United States. With long established mass transit alternatives like passenger rail that puts a lesser percentage of commuters on the roads. That increases the road maintenance cost burden of those who choose to drive. This is why fuel is so expensive in Europe.  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 06-18-2009 01:39 PM                     The problem with the oil commodity is that the price seems to have almost nothing to do with true supply and demand. We could all drive 200 mpg vehicles and gas will just go up to $9 per gallon. The only thing we could really do is open up all of our offshore, alaska and everywhere else reserves for drilling. Part of the lease could be that oil pumped out of these areas may only be sold to the US market and that each platform must put out a minimum barrels per day to prevent the artificial lowering of supply. That could buy us the decade or decade and a half that it will take to develop any real alternative transportation fuel source. Increasing CAFE standards is not going to solve this problem. As long as we rely on foreign oil we are basically stuck paying whatever OPEC and the speculators decide.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-18-2009 03:37 PM                     I think we're pretty screwed regardless. It's possible to drill in more places offshore or in wilderness areas of Alaska. Unfortunately it would take years for such drilling operations to come online even on land in Alaska. You need infrastructure elements like roads and pipelines to get the oil from the fields out to the shipping ports. That isn't easy or cheap to build up there. Basically there is nothing to stop short term oil price spikes except for another negative tailspin in the American economy. The added oil supply would help in terms of a plan of weaning us off dependence of foreign oil imports and pursuing alternative energy plans. But it is clear that both big government and big business too often only think about the short term. When oil prices collapsed a few months ago the plug was pulled on lots of alternative energy projects. Suddenly they weren't profitable enough. Once oil goes back over $100 per barrel they'll talk about alternative energy again. Then it will get put on the back burner yet again when the economy delivers yet another negative correction. Basically, we have neither the political or business will in really getting something fundamentally accomplished in terms of alternative energy. We're just going to need so severe a situation that we will embrace the alternative when there is no other choice. I think this is true for a number of other difficult issues the United States is facing. It takes utter disaster for us to start trying to solve a problem. We don't like preventing a crisis. The situation is quite funny. Sort of like giving chemotherapy treatments to someone after they already died of cancer.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-18-2009 04:58 PM                     235.9 here at Simth's if you buy 80.00 worth of grceries. Otherwise 245.9. Mark  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-18-2009 06:50 PM                        That's not much of a "deal." Buy $80 in groceries, and 25 gallons of gas, save a whopping $2.50.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 06-18-2009 07:18 PM                     Something I read a few weeks ago was that the traders are filling any thing that will hold more than 5 gallons with crude hoping for a tremendous price rise. Old tankers were cited as the primary storage.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 06-18-2009 07:59 PM                        Regular unleaded is now $3.00 a gallon in Hawaii and will keep rising. On top of that, there will be a drastic Hawaii state ten cent fuel tax increase on July 1st. In addition to the fuel tax increase, regular unleaded gas should be about $3.50 or more by the end of July. If gas prices continue to go up, we should be paying $5.00 a gallon very soon -Claude  |  IP: Logged Andy Muirhead Master Film Handler Posts: 323 From: Galashiels, Scotland Registered: Dec 2000 posted 06-18-2009 08:19 PM                     quote: If gas prices continue to go up, we should be paying $5.00 a gallon very soon [Frown] Even if it got to those prices, I think you have a bargain. At the moment, prices in the UK are close to around $9 a gallon.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-18-2009 09:17 PM                     I guess it bears repeating: people in Europe have reasonable alternatives to driving a car. If it's too expensive to drive, you just commute by train, bus, etc. Most people in the United States don't have those alternatives.  |  IP: Logged Andy Muirhead Master Film Handler Posts: 323 From: Galashiels, Scotland Registered: Dec 2000 posted 06-19-2009 08:24 PM                     So Bobby, You don't have trains, buses etc in the States? I'm guessing by reasonable alternatives you assume that in 'Europe' public transport is readily available and from all locations? A huge percentage of the UK (and in fact Europe) is mainly rural, and has very limited access to Bus, Trains and public transport in general. I don't really see any difference to the US in that aspect.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-20-2009 01:38 AM                     Europe has vastly far superior coverage in terms of passenger rail service coverage than the United States. Same thing goes for bus transportation. As far as I can tell (from looking via Google Earth) Galashiels doesn't have any passenger rail service. Neither does Lawton, OK. Let's compare further. The nearest passenger rail outlet to me is in downtown Oklahoma City, a 90 mile drive NE on Interstate 44. From there the only rail service is Amtrak's Heartland Flyer down to Fort Worth, TX. That's it. No stops elsewhere to cities like Tulsa, Amarillo, Kansas City, etc. Nothing in terms of commuter rail. The few lines of light rail service in Dallas is the nearest thing for that. You can drive A-68 a little over 30 miles North to Edinburgh. That city has more passenger rail service than Oklahoma City. From there you can connect on train routes to Glasgow, Falkirk, Stirling or head down into most any part of Britain. That's not quite so easy to do here in the United States. Going farther, most American cities don't have commuter rail service. Only the very biggest cities. And those commuter rail services are typically isolated. They don't connect with other rail networks. That's not the case in Europe. Amtrak is a mere shadow of its former self. Look at all the long distance rail service lines available in the UK or all of Europe. Then look at Amtrak in the US. Amtrak is just pathetic by comparison, and Amtrak is expected to cover a larger area of territory! Please don't take that as me mocking Europe's mass transit system. I would very much prefer the situation to be similar here. But it isn't, all thanks to the oil lobby, the auto manufacturing lobby and even the airline industry lobby. They don't want train service hitting all parts of the US like it did back in the early 1900s. There are people in my own home state just salivating over the idea of $5 and higher per gallon gasoline with no other transportation alternative. But like I've said in earlier posts, if we get to that point the US economy will be twisting under the turds in the bottom of the toilet.  |  IP: Logged

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