Gas Prices...what's your breaking point?

[fishbone]

Paul, ia un Honda Accord sau Civic Hybrid si gata. Aia arata a masina in care poti umbla si tu.

Nevasta-mea a zis ca nu se urca in asa ceva [unghiuri/vizibilitate ciudata] si-s scumpe ale naibii. She absolutely wants hatchback. You can argue with women ... to a point.

[Siper2]

People, especially we Americans, constantly take issue with gas prices. Do I think they're fair? No. Do I think we should ditch foreign oil dependence? Yes.

 

But gas prices always fluctuate. 10 years ago, gas prices were less than half what they are now, yet we complained. Honestly, it's not as awful as we make it sound.

[fishbone]

I think a fair representation would be what percent of your income do you spend on gas, all things being equal.

[f1anatic]

Nevasta-mea a zis ca nu se urca in asa ceva [unghiuri/vizibilitate ciudata] si-s scumpe ale naibii. She absolutely wants hatchback. You can argue with women ... to a point.

 

Pai alea sint masini. Poate le confunda cu Prius. Aia e ciudata.

 

Hatchback. Has she seen the new STI ?

[fishbone]

Yes. She cut me off mid-sentence "what do you think of ..." and said "ugly"

Plus, full-time awd is a heavy toll on mpg. Also, I prefer to be the go-to when she gets stuck in snow and needs pulling out/ride to work. It makes me feel useful for a change, haha. This past winter I woke up with her 5AM several times on bad snow-days and I enjoyed doing it. Dropped her off, went back, anchored her stuck Focus ZX3, pulled it out, no problem.

[f1anatic]

tell her it has an economy mode. But it is highly crash resistant instead.

[fishbone]

Right, economy mode like my Stage 1 and upcoming Stage 2

Crash resistance argument might be a winner though.

She told me "I'll just let you be the Subie guy in our family, how's that"

[Guest]

Gas is still cheap folks, enjoy while you can.

[CTATV]

we pay a lot less than most of the world does for gas (other than middle east of course)

[f1anatic]

I don't care about the rest of the world and what they are paying.

 

 

I care about Exxon Mobil and BP and other oil companies in this country making billions of dollars in profit and getting away with it. See the issue is: they keep making record profits. When you hear RECORD PROFITS even as the cost of the oil barrel goes up, something is wrong. The price of acquisition of oil went up for all the right or wrong reasons...fine...but the oil processing prices hasn't. If the oil companies had to hire more armies to protect their oil fields due to instability, or they had to drill deeper or pay more taxes ...they would not be making record profits. They would be just like any other industry generating a high but steady revenue dictated by supply and demand and other market & technological forces. But they keep making record profits.

[mcw82]

Farmers are making record profit too right now. Let's divert some our anger at them too (JK on that one). I read somewhere about the multitudes of different gas blends adding to the problem, coupled with the fact we haven't really expanded our refining capacity, along with not being able to explore in new areas off our coasts and other areas. I think our high gas prices is more of a political problem. Why are we sending money to the hostile and unstable areas of the world when apparently there's enough oil in one form or another on this hemisphere, which is a little less hostile and unstable? I also don't think diesel will not be the answer. There isn't a surplus of diesel fuel just sitting and waiting for us to switch over, is there? Aren't we going to need to convert our refining capacity to diesel, thus lowering the supply of gas, which in turn will increase the price of everything else? What about killing the speculators in the futures trading market...or just removing oil from the futures market (I know this is more far fetched than other ideas).

 

I personally blame politics. As much as I hate big oil, I hate the politicians making big oil into scapegoats when they take their contributions on the sly and add to the mess. I hate to say this, but I want to see gas prices go higher. Maybe then we'll have some form of a national energy policy that finds alternatives to oil or maybe find and refine alternative sources (like the oil sands and such). There's something wrong when more tax dollars are going into petroleum based r&d than alternative energy r&d. Also, let's kill ethanol. Even if we converted all of our farmland into ethanol producing grains and such, it won't replace our reliance on oil. I hate it when the price of my cinnamon Life keeps going up, along with other foods because more of our grains are being diverted for ethanol production.

 

I also dislike how ethanol producers get huge tax breaks when alternative energy people get just a sliver. To me, the ethanol guys seem like the oil guys in a different mask.

 

I digressed. I can probably handle $8-10 a gallon psychologically and still keep my Legacy. It just means I have to eat less cinnamon Life. The wife can drive the 30+ mpg car. That should balance things out, right?

[SteveFromMass]

1) Fuel is a right off for me. So when the IRS wants more money, they can talk to the fuel people to reduce this deduction.

2) I live in a country with endless wealth opportunity if I simply take the opportunity to do so. My income has risen faster then the price of gas, thus my gas:income ratio is better than ever.

 

if you do not like the gas prices, make them a right off while increasing your income.

[mcw82]

1)I live in a country with endless wealth opportunity if I simply take the opportunity to do so. My income has risen faster then the price of gas, thus my gas:income ration is better than it every has been.

 

if you do not like the gas prices, make them a right off while increasing your income.

 

QFT!

 

Will I get shot for using that acronym here?

[fishbone]

No, but writing "right off" instead of "write off" might confuse a couple of people at first

[Gire]

You wimps.

 

Gas here is already 5.00 per gallon. Economists predict 5.65 per gallon by the summer time.

 

Summer's here in 2 months!!!!!1

 

 

I take pride in knowing my LGT gets beter mileage than my wife's minivan. What pigs those Caravans are...

[Guest]

What pigs those Caravans are...

 

Necessary though for ferrying around two kids.

[Gire]

:wink:

 

 

The altima didn't cut it....

[Jerboa113]

Ah, fishbone, I see your point. Oil is one of those things that deviates a good bit from standard supply and demand, I suppose I failed to take that into account. As time passes the absolute supply diminishes. Not to mention so many people who are so afraid of drilling for more.

 

One thing tho to people in favor of adding a tax to the oil companies, well ok 2 things, their profits are insane, but what their profit MARGIN? I want to say you can request the data that they pulled from the oil companies during the recent hearings by contacting your congressman. I'd be interested to see if their profit margin has increased/stayed the same/decreased and at what point we draw the line of ethics on them. I mean even if the margin stayed the same the increase in cost is still increasing their income.

 

the other thing is.. if we impose a big tax on them whats to stop them from simply passing this cost onto the consumer? As you know businesses will do all they can to make as much profit as they can (its the reason businesses exist) and as I like to put it "if the bottom end comes up the top end moves up as well" like a ship on water.

 

I think that oil companies want at least somewhat to do alternative research because they want to hold the patent on "the next big thing." but I'm not sure how enthusiastic they are about chasing that right now.

[CTlegacy06]

You can't attack the oil companies because that would be attacking capitalism, plus they would just pass on the charge to consumers. Instead the only way we can make a differences is to all collectively "act locally" meaning reduce your own demand and oil needs. If we had the average fleet mpg of Japan or Europe (which are higher today than what the US is suppose to be 2015) we wouldn't be as vulnerable. Japan and Europe seem to be able to maintain relatively high (sometimes higher) standards of living why can't we?

[ih8vtec13]

The price of gas is insane mainly cause they have risen so much in such a short period of time, its almost 2 dollars a gallon up from where it was in 04. I paid $4.30 a gallon this morning shit is lame!

[ahendy]

Here in northern CA, theres a gas station off highway 80 in Colfax that I used to visit frequently, as it's right in the middle of my daily commute. It's always a little bit more expensive, but it was worth it for convenience.

 

As of today, gas at the Chevron in Colfax, CA is $4.37/gallon for 91 octane. Needless to say, I don't buy gas there anymore, especially since I can save nearly $.30 and buy it 10 miles down the freeway.

 

Do the gas prices suck? Yeah. But during the last gas crisis (couple years ago when we freaked about $3.65!) I accepted that there is close to nothing I can do about it. Sure I can buy a more economical car, and honestly I probably will (been drooling over a Mini Clubman!!). But gas will continue to go up, and my $60 tank will soon become a $100 tank. It's the way it is, and unfortunately we're not ready to live without using gas, so until then there's not a lot we can do.

[ih8vtec13]

Its really lame that we dont have a solar powered car by now that is actually cool, and funn to drive. Carbon fiber is in and cool why cant we make panels that look cool like that and make hoods and spoilers out of it?

[ehsnils]

Plus, full-time awd is a heavy toll on mpg.

 

That's more a myth than a truth. There is a slight difference, but most of the difference is from air drag and how well the engine is tuned. The weight of the car is also more important - especially in city traffic with a lot of start and stops.

[fishbone]

Ah, fishbone, I see your point. Oil is one of those things that deviates a good bit from standard supply and demand.

Even if we go by the standard rule, there still is the problem of China and India. Even if the US and Europe decrease their demand, how soon do you think China and the rest also will? Because of this, demand won't go down significantly, it's just going to be a shift in demand, that's all.

China is going through the same economic boom the United States has gone not long ago. They are gobbling up a lot of oil and, no offense, but if the US didn't care a whole lot back then, why should the Chinese care now?

Then again, it's very possible I'm just talking out of my ass based on retarted information that I picked up

 

ehsnils, I dunno about myth man. Why is it that turning AWD/4x4 on or off has a big impact on mpg on cars that allow you to actually do that?

[fishbone]

Japan and Europe seem to be able to maintain relatively high (sometimes higher) standards of living why can't we?

You're dead wrong on that one What European countries are we specifically talking about when you are referring to standards of living? I can tell you a general rule though that applies pretty consistently across the board in Europe. Their stuff is the same price here, if not more expensive. In Euros ... And they don't have the same salaries.