[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Gas prices (Page 1 of 3)
Posted: 3/15/2006 9:16:48 AM EDT
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So I stop by the gas station which is about 2 blocks from my house this morning. I am in the process of filling up and I notice the manager changing the prices on the sign. He put a new price of unleaded up of $2.519 so I think to myself damn and look down at the pump price $2.409. They were raising it 11 cents Holy I head home for lunch and when I went back by at 12:30pm it has changed again - same store. Now at 2.499. Edited to add: Today 3/16 I go by this afternoon and it is 2.559 |
Probably. Oil price declined, but demand for gasoline inside the US is probably rising due to spring break vacations. Price increases now will be due to refining limitations, instead of the price of oil. (or at least a combination of the two) |
About $2.34, if I remember correctly. I'll Google it later. In the meantime, search for "inflation adjusted fuel prices" and enjoy the reading. 
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reading some of that google search, I still believe they are profiteering at this juncture. 
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What I want somoene to 'splain to me is why gas is a different price a different stations ? Yea, I understand they are competing with the station across the street or they are located near an interstate exit. But, should all the Shell or BP stations in town have the same price ? Here, Shell has it at $2.45gal, two miles away the Shell has it for $2.59gal, neither are near an interstate. Not to mention I rarely see a price war... On one corner, the BP will be $2.50, the Shell $2.50, etc. |
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Just a day or so ago the State Attny Gen of Connecticut slammed some station owners for price gouging. Some of these guys face a fine up to 5grand. I was watching a tv program yesterday stating there have been over 2600 mergers in the oil and gas industry in the last 10 years. Looks like some oil company Execs went before congress again to get grilled. Doubt anything will happen though. |
Are you governor Doyle's little boy toy? You didn't suffer layoffs as a result of the DIRT CHEAP gas in the late 1990's, did you? Now its time to pay the fiddler. You see, back then, crude oil was under $11 a barrel and gas was selling for $.73 a gallon. Can you do the math? If the price for gas were a constant function of the price of crude oil, you should be paying $4.31 a gallon when crude goes to $65 a barrel. |
When the profits dry up, like they did in the late 1980s, the late 1990s, the mergers increase because the independents cannot survive the famine. Jobs are lost, wells are shut-in and equipment rusts in the auction yard, only to be sold for scrap. The the forces that made the glut happen dry up and crude becomes scarce. Independents can now reform, beating the conglomerates due to market flexibility and the fact the majors don't need to increase production. The independents survive until the next glut. FYI, the collapse of the Asian economies in the late 1990's caused the last glut due to a curtailing of consumption. |
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And now the reason. The refineries are switching to lower vapor pressure blends for the warmer months while trying to recover from the #2 distillate shortage. Inventories of higher vapor pressure gasolines are adequate but only for the next 30 days. What this means is there will be no refining for a short time until the turnarounds at the refineries. There are some variables as to when they will be back to 90% output so the terminal operators, futures traders and speculators to call for higher prices. If you bitch about the price, you will be bitching a whole lot more if every station has dry tanks yet the price marquees are listing low prices. |
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The Real Gas Price Gouger By Eric Peters The American Spectator Published 3/16/2006 When gas prices jump by 50 cents (or more) per gallon, many people get angry at "Big Oil" -- and decry what they consider "price gouging" at their expense. But how come no one gets upset about the 50-70 cents (or more) per gallon in taxes imposed by government? Federal (18.4 cents per gallon), state (35-50 cents per gallon), and local motor fuels taxes (anywhere from 5-10 cents or more per gallon) account for at least one-third of the per-gallon cost of gasoline -- an outrageous levy in both absolute terms and as a percentage of the purchase price of the item being taxed. Imagine, for instance, if you had to fork over 50 cents in taxes for every $1 or so of groceries you purchased. And gasoline is no less an "essential" than food for most people. These taxes are also viciously regressive -- that is, they take more as a percentage of disposal income from the least able to pay. After all, most of us have no choice about driving, regardless of our income. People in areas outside of major cities (where there is no public transport system) especially. The "rich" (a frequent whipping boy of class warfare types) may be able to afford the exactions without it affecting their day to day lives. But what of the person of modest means? Let's assume a gas tax (all levels) of 50 cents per gallon. (A lowball figure, by the way; in some states, e.g. Connecticut and New York, combined motor fuels taxes imposed by all levels of government can push $1 per gallon or even more.) A purchase of 15 gallons of fuel (the amount it takes to fill the typical new car's tank) would entail $7.50 in taxes alone. Most people burn a tank of fuel per week (at least), so that means $30 per month down the rathole, just for gas taxes -- or $360 per year. How many people do you know who can afford to lose nearly $400 annually without it affecting their budgets? The gas tax alone pretty much vitiates the Bush tax cuts all by itself -- and generates in excess of $50 billion annually in "revenue" for our friends in government. And yet, they (our friends in government) hunger for even more. Since 1997, 14 state legislatures have voted to raise their state gas taxes a total of 17 times; these increases ranged from 1 cent per gallon in North Dakota to 6 cents a gallon in Ohio. Many local (county/city) governments around the country tack on "inspection fees" and other nit-picky taxes -- including a "seawall tax" in Mississippi and a "special petroleum tax" in Tennessee. There is talk of adding a nickel (or more) to the federal gas tax, too. Some lawmakers want another 50 cents per gallon (or even more than that). And yet, no one complains much about this endless, brazen highway robbery -- which comes after, let us not forget, federal and state income taxes which together snatch anywhere from 15-40 cents of every dollar we earn right off the bat. So with the change left over, we're compelled to pay yet again -- and then again. And at confiscatory rates, too. Of course, we're supposed to be calmed by the rationale that all this money being extracted from us is used for the upkeep and expansion of our transportation infrastructure -- building new roads and maintaining existing ones. But our roads are in disrepair and increasingly over-crowded. Our money doesn't seem to be going very far. (Or perhaps it is merely going into the pockets of well-connected no-bid contractors?) At least part of that $50 billion extraction is diverted into "safety" programs -- whatever that means. Regardless, there's little outrage, despite huge costs imposed with increasingly budgetel-looking results. Meanwhile, most of us are also paying those extortionate federal and state and local (and property and sales and annual decal and countless other) taxes... for, what exactly? It's something to think about the next time prices rise -- and the Greek chorus begins anew about the supposed depredations of a chimera called "Big Oil." Eric Peters is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities: Cars We Love to Hate (MBI). www.americanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9540 |
How DARE you bring logic, reason, free-market economics, and common sense into this breast-beating, screeching, howling bitch session? |
You speak as if these don't occur every year. When there is a pattern, the industry should make adjustments to prevent shortages and price spikes. However, they CHOOSE to run at capacity, while refusing to add more refining capability, or to stagger these seasonal grade changes - thus forcing "shortage" and thus enjoying the tidy profit they rack up. Some of us are not fooled. It's called creating a crisis and ramming the bloated "solution" down our throats. I love the way they have the sheeple now used to 2.25 per gal. gas. Next ratchet point will be 2.50, then so on until God knows where it will stop. We ARE being manipulated. |
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Yesterday I drove by the Wa-Wa gas station that’s located about 5 minutes from my house the gas pumps were $205.00 a gallon for regular, so this morning I was driving home from work and decided to fill up, well regular gas went from being $2.05.00 a gallon to $220.00. How can they raise gas prices every day or every other day? Aren’t they supposed to wait till the have to fill up there drums before they start to raise their prices? I thought something was said about that on the news or something about that. From, Joe…. |