It just keeps dropping here in the DC area. My local place is $1.99/$1.94 cash/credit. I've seen a few Exxons that are charging $1.80. I've never ever before seen a generic station be undercut by a big oil company.
-- 2006 Time magazine Person of the Year --
"...Oh, the band is out on the field!! He's gonna go into the end zone! He's gone into the end zone!! -- Joe Starkey -- November 20, 1982 -- The Play --
$1.45 in Great Bend, KS. I hate to say this but it's too low. This is bad real bad, even if my wallet likes it. It is killing the domestic oil industry.
Originally posted by Guru ZimIt can and should go lower.
Guru, take out taxes and it is well under a buck. I like cheap gas but we must develop alternative fuels and learn to conserve and we must keep our domestic oil industry going in the mean time. And what the price ultimately means is that the world economy is even worse that we thought.
Originally posted by DrDirtAnd what the price ultimately means is that the world economy is even worse that we thought.
Making gasoline more expensive won't change that. In fact, inflated gas prices from corporations posting record profit margins couldn't have done anything but make this "economic crisis" happen even sooner. I certainly don't see how it could have been a good thing.
Originally posted by DrDirtAnd what the price ultimately means is that the world economy is even worse that we thought.
Making gasoline more expensive won't change that. In fact, inflated gas prices from corporations posting record profit margins couldn't have done anything but make this "economic crisis" happen even sooner. I certainly don't see how it could have been a good thing.
Bucs, I am not saying the inflated prices were good. They were too high just as now we are too low. From what I have read, $60/barrel of oil give or take is about right. The point is that gas prices could only have fallen this low because demand is down, way down, due to a major, worldwide economic slowdown. Not just us but especially China and India.
I am not saying making gas prices more expensive makes the world economy better but that if the economy were better, gas prices would be higher. Deflation would not be a good thing long-term for anyone.
(edited by DrDirt on 6.12.08 2242)
(edited by DrDirt on 6.12.08 2243) Perception is reality
Originally posted by DrDirtI am not saying making gas prices more expensive makes the world economy better but that if the economy were better, gas prices would be higher.
I'm no economist, but I'm equally convinced by the argument my own argument, one I haven't researched at all that higher gas prices only increased the problem. Low gas prices may be an indicator of a bad economy unusually low prices on just about anything is an indicator of that but I don't see how it can be a cause.
I just see a big, big, BIG difference between "keeping oil companies alive" and "allowing oil companies to make obscene amounts of money for no reason other than the fact that said companies control one of the two most precious natural resources in the world at the moment." The latter is what has been happening for years, which makes the former kind of a moot point. Are we to be expected to pay artificially high prices because these companies already spent all the money they exploited out of us for years? Sorry, they don't get my sympathy, or my concern. Maybe they can join the line of corrupt, greedy industries begging for a government buyout because they weren't good enough thieves.
EDIT: I realize, DrDirt, that you are not saying low gas prices caused the economic problems. I'm just saying that I think lower gas prices are one of the things that I think will be necessary to correct the problems. I just don't know how greed and price-gauging can lead to anything but poorer people having less money, which is obviously one of the causes of recession and such.
I don't own a car, but even if I did I would have absolutely no problem tacking on a .50, .75, or $1 flat tax on gas with all the money going towards sustainable energy R&D. The libertarian in me hates the idea, but the engineering grad student currently working in the field loves it and thinks it's completely necessary. Sustainable energy needs to be the new Manhattan Project or man on the moon, and we're going to need the funds to do it.
Lloyd: When I met Mary, I got that old fashioned romantic feeling, where I'd do anything to bone her. Harry: That's a special feeling.
Originally posted by samoflangeSustainable energy needs to be the new Manhattan Project or man on the moon, and we're going to need the funds to do it.
From the book 31 Days, published by Anchor Books, a division of Random House Inc. (1st Anchor Books edition, February 2007, page 219):
Originally posted by Barry WerthDuring the [1973] oil embargo, [then U.S. President] Nixon had proposed that citizens turn down their thermostats and carpool and that utilities switch from oil to coal, and he'd called grandly for a new crash program, Project Independence, on the scale of the atom bomb and moon-landing projects. "Let us set as our national goal," Nixon pledged, "...that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy source."
Originally posted by Time article, Project RealismRichard Nixon's Project Independence goal of making the U.S. self-sufficient in energy by 1980 has always seemed impossibly visionary. Still, planning for the project has gone ahead, only now in an atmosphere of far greater realism. Last week Federal Energy Administrator John Sawhill opened four days of Project Independence hearings in Manhattan by acknowledging candidly that the U.S. will always need to import some oil.
Businessmen and prominent public figures who spoke at the hearings were equally frank. One of the most optimistic predictions came from Thornton Bradshaw, president of Atlantic Richfield, who thought that the U.S. could reduce its dependence on foreign oil from 18% of total energy consumption now "to perhaps as low as 15% by 1980 and possibly 10% to 13% by 1985." Most other speakers, including Sawhill, guessed that the U.S. would be importing 25% of its oil eleven years from now, v. about one third early this year.
Originally posted by Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. GovernmentThe United States imported about 58% of the petroleum, which includes crude oil and refined petroleum products, that we consumed during 2007.
The Time article is from September 2, 1974, and is available online here (time.com) while the U.S. Energy statistics are available on the Energy Information Administration website and may be viewed here (tonto.eia.doe.gov).
"Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help." - Isaiah 58:7 (New Living Translation)
It was $1.579/g this morning, so naturally when I went to fill up tonight it somehow became $1.759/g. I still got a nickel off per (thanks, SuperAmerica!) but I kinda wish I hadn't been running late this morning and blown off getting a tank.
Gas has gone up 36-40 cents a gallon here in SW Michigan in the last 36 hours. I filled up the minivan Wednesday evening at $1.379. The cheapest gas I saw this morning was $1.739 and most stations were 3-5 cents higher.
Tim
Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. -- Erasmus
All others things being equal, the simplest solution is usually stupidity. -- Darwin Minor
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Dinner with my parents on Wednesday night will likely be a steak or possibly prime rib. Thanksgiving day brings a visit to my grandmothers with the usual - turkey, dressing, etc.