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U.S. gas prices 'crash'

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BIGWORM

Member
Winter of '97 in Mount Vernon, Wa had gas at .95c/gal. That was the lowest I ever remember it being in my lifetime.
 

Shambles

Member
Dropping a dime/gallon over 3 weeks is a crash? Hyperbole much?

Ahhh, 46c over two months. A bit more noticeable but not much. It's not uncommon to see the price change by 10c/L in a single week. But usually those price changes bounce up and down.
 

Slavik81

Member
2. It's sad how we're now conditioned to think $3.38 a gallon is cheap.

It is cheap. You aren't even close to paying for your usage of the public infrastructure built for your car when you fill it up with gas. Nor are you paying for the externalities of burning that gasoline. The general public is paying for that.
 

Toki767

Member
There was a time earlier this year when gas went up to almost $5 a gallon around here. So while $3.50ish might not be as cheap as it was 15-20 years ago, it's still cheaper than what it could be.
 

cajunator

Banned
I dont really get how rising gas prices is all that much more expensive.
How many times a month are people filling up really for this to affect them so significantly?
More importantly, what are people DRIVING that sucks down so much gas? SUVs have fallen out of favor already.
 
Ahh, when I first started driving I could fill up for $20. Yeah it was increasing steadily since then, but when Katrina happened the prices shot up and never came back to those levels since. Filling up for close to $60 for a few years now sucks, but you sadly have no other choice. Lately, I have to fill up every 2-3 weeks, but if I had a full time job right now it'd easily be once a week.
 

OnkelC

Hail to the Chef
Any bets on what the next geopolitical "catastrophic event" will be that'll drive the prices up again?
 
Any bets on what the next geopolitical "catastrophic event" will be that'll drive the prices up again?

The obvious one would be some entanglement with Iran. But that could actually be a geopolitical event that causes gas prices to drop more if the world is able to strike a grand bargain with them.

Of course oil prices dropping is something that would hurt the Russians badly so don't expect them to cooperate much in getting Iran to do a deal. The world is a messed up place.

My prediction these days: relatively flat oil prices for the next couple years with prices beginning to rise after that. Of course that is just an educated guess and is most likely quite wrong.
 

ascii42

Member
I dont really get how rising gas prices is all that much more expensive.
How many times a month are people filling up really for this to affect them so significantly?
More importantly, what are people DRIVING that sucks down so much gas? SUVs have fallen out of favor already.

Growing up, we lived 30 miles away from Tallahassee, where my parents worked and I went to school. Once I started driving to school, that was three cars going 60 miles per day. Each would usually need to be filled at least once per week. That adds up very quickly.
 

kswiston

Member
Everyone knows that gas was cheaper in many years ago. However, when I bought my current car in August 2010, I was paying $0.95/litre for gas. This past summer I was paying $1.30/L. Gas prices have been "cheaper" recently at $1.18-1.22/L but the fact that the price of gas increased by over 25% in two years is ridiculous.
 
"This crash began back when refining problems around the country were being fixed, one after the other, at the same time that our seasonal gasoline demand was shrinking," she said..

Refining problem?

Nope, more like oil industry attempt to jack up prices before the election to fuck over Obama.

Similarly, Chevron’s Richmond, Calif., refinery was reported down for maintenance for two weeks in May, but emissions data suggests the refinery never ceased operation.

The research also concludes that gasoline inventories actually were building in May during a time in which West Coast motorists paid at least 50 cents more per gallon than the national average. This inventory building, evident in data from the California Energy Commission, happened even as four refiners were supposedly down for some portion of May.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44357941&postcount=204
 

Josh7289

Member
We also pay 20% sales tax, vs what in the US, like 6% or in some cases 0%?

We pay for our healthcare in multiple places.

Yeah, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you want government-funded health care, it has to be paid for via higher taxes.

Personally, I'd prefer it that way, but alas that's not today's America!
 

Valnen

Member
Seriously. They have us well conditioned to think that $3.20 is cheap.

Yup. They could keep it this low all the time and they will still make billions and billions. This is still way too unnecessarily high. Government should force em to lower it to like $1.50. Or lower. Preferably 99 cents. They'd still all be rich, just not as much as they are now.
 
Yup. They could keep it this low all the time and they will still make billions and billions. This is still way too unnecessarily high. Government should force em to lower it to like $1.50. Or lower. Preferably 99 cents. They'd still all be rich, just not as much as they are now.

No thanks, we've killed off enough of this planet's vegetation and wildlife already. Higher prices discourage unscrupulous consumption and will eventually lead to viable alternatives.
 

Valnen

Member
No thanks, we've killed off enough of this planet's vegetation and wildlife already. Higher prices discourage unscrupulous consumption and will eventually lead to viable alternatives.

Higher prices also hurts people who have jobs delivering things and need to pay for gas to do so. That's something society is growing increasingly reliant on. I don't fucking care about the environment when gas prices are making it difficult to live as it is *right now*. Besides, there is no such thing as unscrupulous consumption. If someone paid for their car they should be able to drive it as much as they want without worrying about it too much.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
lol @ users complaining that petrol is expensive in the US. Pffft, go to Europe. We could do with a price crash.

I really don't see how one relates to the other. There's a million reasons why, particularly the fact that the US was largely built on the idea of transit by automobile; in other words, cities aren't centrally built in the US.
 

stldave2

Member
Damn, was about to say I had it pretty good at $2.98 the other day in St. Charles

There are always price wars on Manchester road, I love it.


Slavik81 said:
Nearly 25 gallons (94L) of gasoline?

28 gallon tank. Terrible gas mileage. Thank god the A5 comes in on Friday so I can stop driving this thing daily.

2012-nissan-armada-change.jpg
 

GungHo

Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
How can you afford it? If we had $10 gas, our economy would crash.

Also, $3.28 last I checked.
Frankly, outside of the US, people are used to bearing the burden of higher taxes/transportation costs for fuel and other goods/services and have made cost of living/lifestyle adjustments accordingly. You also have to consider the reasoning behind the taxes... sometimes taxes aren't just levied to generate revenue. Sometimes they're levied to encourage certain behavior.

Am I right in thinkng that in the US there is no tax on fuel? Or is that a state by state thing?
There are fuel taxes, but they're not that high. There's one state/jurisdictional tax, and there's an additional federal excise tax of $0.184/gal.

Part of it is due to varying taxes. Otherwise, it's just people trying to get more money. Gas stations off of interstate highways tend to over charge, for example.
Historically, some of our most expensive branded gasoline stations are the ones that are less than a few blocks from our offices. What does that tell you?

Also, isn't it normal for the price of gas to go down in the winter? I mean, it went down like 15%, which feels inline with past years.
Yes. Winter mixes are different where there are seasonal blends, and demand is lower in general.

Yup. They could keep it this low all the time and they will still make billions and billions. This is still way too unnecessarily high.
The margin is 10%.

It will always be 10%.

You can fiddle with the other lever all you want... they're going to get their 10%. That's the business model. If they can get more, great. But they're going to guarantee that.

Could be worse. Could be pharmaceuticals.
 

cajunator

Banned
I really don't see how one relates to the other. There's a million reasons why, particularly the fact that the US was largely built on the idea of transit by automobile; in other words, cities aren't centrally built in the US.

They aren't centrally built in Europe either . . . you just get different behavior when the price of gasoline is much higher.

And in the long run, they made the much better decision. Then again, they didn't have much choice because they never had much oil to work with.
 
How can you afford it? If we had $10 gas, our economy would crash.

Also, $3.28 last I checked.
If rised to $10/gallon quickly, it certainly would crash.

However, gas slowly rose to the $10/gallon over a long time, we would have built an economy that can handle $10/gallon gasoline. Norway's economy runs just fine on $10/gallon gasoline (of course they profit from that expensive oil, so that helps).

We need to learn to do the same because someday gasoline will cost $10/gallon. It is not a matter if, only when. Hopefully several decades away but who knows.
 

Valnen

Member
The margin is 10%.

It will always be 10%.

You can fiddle with the other lever all you want... they're going to get their 10%. That's the business model. If they can get more, great. But they're going to guarantee that.

I don't care about their margins. If 99 cent gas would force them to sell at a loss, they should just be forced to sell at a loss and deal with that until they can come up with alternate fuel (that's also 99 cents or less).
 
I don't care about their margins. If 99 cent gas would force them to sell at a loss, they should just be forced to sell at a loss and deal with that until they can come up with alternate fuel (that's also 99 cents or less).

Make them give you a free pony too.
KuGsj.gif
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
They aren't centrally built in Europe either . . . you just get different behavior when the price of gasoline is much higher.

And in the long run, they made the much better decision. Then again, they didn't have much choice because they never had much oil to work with.

While I'm not an expert in European urban planning and geography, my understanding is that European cities are more centrally planned than United States cities.
 

FStop7

Banned
So tired of the gas price roller coaster. I want to make the jump to electric (Tesla Model S) if it's feasible for me in a year or so.

It would be nice if I could do some kind of 1 month test with an electric car to see if it truly fits my needs, lifestyle, etc. If I want to take a road trip to SF I'd like to be able to do it in my car and not a rental. Can I do it in an electric? How much will charging delay my drive time? Can I take PCH or do I have to stick to the 5? How about driving to Mammoth or even Phoenix? I'd like to really find out what the realities are before making the commitment. Tesla should do some kind of trial program in the form of a 1 or 2 month rental before committing to buy.
 
A decent drop to be sure, but calling it a 'crash' is stretching it. So glad I push a Toyota. Looking back on it, I should have got a Prius.
 
I don't care about their margins. If 99 cent gas would force them to sell at a loss, they should just be forced to sell at a loss and deal with that until they can come up with alternate fuel (that's also 99 cents or less).

There's nothing unreasonable about expecting the government to make the country more livable. The price of gas almost certainly contributes to unemployment. Gotta have gas to get to most jobs.

If current gas is, let's say, $3.00 / gallon, and you want it to be $0.99 / gallon, but expect the government to some how make up the difference (so, let's just say $2.00 for the ease of calculation) per gallon, and the U.S. consumes ~134 billion gallons annually... yep, the U.S. government would have to pay out about $268,000,000,000 annually to subsidize that difference in price. The annual U.S. budget is around $2.3 trillion, if my memory serves (maybe as high as $3 trillion).

As I was typing this, I was going to argue that you're insane, but looking at the figures, we could slash the U.S. military budget by $270 billion from its current ~$700 billion to drop the price of every gallon of gas in the U.S. by $2.00 while still spending more on our military than any country in the world by a long shot.

Damn.

Also, I'm in a hurry, so if my math sucks I apologize in advance.
 
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