I don't have a car, but I do see the prices of tickets going up.
I don't have a car, but I do see the prices of tickets going up.
Congratulations America
Originally Posted by GGT
$3.55? Paid $4.19 for regular a few days ago. $20 used to fill my car up from almost empty, now it does a little over half-way.
. . .
Sucks, doesn't it. However, maybe the answer to our reliance on oil is high gas prices?
Only sustained high gas prices will push us towards long-term solutions. Ideally we could have a plan. EG if we drove diesel cars in the same proportions as Europeans, we could fairly easily convert our cars to burn vegetable oil or biodiesel. But there is an emissions thing that is still sort of a question mark.
Most cars here do not run on diesel.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
My understanding is they are 40-50% of the car market there-
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...diesel/4330313
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p01s03-woeu.html
Seems high to me, but I can't speak for other countries. Over here in 2009 it was about 17% of the car market. When I include buses, trucks, tractors and vans I get to 27%. Then again, your source mentions new vehicle sales (not just cars) are 50% diesel, that might be true. I suspect it is on the rise since new diesels are pretty clean and efficient, so it's losing a lot of the dirty image I suppose. And with rising fuel prices it's worth it sooner!
Edit: found some data from 2007, Netherlands were significantly lower in Diesel sales then, so I presume they still are. Must be some difference in regulations and/or taxation.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Guess I'll put this here. Could put it in any commodity-related thread. Everyone has noticed the "disconnect" between pump prices and barrel prices. Timing that works faster at the pump than "fundamentals" would support. Supply-and-demand less relevant than volatility or Animal Spirits in trading.
I agree with Senator Cantwell and the CEO of Exxon Mobil that non-producing and non-distributing speculators reflects their over-weighted presence in the futures markets (70%) as price-makers but not end-takers. Haven't watched or read the entire hearings, but surely OPEC's heavy hand is also questioned? Small mention of USD value (central banks) by Sen. Cantwell.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/vide...prices_50.html
And the Commodity Futures Trading Commission thinks otherwise.
Paid $4.55/gallon (.85 Euros/liter) for premium yesterday in Queens.
Just what speculators actually know is anyone's guess, but it does not seem to reflect the reality of consumers. Oil goes below 100 USD/ barrel, yet prices continue to rise. news sources keep saying that prices will fall to around $3.50/gal. within a month or so, yet gas prices keep rising. They all need to polish the old crystal balls and look at them more closely. In reality, we should remember that usual summer increases will always happen as demand becomes greater.
The worst job in the world is better than being broke and homeless
Oh, please, there's always a lot more to gas pricing than the price of crude. First, local prices of crude aren't always the same. Second, there's the impact of regulation (for example, the summer blend is more expensive than the winter blend; also, ethanol and other additives fluctuate in price independent of oil). Third, there's the impact of refining capacity and transportation. If local refining capacity takes a hit (due to disasters, updating old facilities, etc.) your local prices will increase even if there's plenty of global oil. There's always the impact of inventories and local demand as well.
The point is that oil prices are an important factor in driving gasoline pricing, but it's hardly the only factor. Furthermore, average gas prices have dipped a bit from their earlier highs, and oil hasn't exactly dropped back to equilibrium levels yet.
I would say that is mostly true. My point being that speculators ( the people who try to predict the future value of a commodity, and in so doing, affect the present cost of it) don't really have any idea what they're talking about. News agencies only know what their sources report to them. Thirdly, that listening to any of them is an ignorant thing to do unless your willing to do a little predicting and thinking for yourself. It must be nice to have had gas prices dip, here the rise continues unabated. I believe the primary reason for this is mostly the increased demand brought on by summer outdoor activities (drives to the mountains, dirtbikes, boating, etc...) there is the winter demand of skiers, but the summer months see a major increase in highway traffic.
The worst job in the world is better than being broke and homeless
Speculators can affect things, of course, but they provide much-needed liquidity to various markets, and they generally take both sides of a bet (i.e. they 'balance' a short order with a long order so they don't end up with actual oil). I think that blaming speculators is an easy thing to do, and can account for short term fluctuations, but the underlying fundamentals have little to do with speculators.
Let's not forget that Exxon shut down a number of refineries in Louisiana due to the controlled flooding of the Mississippi.
That's also why there tends to be a spike in gasoline prices in the spring as refineries are shifted over to the summer blend. There was a bigger shift a while back when some new regs came into effect that required large portions of US refining capacity to be overhauled in a relatively short amount of time.
IIRC the Midwest is also currently short of refining capacity, which is a large part of why gas prices there tend to be higher. (The other part is taxes - Illinois and Chicago in particular have very high gas taxes for the US.)
I saw an ad for ethanol on TV yesterday. It seemed like an american piece mostly directed at voters/taxpayers to justify the subsidies. It was presented as the solution to the finity of oil.
Congratulations America
Ethanol really pisses me off. It was an interesting idea when it lasted, but it quickly became apparent that it wouldn't really solve any of the underlying problems and was just another subsidy for the corn/ag industry.
And Sen. Grassley. Republican from Iowa.
You're doing it wrong
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Sorry for my tendancy to lack clarity. I don't blame the speculators wholesale for the price of a commodity. I was only distressed by the reports that gas prices were expected to fall recently. This report came from news agencies who got their information from, among others, speculators. I did not actually expect such a silly thing to happen at this time of year, but did allow myself to hope. Silly, huh? As far as what drives pricing of any product, it's as much the obvious market forces as the overall greed of business (which should also be rather obvious).
The worst job in the world is better than being broke and homeless
Prices went down after tapping strategic oil reserves. Might be a "stimulus" of sorts, but....also a bandaid that will eventually be ripped off.
Yesterday I paid $2.75/gallon using my grocery store bonus points. The man at the pump next to me (from Maryland) paying $3.60/gallon was fairly impressed. Problem is---the grocery prices are high, and I buy more food than gas.
$3.30 here in the south for regular. But I've noticed that grocery prices in the south are often higher with less variety and more quantity.
You aren't south enough yet, and it depends on how spread out the population is.
Tampa has grocery stores everywhere (Publix is based out of Lakeland), and now they are starting to appear inside of everything. Walmarts, Targets, Sweetbay, Publix, a few Food Lions and Albertsons left too, Whole Foods, Fresh Markets, and some chain that charges to rent a cart and doesn't have baggers. Sweetbay seems the best place to find specific low stock foods, but Publix has the best over all quality, selection, and prices.
Something I notice when I stay in Georgia is that big box grocery stores aren't as popular, but when you do find one, its like walking into a fucking Sams Club. A lot of the grocery shopping seems to be done at smaller joints, like Dollar Generals. Since those are small one stop type of stores, variety is low. Never found an organic place in Georgia, not that the ones in Tampa seemed like pleasant places to shop anyway. They produce a hell of a smug problem.
Grocery shopping more than once a week is rare for us, which I recently learned may seem odd for other parts of the world.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 07-03-2011 at 03:52 PM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
The 'weekly shop' is a common saying here. I tend to shop more often just because I'm not organised about getting everything at once.
Uh, no.
We have supermarkets and organic groceries. Where the hell in Georgia were you? Someplace where they still use outhouses and don't have running water and electricity? I don't know anyone who would shop at a Dollar General for groceries, either.
I go to BJ's and spend a fortune once a month, but I'm in our Publix 3 or 4 times a week besides that, and pick up most of my produce from a farmer's market service/local farmer's markets.
There are 5 Publix stores within 5 miles of my house, and 3 Krogers. Trader Joe's is far enough away that it is inconvenient, and Whole Foods isn't terribly far but I rarely go there.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
I always said I stayed in the back watersBrandy's parents live south of exit 88ish from I20. Hell the nearest WalMart is a good 30 minute drive one way, the nearest fastfood is a McDs inside of a gas station right off of the interstate. I have only ever seen them shop at the dollar general (which is always packed with people) or the kwik-e-mart that I think is now a BP.
Thats why I mentioned its based off of population density. I know Publix had been out of Florida for a while, but were we stay, I haven't seen one yet. Whats the name of the place that advertises lower prices, but a 10% tax on top of the usual tax? Thats the only place I remember from Brandy's old digs, and that place felt like a bulk version of Publix.
and I think your ingles line is out of place...
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Ummm, I think it's called Cost-plus or something, I know where one of those is, but my one experience going into it (we were at an all-day festival at a park and that was within walking distance and I didn't want to lose my parking place but I did rather desperately need something) was frightening.
Hmmm, I'm forgetting one that I keep hearing radio ads for that is in a fairly wealthy area.
Oh, and Harry's is great, too, but more expensive than I'm willing to spend most of the time.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
Bump
Gas is now $3.50/gallon here. "Traditional" supply/demand theories are officially whacked out.
I found an interesting hypothesis: the crude oil-supplying nations are basing prices on their national budgets....what they charge is based on what they need to maintain their governments, and keep their people happy. In other words, Saudi Arabia needs to charge $100/barrel, Kuwait needs to charge $80/barrel, and so on. Those prices don't reflect funding a military, because they've effectively "off-shored" those costs to Americans or Europeans (or anyone who funds a military in order to fight for those oil imports).
As the costs of placating any populace increases (like 'giving' every Saudi citizen $50,000 when energy and politics collide) so will the prices of gas in every importing tank. Alaskan Americans may think it's great to get a check from the US gov't, in exchange for extracting crude oil under "their" land....but not when they have to rely on Russian ice breaking ships to return refined oil as useable energy, or gas costs $10/gallon at their pumps.
Enter national energy policies, competing with well-funded, lobby-abled-wealthy interests. Personally, I'd prefer a forward-looking next-century approach, even though the US hasn't been the best example of that, and criticizes European SSSocialists for choosing mass [public] transit over millions of individuals in single cars, needing public roads and interstates to support that "choice".
As much as I love to drive, and like having a car in my garage....it's also an expensive pain in the ass that I can't really complain about. I can afford the fuel, insurance, and driving. Even if it's just to buy a gallon of milk when that's five miles away, the people who can't walk OR drive for their groceries should have a larger part in the discussion.
We've got a fairly shitty way of creating a national energy policy, because it's not based on our most important national interest---making our people and human capital our most valuable resources and best investments.
That's an absurd theory; oil producers do not set market prices. Oil is essentially bought at auction. They can restrict supply (and the larger ones do so at times), but that can backfire when other suppliers jump in with increased production to take advantage of higher prices. Back when OPEC controlled most of the world's oil production, they had a bit more leeway, but even in the cartel there was lots of cheating.
OPEC does influence market prices, though. And it doesn't seem as closely connected to global supply and demand as previously thought. The whole scheme is connected to politics and policy. During the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia decided to use their oil wealth to appease their populace. Hoping they wouldn't also see riots and uprisings....if they made sure bread and circuses were fully funded.
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