Gas Prices and It's Impact
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| Not by choice I'm going to a pool closer to home, but fewer days a week. We are not going out to eat, movies, etc as it's 20 miles into town. I've cut back on my volunteer activities because of the same.....travel time. Husband just bought a 4 cylinder truck thinking a 6 or 8 cylinder really isn't necessary.
We've always bundled our trips, but I'm trying to find alternative shops closer to my end of town. Also due to increase costs elsewhere I've already eliminated things that "took a little money each month" (like Netflix), am considering dropping my cell phone in favor of a pay as you go type, I won't drop my broadband here (talk about spoiled) but we could easily downsize our cable TV to the very basic. |
We've always carpooled to work and our commute is only about 8 miles and we live close to a pretty bustling area with shopping, entertainment, etc., so the price of gas doesn't affect us too much. If we do take a longer trip, we just take my car since it's more fuel efficient. I find we like to complain about it more than we're actually bothered by it. Being lazy stops me from doing more things than gas price!  |
| Recently, my employer allowed me to switch from a 5 day/8 hr per day work week to 4 10 hr days. This will save over 100 miles a week. Yep, over 100.
My only opportunity for decent employment involves a >100 mile round trip commute. We could move closer to my work, but then my husband, whose job is better than mine, would be doing the same commute or we'd split it. No real savings in mileage. So, about 5 months after I began this job, I chose a car that gets good gas mileage (just rolled over 100,000 miles tonight!). Hybrids weren't available or only just were. I am thinking when I am ready to get a new vehicle, it might well be a hybrid. On the other hand, hubby walks to work (one big reason we haven't moved. If we did, both of us would have to drive). And we live in the center of a small city, so a lot is in walking distance, one reason that we chose our home. For many years, --most of the 30 we've been married--we have been a 1 car family and started out as a zero car family. |
Not looking forward to driving to the lower 48 from alaska this aug esp. since it will probably be to the east coast.  |
Joahaeyo wrote: Not looking forward to driving to the lower 48 from alaska this aug esp. since it will probably be to the east coast.
Any ideas where yet? I am thinking about going to a four day week as well - 100 miles rt is not unusual commute around here as well, although mine is just over 70. and dog classes are 75 in the other direction! |
So far my life hasn't really been impacted. I basically just drive to and from work and then random miscellaneous places on the weekends. Luckily there's nowhere interesting to go around here, so it keeps the driving down  |
| Gas in upstate NY is among the highest in the nation. I paid $3.58 a gallon last night. Doug and I car pool and we do far less "impulse" traveling than we used to. |
| ^^^
Is that for regular? Cause in the Albany area (where it is unreasonably high ) we are only at $3.40 ish for regular |
| Yup, that's regular in good old Ithaca NY! I think it has to do with the two colleges, Cornell and Ithaca College but gas here is ALWAYS 5-10 cents higher than the surrounding areas. |
| We're paying about 1.12 a litre here, which is about 4.23 a gallon Canadian. |
| I know that in Canada and Europe high gass prices have been a forever thing. It is going to take US a while to get used to it. I think a major difference is that our public transportation systems need some MAJOR revamping if the cost of fuel is going to continue to rise.
It is very difficult, unless you live in a jojor city, to use public transportation in most places her. |
| Some of you may have heard the joke from americans who come to the UK that they were wealthy untill they filled up their car here. To give you an idea of typical fuel prices in the UK at the moment it works out at $7.80cents a US gallon (ie well over twice the cost of what it is in the US). Out of that nearly 70% is taxation.
There was a recent survey aswell about public transport throughout western Europe and the UK was ranked as having by far the worst public transport, but also by a large margin the most expensive (public transport costs make running a car quite affordable over here). |
| I, as Ginny live in NYS. It cost me 55.00 to fill the tank.
We no longer go out to eat, Try to make one trip out and plan it out as to not to retrack. Richard is now riding his motorcycle. that is about a 40.00 savings there a week on gas. OH YES. ONE BIG THING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I BUY GAS THAT IS MADE IN THE USA. I will not support any others. The ststions here tell you if the gas is USA or overseas. Good for them!!! |
| My Motorhome has a 90 gallon tank for diesel, which is at $4.20 a gallon.
It gets 10 miles to the gallon on a good day, so fuel alone is right around 50 cents per mile now. |
| Our gas is $3.25 now.
It hasn't limited my traveling too much. I just plan on the expense. We are driving out to NY next month, then driving down to St Louis the next week. I may be singing a different tune by then!!! |
| We get our cars filled by hubbys work, thank goodness, here in OZ the price is around $1.50 a litre, they reckon soon it will be up around the $2.00 a Litre.
If it was costing me to fill my wagon from empty to full probably around $70 dollars to fill the tank at the moment. We luv our Hubbys job and the petrol card. 
By the way you guys call it gas Naaaah Petrol as it is a fluid, you americans talk funny
We have gas cars, "LPG" and even that is getting expensive. Bring on the Hybrid ones in the future where you have an option of "Petrol" or Charging the batteries on the car at home with an adaptor. Maybe the way of the future then Gas (Petrol) guzzlers then not so reliant on world Petrol prices and who controlls that? |
LOL - well the gas really is short slang for gasoline. 
Gasoline - still a strange word though! Our big thing here is gas (petrol) made from grain - corn. We are in the corn belt and ethanol plants are springing up all over. There is a new one being built about 8 miles from our house. |
Tasker's Mom wrote: .......It is going to take US a while to get used to it......
But why should we 'have' to get use to it when the big oil companies were already making such a large profit last year at the $2.39+ price per gallon. I see it only as a "need for greed". If we would protest these prices by not doing business with the "out of country" companies it would surely have to benefit us some. WE the people, have the power to make a difference if we would only stand together. |
| Yes, the price of gas/petro is coming into consideration with any vacation plans we may be making. My son graduaties from University of Michigan this summer with his Master's Degree and so we will need to make a 1200 mile trip...by plane or by car. I loved to fly, but I had wanted to bring the girls so had hoped for a road trip, but am rethinking that. hmmmm
My son works in Melbourne so he drives his motorcycle to save gas/petro. My hubby only works five minutes from home...so also drives a motorcycle for two reasons...he loves the ride and also the cost of gas/petro. We had already made cuts in our trips and spending with the on set of shingles the cost of doctor visits and medication, a budget adjustment. I do try to do most of my shopping close by to patronize the businesses in my community. I also try to organize my errands so to save on time and fuel, but have always done that since organizing comes naturally to me. lol I also do walk to a few more places that I used to hop in the car for...I do it more for my health but the bonus is less use of fuel. I do agree we do need to protest and not just "learn to accept" these prices. |
Anonymous wrote: WE the people, have the power to make a difference if we would only stand together.
http://forum.oes.org/viewtopic.php?t=9256 |
| do you realize if the US Government had taken action after the shot across our bow by Saudia Arabia back in 1974 with the oil embargo and increased the mileage on all vehicles 1/3 mpg each year.........that today, 34 year's later we wouldn't need Middle East oil? (Bob Brinker's Money Talk, today April 12th)
For all those who expect the government to solve their problems from price of gasoline to health care, realize it IS the government that is the problem. If you want something done, do it yourself. |
| Aren't your two paragraphs somewhat contradictory? |
| Gas here was $3.73 yesterday. $50.00 to fill my tank...used to be $22.00. I have no spending money because I have to spend so much on gas, increased food prices, etc.
That's what we get for having 2 oil men in office...why should they care...just more money for them. |
| I've cut some of these down. I hate the high prices too, but we have to realize, the world is growing up, China is exploding and using more and more oil, steel, concrete, copper.......etc. The higher the demand for items, the higher the prices. Government intervention in prices only makes it worse.
Quote: I want to buy my gas from companies that don't import from the Middle East. Which ones are they? Answer: There are essentially NO major-brand retail gas stations whose product derives from US sources only, and basically all of them have Middle East oil as a significant proportion of their source crude - because if refineries used only American oil, they would be incapable of making the volumes that we demand - a 60% shortfall. A few small regional refiner-producers may use MOSTLY American oil, but even they likely use purchased oil - with imported origins - to produce the volumes of gasoline that are demanded by the American public. In addition to all the crude imported, the U.S. must import about 66 million gallons of refined gasoline because our refineries can't make enough http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html Quote: Who really controls the price of oil, OPEC or the big oil companies? Short answer: None of the above. Big Oil and the Big O can't control the price of oil, even though OPEC really, really wants to. Oil prices are set by supply and demand in a global market. The consumer controls the prices. Many people think OPEC controls oil prices, however, for at least three reasons: OPEC certainly acts like it sets the price of oil. It holds meetings and issues press releases and sets "quotas" for its members. Oil prices often go on bumping up and down like OPEC never existed. It's obvious that the world's biggest oil producers can increase price by curtailing production. Here's the catch: Any producer big enough to manipulate the market by slashing production can't benefit from the resulting higher price. And any producer big enough to crash prices by increasing production will suffer from doing so. If any country could control oil prices, it would be Saudi Arabia. This is why it can't. People assume that if OPEC didn't exist, all major producers would open the spigot and produce oil at the maximum possible rate, which makes no sense whatever. Oil producers behave exactly like producers in any other industry. When inventories are low and prices are high, they produce more. When inventories are high and prices are low, they produce less. Nobody needs OPEC to tell them to do that. Quote: ... In a ritual as predictable as Donald Trump firing an eager go-getter, Congress demands testimony from oil executives and threatens additional taxes and price regulations whenever petroleum prices rise. It's an old tradition - and one based on economic ignorance. Bowing to flawed thinking and the popular will, President Nixon (with Congress) instituted general price controls in 1973. It was a vain attempt to control inflation. After the predictable shortages arose, price controls were eliminated on everything except petroleum products and natural gas. Not eliminating those price controls created the energy crisis of the 1970s and the memorable gas lines. Yes, the Arab oil embargo reduced the world supply of petroleum. Yes, worldwide economic growth created more demand. However, increasing demand and shrinking supply cause higher prices, not gas lines. This isn't a mystery. Around chapter five in every "principles of economics" class, the impacts of price ceilings are explained. They lead to shortages. The logic is clear, and the evidence is consistent and overwhelming. When Reagan eliminated petroleum price controls in 1981, the shortages and the gas lines disappeared. Why would politicians use such tried-and-failed policies? Maybe because the public rarely understands who's actually at fault. Surveys taken in the 1970s about the energy crisis bear this out. Who did the respondents blame? Not Washington for its Byzantine price and allocation controls. They didn't even blame OPEC. They blamed "Big Oil." In The Myth of the Rational Voter, economics professor Bryan Caplan exposes the discouraging gap between popular conceptions of economics and economic reality. With that in mind, it isn't surprising that the same 1970s-era surveys showing the energy crisis to be the biggest problem also showed the most popular solutions were those that would amplify the very things causing the crisis. A large majority wanted more stringent price controls. A near majority even wanted to issue ration coupons. Then as now, a weakening dollar and strong economies overseas led to higher petroleum prices. Then as now, the popular culprits were the oil companies. In a result especially depressing to those of us who spent decades teaching chapter five, a recent Gallup survey found that 70 percent of Americans want Washington to implement price controls to counter the high price of petroleum. Even more unnerving is the 64 percent of Americans who think you can cut the price of gasoline by imposing "a significant additional tax on oil company profits." In a bad-policy rerun, Congress, blaming high prices on high profits, again demands testimony from oil-company executives and threatens regulations and additional taxes. Though consumers may not realize it, none of this will help them. Today's high oil-company profits are largely caused by high prices on the petroleum they pump from their own reserves. Anybody who owns petroleum reserves, whether it's Exxon, Venezuela, Iran, widows, orphans or the University of Texas, gets more money when petroleum prices rise. These high prices are the result of straight-forward economics: Demand has increased more than supply. For instance, China's demand for petroleum has doubled in just the last 10 years. Unless and until supply catches up, no regulations, taxes or histrionics will bring gas prices down. Penalizing Americans for having the foresight to buy and develop oil reserves (which an additional profits tax would do), ensures that a larger percentage of these valuable resources will be controlled by the likes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A political truth-in-advertising law would require disclosing this fact when legislators propose additional profit taxes on oil companies. Expecting politicians to ignore popular opinion may be asking too much. But if our leaders are going to read the polls, maybe they should read some from the 1970s and then look at the careers of those who followed them... http://www.newsobserver.com/2191/story/1028157.html [/quote] |
| I don't understand what you're trying to say.
It just seemed to me that in one breath you were suggesting that the government regulation CAFE standards should have been increased by 1/3 of one MPG per year, and in the next breath that most government is evil. I'm not arguing either way, I'm just wondering which you meant. |
SheepieBoss wrote: do you realize if the US Government had taken action after the shot across our bow by Saudia Arabia back in 1974 with the oil embargo and increased the mileage on all vehicles 1/3 mpg each year.........that today, 34 year's later we wouldn't need Middle East oil? (Bob Brinker's Money Talk, today April 12th) It's more in depth than this, but: When I think back on that oil crisis situation I remember being told ways to cut back on fuel to help resolve the situation. Things such as: 1. Don't drive when you can walk. 2. Make your errands in one round trip. 3. Turn the thermastat down a couple degrees. 4. Turn off unnecessary lights in the house. 5. Don't use outdoor Christmas lights. I was somewhat saddened by the darkness of that Christmas season, but I was more disgusted by those that kept theirs lit. Sometimes its up to us to do our part. After the crisis what did we do? What did we learn? From our behaviour I would say nothing. Gradually the Christmas lights returned, but their numbers grew larger each year following the crisis. We have been, and are a very wasteful nation. Our waste is part of why we depend on foreign oil. Now we're paying the piper again. Instead of buying gas saving cars after that crisis we eventually set a record of the number of SUV's on the road. I prefer mine over my car, but.......... afford is about to override prefer. SheepieBoss wrote: ....For all those who expect the government to solve their problems from price of gasoline to health care, realize it IS the government that is the problem. If you want something done, do it yourself.
The government IS the problem, but we allowed them to get away with putting us in these situations. Now, they almost have us where they want us. "Totally dependent on THEM for everything!" With all the taxes we pay, we already work for them. It's only a matter of time before they take the whole paycheck. People are worried about a recession, we should probably be more worried about another depression. God help us all. |
| I wasn't around when the Great Depression hit.
But what I read in history books (in a very conservative state) was that the government was very key in helping us emerge. I think the problem is less our dependence on foreign oil than it is on excess consumption of energy, period. (Not to mention excess consumption of fast food, junk food, plastics, disposable goods, etc). Our waistlines and our bottomlines (pun intended) would improve if we drove less. In Europe and other places, high prices for gasoline were intended to reduce consumption of gasoline, and preferential use of other modes of transportation. I see the point and the value in that. I don't see the point of SUVs, especially in town. I drive a mid-sized car that gets good gas mileage all year round--through some pretty nasty Minnesota winter weather, through some pretty steep and windy roads. The SUVs I see seem to struggle a lot more than I do with the road conditions. |
| here in our area on TV Kwick fill is USA made. they even out it on TV. BUY AMERICAN !!!!! |
OES Mommy wrote: here in our area on TV Kwick fill is USA made. they even out it on TV. BUY AMERICAN !!!!!
They actually get all their oil from Canada. It's refined in the U.S. but the actual crude oil in not from here. http://pittsburghlive.com:8000/x/pittsb ... 57373.html |
mouthypf wrote: We have been, and are a very wasteful nation. Our waste is part of why we depend on foreign oil.
I agree. I think about everything I throw out & use more than ever these days. Our gas prices in south Jersey are around the $3.00 mark. Surprisingly, I think we're the lowest in the country. We have had our Prius now for a few years. We LOVE it, not only because of the gas prices, but the car itself is made really well, drives nice and has a great sound system. My husband usually drives it to work because he has a big commute. He tries to break his own records with the gas mileage, which you can monitor while you drive. The highest he got was 68 mph. Forgot to mention that I was in NYC today and so many of the taxis are now Priuses which is part of Bloomburg's plan to convert the city. |
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