Some Explain Gas Situation Volume 4.65 a Gallon Where I live

[chris boshs neck]

This is getting ridiculous. I have an acura tsx... small car with 4 cylinder 205hp engine and it still cost a fortune to fill up. I am considering a mini or anTDI jetta these days. In vancouver gas is 1.30 a liter or 4.65 a gallon. And you though America was bad.

From my understanding, are we just the middle east (female dog)? And they can jack up prices and there is nothing we can do about it. It is amazing how we letthis happen. Gas companies are making more money than ever, pretending that we are running out of gas, yet that is not the case, at least now. Its time forNorth America to grow a pair and do something about it. It is just sad that the middle east is playing us like this and we can not do anything about it. Itseems the only hope is to find gas in north america and sell it cheap... which i dont see happening because when people can make a lot of money and screw thewhole nation over, they will go for the money. Only other option is we actually make electric cars and put money and effort into it, not pretend to so demandfor gas will go down.


Also It is a crock of crap that we can not make an electric car. How hard can it be seriously. We can go to space, we can do all this wild stuff.... but wecant make a simple electric car. It is pretty clear to me that the government and the gas industry will not like anything like this get off the ground becausethey will lose so much money... and everyone knows the gas companies run washington.

 

[crimsoncloudattire]

Speak with your wallet. If you really abhor the policies, get a hybrid car. Moreover, get a foreign made hybrid car and punish the gas companies and Americaat the same time. Honda civic (50 mpg), toyota prius (55 mpg). If everybody did it, gas consumption would drop monumentally and they'd feel it andpossibly stop screwing North America.

Here's the problem.

Me personally, the $1200 a year I'd save in gas by switching to a hybrid....well its just not worth giving up my car that I love, so I don't care yet. And I'm sure there are tons of people who feel the same way. So, we are gonna keep getting pimped as a whole.

 

[rexanglorum]

Why do you say that nothing can be done. In the very, very short run gasoline's demand is pretty inelastic, as prices increase people will not or cannotreduce the amount that they consume. The longer the time horizon though, the more elastic we are, the more we can reduce gasoline consumption due to higherprices. In the most short run, we can alter our routines and combine errands. Households with multiple cars, can put the SUV in the garage and use the smallercars fr trips and regular commuting. As time goes by, more and more households replace old cars with new ones and they will buy with fuel economy in mind.

When it comes to car makers, they are making more fuel efficient cars to meet that rising demand and they are dedicating much less resources into making gasguzzlers. They also are investing money into making cars even more fuel efficient, while still being comfortable, being able to perform well and not costingthat much more than the models that they anticipate their competitors making. Similar changes will take places all around the economy, an economy whosemillions of decision makers have hitherto assumed very cheap energy. Households and firms across the country can make some relatively simple and inexpensivechange and drastically reduce how much energy they use. These high prices are do what prices are supposed to do. They convey the information that a particulargood is scarce.

Even further down the line, car companies and energy companies, will invest more and more into research and development to find fuels that are truly viable andalternative.

Households will conserve in order to help their bottom line, car companies will make and invest in fuel efficiency to help their bottom line and energyconcerns will invest in research into totally new types of fuels to help their bottom line. Politicians have and will continue dumping out tax dollars intoexpensive projects, that would not be viable without tax payer largess; disastrous endeavors, like corn ethanol subsidies and they will omit plenty of hot airabout conservation and research into alternative fuels. Meanwhile, consumers and companies will actually be accomplishing those goals and unlike politicians,consumers and companies are and will continue to yield results.

 

[chris boshs neck]

Rexanglorum thats all fine and tandy... but it is pathetic that our governments are not doing anything about it. We are being forced to change our lifestylesbecause the middle east has all the oil.

I dont understand the Iraq war... doesn't iraq have a ton of oil? Arnt we in control of that country.... so we should be getting as much oil as we wantfrom them. If gas was cheap because of the iraq war I bet a lot more people would think it was worth while.

 

[rexanglorum]

Well, there are three things that government can do to reduce gas prices.

One is to place a cap on prices that gas stations can charge. This would lead to shortages because more gasoline would be demanded at a lower price and lesswould be supplied at the lower price. Gas stations would likely start to keep shorter hours, not offer bathrooms, leave broken pumps unfixed and close some ofthere locations. Basically, we would not only be faced with "sold out" signs at gas stations, we would also suffer qualitatively due to price caps.This is all of course theory but it is a theory that has been borne out so many times, that the science that is economics ought to call it a law.

A second option is for our governments to subsidize gasoline. This would be good because unlike option one, we would not have shortages but this would distortconsumer behavior and they might just go make to driving gas guzzler and that would require more subsidizing and eventually a burden on the treasury and taxesor government debt.

A third option, is to lift all government taxes on gasoline. This would reduce the price at the pump but even without prices, the prices are high ourgovernments would be losing revenue and they would need to tax something else or reduce spending or incur debt.

A forth option is to limit how much fuel a person can purchase. This would increase conservation but imagine how disruptive that would be in your life thelives of most of our fellow North Americans. In addition, non war time rationing, is tyrannical and unacceptable on principle.

The fifth option would be to nationalize gas stations and sell at a low price. This would, of course, be incredibly foolish in a multitude of ways. The servicequality and hours would likely drop. If the price they charge is so low as to make these government run gas stations unprofitable, the difference would be madeup through the public treasury. Also, they would likely start to ration and only allow that you buy a certain amount of gasoline per week.

The final option would be what you are suggesting. Plundering Iraq's oil. I suppose that since the US is expending so much from the treasury to fund thewar and occupation, we should collect some spoils and give out vouchers for free or discounted gasoline. This would be better than any of the other optionsthat I mentioned but he idea of doing such a thing makes me uncomfortable and I assume that that would be the case might most people in both of our countries.Than again, more Americans would probably support the war again if they could get free or cheap gasoline at the pump and I bet if we gave Canada some free oil,Canadian public opinion would change. This option still has all of the other disadvantages of the others and that is to say that it reduces incentives toadjust and reduce and eventually swap out gasoline consumption in favor of something else.



In my opinion, it would be wise to soften the hardship imposed on lower income Americans and Canadians by giving them some free gasoline (subsidized or perhapsexpropriated from Iraq) and reducing the amount of free/subsidized gasoline as one's income rises and specify that this program will be phased out over thenext few years.

Prices are a signal that reality has changed. The price of gasoline is saying that gasoline is becoming scarcer and scarcer and we need to use it moreefficiently and eventually we need to find ways to produce cheap energy without using fossil fuels. Most government attempts at doing something would block outthat signal and people and companies would not change their behavior and the problem could be much, much worse down the line as a result.

 

[chris boshs neck]

dont you agree that electric cars can be made if money if put into it. It cant be that hard... look what mankind has come up with... people just dont wantelectric cars out on the market because they will lose lots of money

 

[kobekid24]

@%%* is getting ridiculous...

 

[rexanglorum]

dont you agree that electric cars can be made if money if put into it. It cant be that hard... look what mankind has come up with... people just dont want electric cars out on the market because they will lose lots of money


For the first part of the statement I really cannot say very much since I am not an engineer, let alone an engineer that works on this particular product.Electric cars do exist already but despite what conspiracy theorists are saying, there is likely not an electric car that performs as well as a traditionalinternal combustion car. If there is an electric car that does perform that well, it is likely very expensive to produce so it is not commercially viable. Evenif it satisfies those two conditions, it also would have to be efficient with the electricity. That electricity has to be produced from burning gasoline orcoal or by some other method that cost money and it could make the energy cost needed to run this high performing, cheaply to produced car, much more expensiveto run than it would be to run the cars that we have now.

While it is true that we have accomplished a lot in the way of scientific achievement, we also know various things happen at very different paces. Doctors haveperform heart transplants but we cannot cure the common cold for instance. The first motion picture was made in the 19th century but it has only been the lastdecade that Internet has become widely available. Just because we were able to put a man on the moon does not necessarily mean that a high performing, cheap tobuild electric car, that would require the equivalent of the burning of one gallon of gasoline to get 300 miles of driving is available or on the verge ofbeing viable even while technological miracles are concurrently going on in other fields.

Finally, from the standpoint of incentives, while some would lose money from electric cars replacing gasoline powered cars, many would stand to gain money aswell. The biggest losers would be the owners of gas stations. The energy companies, who might have the political clout to delay the development of a viableelectric car, would simply be selling to power plants that would be demanding gasoline that would be used to make electricity. Car companies, especially thefirst one to make a viable electric car, would make plenty of money and as gas prices rise, you know that the incentive to develop such a car grows. Almostevery other sector in the economy would stand to gain from super efficient electric motors in cars and ships and aircraft. The cost of production anddistribution becomes lower and that means a potentially larger profit for most firms, that and they could make a greater profit because consumer income wouldbe freed up from spending so much on gasoline.

When you say, "they" stand to lose money, you have got to consider who "they" are. It could potentially be as small of a group as gasstation owners and even then many of them could still just convert their business into a corner store, sell parts and accessories for new electric cars, becomea recharging station, or sell or rent the space to a new business (this would depend upon the actual nature of these new electric cars). The energy companieswould simply sell to new customers and every one else gains.

I am just happy with high gas prices, no one should be happy with the fact that people, especially poor people, have a bigger portion of their paychecks goingto a good that used take up a much smaller portion of their paycheck. I am not happy that, I or my fellow citizens have less disposable income. I am not happythat some of the additional profits made by OPEC countries are being funneled to Islamic Fascists, who want to kill me and you simply because of who we are.

All I am saying is that the good that can come out of this is that these high prices can and will bring about innovations that might eventually make it so thatgasoline and transportation in general, will one day take out only a negligible portion of our budgets.


I know that research and development dollars are flowing into to quest for increasingly fuel efficient cars. The profit motive is there and that is what willmove mountains and make miracles. I just hope that the engineers at the various car companies are as creative with designing high performing cars withimpressive fuel economy as you were with that avy.

 

[i am furby]

OPEC loves to rape America.

 

[craftsy21]

Rex - don't you feel like giving out gasoline just makes the problem worse? It's encouraging a lifestyle (the current american way) that is just notsustainable where we stand today in terms of technology.

How about we go just the opposite way and reward families and individuals who are responsible and eco-friendly with more of the tax-breaks we've seen forthe hybrid cars.. expand that to reward other ways people are helping out with lowering the demand on gasoline -- people who ride bikes to work, families withjust one car, etc.

Technology will eventually catch up, but we are walking steadfast down a path that falls off a cliff in the very near future. It's a tough pill for mostamericans to swallow, but until some alt-energy car becomes easily available and affordable to own, gas prices will not go down a noticeable amount whilepeople continue trying to lead their regular routines of the last 20 years.

There is going to come a point where people can't continue living the commuter lifestyle soon - and it's either going to be their decision to make inchanging their lifestyle, or it's going to be forced upon them when they can't afford to fill up anymore.

Those waiting for the government to come bail us all out are in for the rudest awakening of all, because as you've just shown, even the government'soptions are very limited in their scope.

Like you've said before about other things, I feel the same way about this... technology will step up to the plate in the nick of time and likely provide a"way out" for most of us, but it's going to get worse before it gets better and we have only ourselves to blame for ignoring a problem we knewabout a long time ago.

Sure, big oil is to blame.. opec can take some of it, too.. They aren't innocent here. But judging them strictly as business-driven firms, they've doneeverything right.. they've made more money than ever before, who could blame them for their actions while we curse them out as we're filling up.

It's time (well, it's way PAST time) for americans to start being accountable for themselves and quit crying that the gov't needs to do something..for once, this isn't a problem the government created - cut back on your oil consumption, and prices will get better. Not just for a day, or 3 days.. orwhatever stupid email chain letter theory tells you... But for good. If nothing else, it will save you money at the pump just by using less.. but if everybodycould get this idea into their heads, the price at the pump would come down, too.

 

[superblytrife]

Honestly, if I had a better job, I wouldn't give a damn about gas prices. Personally, I try to drive as little as possible, regardless of the gas pricing.But with them where they are now, even the 24 mile roundtrip drive to and from work every day is killing me.

There was a time when I could fill up my tank for 25 bones. And that was just a few years ago. Now it's no less than $40ish. SMH.

 

[grizzla1024]

wish our petrol prices were as good as yours.....

Its now £1.10 a litre for petrol and £1.20 for diesel. Thats like double what you lot pay.

 

[shuges]

This *#*$ is disgusting b.

Coincidence that this is happening in an election year? Hmmmm....

Also, if people would open their eyes and take a look around.... In the past 6 months, there have been price hikes on:

rice
fruit
orange juice
eggs
gas
milk
bread/baked goods
airfare & air services (e.g. $10 extra for window seats & aisle seats)
public transport (tolls, tunnels, etc)

Not to mention quite a few other things.

Most of these things are tied together. (You increase one, you have to increase the other).

But with income being the only thing NOT being increased for most people, I see the potential for chaos down the road. In other words, public unrest among thelower classes.

In NYC, (where they have already downsized the police force and where no one wants to become a cop in the first place due to the poor salary [in comparison toother states' police salaries]), there are already some pebbles starting to roll down the hill. The Sean Bell trial has a lot of people mad. And in CrownHeights (Jewish & Black neighborhood), the tension is (once again) rising due to yet ANOTHER racially-motivated crime. You have the people upset at thecops yet more cops will be needed to deal with the unrest if it starts to become violent.

Add all of these things together, (racial tension, inadequate amount of police, food shortages, gas shortages, and MONEY shortages) and it looks like we mayhave a rough summer in the Big Apple.

I'm guessing it's pretty similar in other areas in the country as well.

 

[eff ecks]

Originally Posted by KobeKid24

@%%* is getting ridiculous...

$4.00 here

 

[slayer carcetti]

cost me like $63 to fill up my '94 Maxima the other day

 

[lurkin2long]

LOL, this the 3rd gas related topic I entered this Monday mornin. SHUGES you aint lyin. I go to the grocery store I dont waste money on subway an lil walk injoints these days. I swear me an my girl use to staaaaaaaaaay eatin/orderin out like nuffin. That has slowed down heavy.

 

[JayDean03]

Originally Posted by Eff Ecks

Originally Posted by KobeKid24

@%%* is getting ridiculous...

$4.00 here

In the A? nawww.

but forreal tho, $4?

 

[twig1026]

$85 unlimited monthly metro card ftw

 

[barondavis5]

its 3.63 around my way, its been steady around there. ill be surprised if it hits 4 bucks by summer.

 

[ceelo4]

Originally Posted by Twig1026

$85 unlimited monthly metro card ftw

Hah I pay 81

 

[aj fanatic]

Originally Posted by GriZZla1024

wish our petrol prices were as good as yours.....

Its now £1.10 a litre for petrol and £1.20 for diesel. Thats like double what you lot pay.

GriZZla1024 ... where do youlive in the UK? We need to do a UK summit not sure how many of us reside here. I'm not British but I live here.

Back to the topic. I am glad we get some sorta discounted gas on base I guess. It's about $3.70 for regular. I've resorted to walking to work whenit's warm. I live about 5 minutes from my work walking (thru the cuts and no traffic) and about 10 driving.

 

[chris boshs neck]

ITS 4.65 where i live... yal need to chill





Obama covers a lot in this speech about the topic, and exposes McCain's plan lol