$8 a gallon for gas, damn.

[PapaBurgundy]

I know what the problem is, its global warming, yup, global warming.

[smockers83]

Since people "took it there" it's now in the politics forum.

haha, I started reading this and was thinking, "When did this become the 240 forum?" I haven't read all of this as a lot of it seems to be off topic, so bear with me.

Anywho, gas is not going to reach $8 by 2009. Its just not going to happen. A doubling of the price in 12 months would anger consumers so much that it would be bad for the oil industry in that demand would fall drastically. Its just not logical. With the price of crude oil near $130/barrel would they like to see $8/gallon gasoline, sure, but they can't implement it. Gas prices are sticky prices more or less.

Americans have this stereotype of being lazy and what not, but its just not true. Some are sure, but the majority aren't. America is the most productive country in the world on a per capita basis. Want to know who's lazy? The French. Want to know who complains a lot? All of those in the EU. The EU is one of the most protected economies in the world.

[datsun2401972]

Yeah, quit bitching about it you whiney spoiled Americans and start living your lives in a manner that reflects the reality of a market economy trading in dwindling resouses. God dam Americans are annoying. I have been paying $4.50-$6.00 a gallon for gas for a ****ing decade with no complaints. I still drive vehicles that suck large amounts of gas but I have made the decision that I can sacrifice funds for other things to support my desire to drive such vehicle in a market where gas has always cost more.Gas is going to continue to be expensive so you are left with two predominant choices.

1. buy a bicycle and quit driving a ****ing Escalade or

2. adjust your outflows of cash to allow you to continue to drive said behemoth in the new normal. (for you at least)

Whine whine ***** *****, cheap gas by world standards, 31 flavors of ice cream, starbucks on every corner etc etc and Americans are still the most down in the mouth sorry sacks of lazy self pitying children I have ever seen.

Even with our most down in the mouth sorry sack of lazy self pitying child like lifestyles, we were still able to show the rest of the world how it's done.

Heh, that says alot about the rest of the world if you ask me

[OriginalWheelman]

Anywho, gas is not going to reach $8 by 2009. Its just not going to happen. A doubling of the price in 12 months would anger consumers so much that it would be bad for the oil industry in that demand would fall drastically.

Wasn't gas $2 a gallon last year?

[audtatious]

What will happen is that the US consumption machine will stop sucking up gas (already starting to happen). When demand is less then the oil companies, Gov't, speculators and countries selling oil will take notice. Speculators will see with less consumption there is more available thus price per barrel should go down. Oil companies will want to work towards cheaper gas in order to get consumption up. The countries that deal with us will see that they can make more profit with their current infrastructure in place with us so they will want to continue with the higher volume levels. The Gov't, paniky about the loss of revenue at the pump and by taxing the hell out of the oil companies will try and pile on more taxes.

Then again, it could get so bad for the independent refineries that they simply start shutting down due to losing money.

Will be interesting to see I guess

[WDRacing]

The easiest and best solution is to legalize the growth of marijauna. It's the fastest growing plant on the planet, can reach full harvesting height in 65-90 days. The Hemp can then be used to make ethanol, the fibers can make clothing and literally thousands of other uses and the oil can be used as a synthetic lubricant.

Or we could simply ignore those facts and pay out the *** for oil...forever.

BTW, Hemp can be grown without THC...so don't bother arguing against it unless you are willing to admit you have NO idea what you're talking about.

WD

[rn79870]

I saw a report that gas demand was down by 5% over the Memorial Day weekend, yet gas continues to go up at supersonic rates.

Why is gas 14 cents a gallon in Venezuela? Because they have an oil industry and in country reserves. Hint, open the heck out of the US for exploration and drilling and we'll be back to 2 bucks a gallon.

[audtatious]

Not gonna happen. The Dems recently crushed that option via what was pretty much a vote along party lines.

[WDRacing]

There is big money in oil from oversea's. These companies have lobbiests that pay our GOV to keep the current infrastructure in place. People in power with lots of income only seek to keep said power and income. Long ago has our Gov fallen into a state if disrepair. Party politics and misappropriation of funds are the only things our Gov acccels at.

Oil corruption is only the damn tip of the spear when it comes to things that suck with our Gov. For the people by the people doesn't mean anything other then us as people get to pay taxes to so our Gov can remain in power.

The system is broken.

[brizanden]

The easiest and best solution is to legalize the growth of marijauna. It's the fastest growing plant on the planet, can reach full harvesting height in 65-90 days. The Hemp can then be used to make ethanol, the fibers can make clothing and literally thousands of other uses and the oil can be used as a synthetic lubricant.

Or we could simply ignore those facts and pay out the *** for oil...forever.

BTW, Hemp can be grown without THC...so don't bother arguing against it unless you are willing to admit you have NO idea what you're talking about.

WD

i think my state recently banned growing hemo lmao what a bunch of fail. people were trying to say you could smoke it... i was like yeah if you want a three day rampaging head ache.

[smockers83]

Wasn't gas $2 a gallon last year?

Gas, a year ago, at its lowest point nation-wide was $2.13 and its highest was $3.22 during MDW. Nation-wide this MDW, gas is at $3.94. They haven't doubled. Gas prices have risen as of late mainly due to anticipation of the holiday weekend. Gas prices will fall in the next week or two and stabilize for the summer with the exception of the 4th and Labor Day weekend. You can call me out on that one if you want. Hopefully I'm right.

To say that gas prices doubled from last year and will double again by next year just won't happen. Gas prices aren't going to grow exponentially.

[OriginalWheelman]

Ok so 12 months ago it was not half what it is now, but 15 months ago it was. Gas prices have doubled since last year.



From http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas....html

[rn79870]

And in today's news... the same people who predicted $4.00 a gallon gas by this summer, are predicting $10.00/gallon gas by this time, 2010. That's an average of 25 cents a month in gas price increase over the next 2 years.

[audtatious]

At least I won't have to deal with as much traffic when toolin around in my G

[smockers83]

Ok so 12 months ago it was not half what it is now, but 15 months ago it was. Gas prices have doubled since last year.



From http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas....html

Gas prices haven't doubled. Have they come close, sure. But by your own chart, gas prices went up 1.5x between late January and MDW of 2007...that's only 5 months. What you're doing is taking two extremes of the market which brings faulty representations of a market. If I had the actual weekly numbers, I'd do some statistical analysis for you and put in a trend line because we could also say gas prices today are double what they were in 2004.

[rn79870]

I don't have a good understanding of economics but it is apparent that the peaks are followed by valleys in those graphs. Yet, with today's situation, there appears to be no hope of another valley. Am I missing something here?

[brizanden]

how nice would it be if it dropped back down to that 3.15 mark lol

[smockers83]

The same could have been said the same time last year looking at the charts. Also notice the increasing volatility since 2004. Too much speculation and I have a feeling that prices are affected by everyone thinking that they'll never go down, only up. Inflation in general acts the same way.

[smockers83]

Here's another interesting chart.



Me looking at this chart, I see that it could be worse in that prices could be higher than what they actually are. It also goes to show what I said about gas having sticky prices. The price of crude is outpacing the price of gas. Crude has gone up 6-fold while gas prices have gone up 3-fold since 2002.

Also, I've read a little more of the previous posts. Imposing a price ceiling is not a good idea. If the market price of gas goes above the ceiling, guess who pays for it anyway? We do. How? Tax dollars. The government will have to pay the extra part due to the ceiling.

*edit* And another thing that I unintentionally found by graphing crude against gasoline is that look how much gas would have to increase in order to double within the next year. This graph shows you visually what gas prices would have to do in order to double. However, look at the trend and tell me where they're going...not doubling in the next year that's for sure.
Modified by smockers83 at 5:53 PM 5/29/2008

[OriginalWheelman]

Yeah but you're assuming all that crude is being turned into gasoline, which is not the case at all. Our dependency on oil goes far beyond gasoline, or even cars in general. Demand is dropping for gasoline, just as it does every time the price goes upd. Look at the SUV market right now. People are selling them off like hotcakes. The small car market? Cars that were worth $1000 a few months ago are going for $3000 because of the fuel mileage difference. When gas is up people travel less, and walk more. The last 2 years have people so fed up over gas price increases that they are changing their lifestyles to fit it. Add the fact that now Green is the trend, instead of 4800lbs of vehicle to haul around 110lbs of high school girl, and you get a market that is bad for gasoline. I'm glad this happened tbh. All the damned SUVs will finally be gone from the road and I"ll be able to make a turn without looking out my window at a billboard in the next lane. People are wiling to pay more for alternative fuels so now, options that were not cost effective 2 years ago are cost effective, simply because the benchmark by which they are measured has gone up so much. This price change has caused a huge push to find better ways to produce methanol, with new advances coming almost daily. Down with the age of Gasoline. I can not wait until mankind moves beyond the infernal combustion engine.

[smockers83]

Yeah but you're assuming all that crude is being turned into gasoline, which is not the case at all. Our dependency on oil goes far beyond gasoline, or even cars in general. Demand is dropping for gasoline, just as it does every time the price goes upd.

If I assumed all crude was turned into gasoline, we'd be paying $7.89/gallon as gas would rise with crude 1 for 1. Crude has outpaced gasoline 2 to 1. I would assume demand for gasoline has been falling since Nov 2006 as the estimated mileage driven in the US has fallen since that time. But you're right, I was claiming sticky prices which is somewhat false as I didn't take a look at supply and demand. I was under the idea that demand was remaining somewhat steady until recently.

[datsun2401972]

Why is gas 14 cents a gallon in Venezuela? Because they have an oil industry and in country reserves.

Thanks to America....and they still hate us.

[C-Kwik]

BTW, Hemp can be grown without THC...so don't bother arguing against it unless you are willing to admit you have NO idea what you're talking about.

But why take the fun out of it?

[WDRacing]

But why take the fun out of it?

You know me buddy, I'm just trying to get the ball rolling in the right direction. Eventually the fun will be "added" back in

[dasoupdude]

alright! time to go buy chryslers since they have that new pay $2.99 for gas for 3 years deal if you buy one of their cars.

[WDRacing]

Would rather buy a Motorcycle...

[Jager]

as I said in another gas thread, its unlikely that we will see a fix, however if we had built more refineries wed be much better off, we have plenty of reserves of oil in the us, the world has plenty of crude, we are running out of refineries though the ones we have at almost maxed out..

best option but will likely never happen, correlate our food export costs to the price of oil from that country, the cheaper they send it to us, the cheaper we send them food. since i already pay taxes to subsidize farmers and crops, i dont see why they would object to more money for their crops at least to oil parity.

the US/Canada feed about half the worlds wheat/corn needs, imagine if we leveraged that alone.

[rn79870]

I've often felt that a barrel of oil has to be tied to a bushel of wheat. If they don't like it, they can eat their oil. We're learning how to make fuel from our food. (corn).

[WDRacing]

Man...thats a good idea...hard to grow food in the desert fvckers. How about a trade...

[senor_nismo]

seriously im gonna start walking to work...