Fuel Prices

[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by 82 GT

Mr 5.0 , you're right, after reading UNITS last post, I do have a lack of understanding how the goverment works.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up.

Having said that, his statement is more credible than what you're trying to say.

And here I thought you were doing so well, too.

All the higher paying jobs are going to China and these "new jobs" being created are just like unit said...burger flippers, wal-mart, etc. If you look around and open your eyes, you will notice that more and more middle class Americans, including myself, are being forced to take second jobs in order to "stay ahead".

About 2% of all U.S. jobs have gone overseas and few were 'higher paying'. Computer 'help' operators, factory and textile workers are hardly the upper crust of jobs.

My eyes are fully open and I see a lot of folks buying $40,000. SUV's, $3,000. plasma TV's and other indicators of affluence. That they work harder to pay for them is a tribute to materialism, misguided as that may be at times, it keeps the economy humming. If you are finding it necessary to take a second job, prehaps you should look at your expenses and also at your career prospects. You may be simply trying to live above your means or are not making enough to buy what you want without working a second job. Those are the results of personal decisions which we all make. Don't just blame 'the economy'.

So, yes, the economy is in the shitter!
Just because YOU can afford $100/week in fuel doesn't mean the economy is "ok".

I never said that I can 'afford $100./week in fuel'. I can't. However, just because gas prices went up drastically does not mean the entire U.S. economy is 'in the shitter', as you so charmingly put it.

I admit I don't know everything about how the economy or goverment works but what is even more scary is the fact that you, and others like you, say "All is well".

We all tend to be afraid of what we do not understand. It's O.K.

I guarantee that you are not the type of person who comes home from work everyday with your hands dirty. I don't have to be versed on how the economy works....all I need to do is live from day to day to know the economy sucks! Open you eyes, get your head out of your ass and take a look around you and then say "All is doing well". I bet you can't!

You know nothing at all about me so do not presume to make silly judgements here. It just undercuts your already thin credibility.

If you are not doing well, financially, of course the economy looks 'bad' - to you.

There is an old joke that goes like this: When your neighbor gets laid off the economy is in a recession. When you get laid off it's in a depression. In other words, our views of the state of the economy tend to be relative to our own position in it. I am not wealthy but I do grasp the fact that while our economy is far from perfect, it is also just as far from the disaster you and Unit 5302 claim.

I won't say that 'all' is well as that would be impossible. In a vast economy and a nation with almost 300 million people, there will always be areas of the country and people who are not doing well, at all. However, on balance, the U.S. economy is doing well, overall. I regret that you fail to see that and I despair of showing you otherwise as you are clearly wedded to your pessmistic view, as is Unit 5302. So be it. I tried - and I enjoyed the opportunity to explain a few things, even if they fell on deaf ears, or, more accurately, blind eyes. Whatever.

I wish you well.

[Unit 5302]

82GT, I am not insinuating the high paying jobs are leaving the US. They aren't. They're staying here, and they're paying more than ever. It's lower middle class to middle class jobs that are leaving. That being said, there are a lot of financial, technical and service jobs that are considered at-risk to move in the future.

It's true, you do know little about how the economy and government work. Mr 5 0 has legitimate points as he almost always does, and quite frankly, he's just plain right about some things. You're ill-equipped to argue micro or macro economics. I'm not insulting you, I'm just saying that it's probably not at the top of your list to learn about it so you haven't, and you just don't know too much about the inner workings of it all.

Mr 5 0, we both know the president has little control over the US economy. The majority if the economy is controlled through the Federal Reserve Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank has controlled the inflation, and interest rates allowing people to borrow so much. Alan Greenspan pretty much controls the economy. Granted, the president can influence congress regarding federal government expenditures and tax revenues, he is hardly a main component of the economy. Workers today are earning less per hour, but they are working many more hours. The average middle class couple with children now works over 3,900hrs a year. That's 37.5hrs per week, each. Considering there are still about 46% of couples that only have one person income, the adjusted average worked hours would be 50hrs per week. People are working more to try and balance their budgets.

The durable goods you keep citing are being driven by the upper middle class and weathly who have the most expendable income, and of course, by ballooning debt ratios for consumers. People are spending themselves into giant holes they from which they cannot crawl out. The average household credit card debt alone has now increased to over $12,000. Add in interest only ARM mortgages and 60-72mo automotive loans and it paints a pretty ugly picture in regard to the average middle class family disposable income. Foreclosures are already nearing 1.25%, and bankruptcy filings have increased by a factor of 2 in the last 10 years. Bottom line is that the middle class don't have any disposable income to be making the purchases you're pointing to unless they're borrowing to against their future to aquire these goods.

While you can certainly point to the traditional market indicators such as home sales and durable goods purchases, I will point to the PE Ratio and how that traditional indicator has become far less useful in determining the market value of a security.

[82 GT]

Originally Posted by Mr 5 0

You know nothing at all about me so do not presume to make silly judgements here. It just undercuts your already thin credibility.

If you are not doing well, financially, of course the economy looks 'bad' - to you.

No, I don't know you but please tell us what you do do for a living. I'm sure it will explain your smug attitude.
Also, I never said I wasn't doing well. Where did that come from.....because I have two jobs????
My reasons for another job are not because of the economy. I was just saying that there are others who are forced to take second jobs because of the economy.
So, who's judging whom here? Yes, I'm complaining about fuel prices because I know darn well that they don't need to be that high.

[Unit 5302]

He works for an insurance comany, just like me the last time I checked. Not that it matters much, anyway, since anybody can take the time to learn about how the economy and government work.

It's kinda like trying to figure out whether or not a car enthusiast knows what they're saying when they're giving advice on camshaft specifications by where they work.

[82 GT]

Originally Posted by Unit 5302

He works for an insurance comany, just like me the last time I checked. Not that it matters much, anyway, since anybody can take the time to learn about how the economy and government work.

Interesting....you both are probably in the same tax bracket but yet see the economy entirely different...interesting indeed.......
I'm going to bow out here because this is only going to turn into a "debat-a-thon" if I don't.
I despise Mr. 5.0's superiorority complex he seems to have about people who do not have as much of an understanding of the goverment/economy as he claims to have or who work two jobs.
That's ignorance personified right there!
That's another thing wrong with America today...too many people that think their shit doesn't stink.

[sixtiesmustang]

if u think about it, cause gas went up, everything else will go up as well. such as mail, shipping and handeling, food...and everything that has to be transported by a fuel powered machine. pretty much everything. u think the companies are just gonna leave the prices of their products the same and pay the extra money for the gas, NOPE, why would they. so as gas goes up, so does everything else. and our economy drops drastically cause people cant afford to buy the things they used to. and while all of this goes on, we still have SOO much oil sittin right under us in the US that were not aloud to touch in hopes of saving it for later times where we might need it more....

[Unit 5302]

The prices of goods will undoubtedly increase somewhat due to the temporary artificial inflation caused by increased fuel costs. That being said, the increase in fuel costs is temporary, and refineries are already coming back online. Interestingly enough, the damage doesn't appear to be as severe as the oil companies initially indicated. It seems as though they may getting a little political pressure to keep their ducks in a row so to speak.

Anyway, as the Federal Reserve is likely to indicate at their next meeting, this is a temporary production issue rather than a supply issue, and I expect interest rates to rise another 1/4 pt at the end of this month.

Oil futures have already dropped about $5/bbl, and countries like Kuwait have pledged millions in free oil. Average gasoline prices declined over the past 24hrs from an all time high of $3.06 to $3.04/gallon for regular unleaded. Now that the Labor Day weekend is over, people are actively watching their fuel consumption, and refineries are coming back online I expect fuel prices may fall. I'm still concerned about the price of oil futures, and I'm having difficulty understanding why they are so high. Many Natural Resource Portfolio's are up 40% year to date. A ridiculous return.

[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by 82 GT

No, I don't know you but please tell us what you do do for a living. I'm sure it will explain your smug attitude.

One man's 'smugness' is another man's confidence. It's all in your perspective. However, my means of employment has no real bearing on my opinion regarding the economy. That opinion is based on various economic facts I have carefully laid out in this thread.

Also, I never said I wasn't doing well. Where did that come from.....because I have two jobs???

That, and the fact that you seem to be in despair because gas prices went up and are incensed that I do not share your alarm. Your continued references to my assumed wealthy status is another clue. This kind of distraction is why I do not wish to delve into personal issues. Let's just discuss the issue at hand, not each other. If your finances are in good shape, I am glad to hear it.

My reasons for another job are not because of the economy. I was just saying that there are others who are forced to take second jobs because of the economy.

So, who's judging whom here? Yes, I'm complaining about fuel prices because I know darn well that they don't need to be that high.

I think we're done here.

[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by 82 GT

Interesting....you both are probably in the same tax bracket but yet see the economy entirely different...interesting indeed....

That is common when discussing economics.

I'm going to bow out here because this is only going to turn into a "debat-a-thon" if I don't.

Translation: I have nothing more to say.

I despise Mr. 5.0's superiorority complex he seems to have about people who do not have as much of an understanding of the goverment/economy as he claims to have or who work two jobs.
That's ignorance personified right there!

You really need to learn to take disagreement with your views with a bit less hostility. You'll probably live longer.

That's another thing wrong with America today...too many people that think their shit doesn't stink.

Yes, I'm certain that's the cause of all of our problems.

Now I know we're done here.

[82 GT]

Originally Posted by Mr 5 0

.

Now I know we're done here.

Translation: We agree that we disagree

[Stang_Girl617]

Well down here in Ga we had a gas shortage for a few days and it got up to 6 bucks a gallon. but now were all good because our state government has taken the state tax out of the cost of the gas soo its like 2.50 a gallon. WHOO HOO!

we got gas in washington state yesterday at 2.92 and they say its been dropping for the past week and think its gonna keep going doing some more too. i liked the sounds of that

[Mr 5 0]

Supply and demand.

While there are a lot of factors that go into the pump price for a gallon of gas, a better-flowing supply, which we are beginning to experience, will always help hold down prices somewhat, although never as low as we would all like. However, we need to realize that a gallon of gas costs 60 cents in 1975 and, with inflation factored in, that price translates to about 2.20 per gallon, today and it's going into cars that routinely get much better gas mileage that a '75 (or older) heavyweight with a bigger displacement engine, a carb and less efficient emissions equipment.

So, while gas prices are still a little high, they are not ridiculously high and any reasonable person can see that, once you past the initial shock of seeing prices jump, temporarily, by almost a dollar-per-gallon in a week or less. That crisis is passing and gas prices will be coming back down, just as I predicted, so all the angst was for nothing.

[MEDIK418]

I've watched this argument for many years now. It always goes the same way. Yes there are side tracks that some folks take in order to fix blame on this politician or that one but it's always the same. Poor lil us and our plight with the big oil companies.
You want gas prices to go down? Stop driving so much. Don't hand me the crap about the kid down the block who can't afford to commute to his job at Mikkey Dee's since gas costs so much. There's a McDonalds on every other corner and the thought that someone has to commute hundreds of miles a week to get to one is a load of hogwash. Young people as a rule blow through gas like it's like the air we breathe. . . free for the taking.
For more than 40 years now the federal and state governments have been legislating us into this mess we're in right now and the voters who keep these idiots in office are more to blame than the idiots themselves. The problem in this country with high gas prices has nothing to do with the price of crude oil. Most oil companies in this world produce as much crude oil and they buy. It's a kind of break even for most of the bigger companies.
I've heard all sorts of schemes on how we should all only buy gas on even days, or only on Tesdays and Thursdays. Everything in the book to bring the majors to their knees. Forget it! All you're going to do there is postpone the inevitable. If you don't buy gas on 5 of the 7 days that are in a week, all you do is leave the gas station attendants with some clean-up time 5 days a week. They buy gas in big tankfulls, they can go for a couple of weeks without you buying their gas and it will have no affect whatsoever on any oil company no matter how far up the food chain they are. Let's boycott Mobile gas stations. All you do there is punsih the owner/operator who just paid a rediculous price for the gas he can't sell now and pretty soon, we've run his mangy butt out of business. One more station for the major oil companies to take over or replace with one of their corporate minimarts.
You folks in California??? Congratulations. You've spent decades trying to get rid of the giant polluting oil refineries and now guess what? You've got the highest prices in the nation. Not just now but forever. San Diego typically has the highest gas prices in the nation. Wanna guess why? Because you people legislated yourselves into it!
How many refineries have we as a country built in the last 80 years? I'm not talking about state sponsored construction, I'm talking about refineries that have been built by Americans on American soil? Not one!
How many have we shut down in that same time frame? Hundreds! IT's easy for our government jackasses in state and federal houses of congress to legilate the latest anti-polluting laws on refiners. Unfortunately, ALL of the smaller refiners who didn't have the extra 10 million bucks in the bank to bring their refineries up to snuff had to either close down or, as is the case in most, they sellout to the bigger oil companies who have the deeper pockets and can afford the midifications. Unfortunately, any time a small oil company is taken over, more than 80 percent of their small refineries are sold for scrap bacause even the big guys have a limit to the amount of money they can throw at old technology.
By now you may start to suspect I work for an oil company. Yes I do. I've done so for 25 years now and hopefully will continue to do so for another 10 years or so. One ot the two refineries along the gulf coast that cannot start up for a few months is one of ours. We're looking at anohter 3 months before production can resume. There are over 700 additional people on site as we speak trying feverishly to get it back up and running. Every day the plant is down is costing the company 8.8 million dollars in lost opportunities. This is just lost sales. This doesn't even include the cost of tearing the entire plant down to clear the salt water and the 700 contractors they had to hire to do the work.
The bottom line is that we as a country are depending on a fraction of the refineries we once had to do the work of twice that number could do 40 years ago. We cannot build new refineries. . . period and that, coupled with our exhorbitant driving habits is why gas prices are so high.
You want gas prices to come down? Stop driving so much. Lose those gas guzzling hogs we drive and stop driving to a store two blocks away when it would do all of us good to walk that far once in a while.
I'm just as guilty as the next guy. I drive an Avalanche that takes a hunnert dollar bill to fill up now and I'm building a Mustang right now that I'm sure will eat more gas than the truck but guess what. . .I'm not moaning and groaning and yes, my gas costs just as much as yours does.
Oil companies raise gas prices in times like these for many reasons and yes profit is one. Another is that they are trying to slow the depletion of a resource they can see is going to be in short supply for a while. Another still is the amount of money they stuff back into finding more crude and designing ways to make the refineries we have more efficient and productive. Legislation killed the refining capacity in this country. You want to blame someone? Go hang a politician who keeps voting to keep us out of areas where the oil is just to save a mud flat where virtually nothing lives. "but it's a wilderness" the argument goes. How many of you have ever gone to the Northern end of Alaska to visit the swamp there? That's what I thought.
Stern words? Yup! I've seen first hand how the government and liberal tree huggers have destroyed any hopes we have of lowering gas prices and it makes me sick to see so many people aiming their frustrations in the wrong direction. Want to hear something hikarious? Does the government realize that they have done this to us? You bet they do. Right now, due to the mess Katrina made, Congress is trying to pass legislation that will allow refiners to forgo the clean gasoline restrictions until the refining shortage is over. They know damn well they have caused this mess and this little stop gap measure won't help much at all. You see, to go back to making gasoline with a little higher sulfur content, they'd have to "unbuild" the newer technology that they threw away after the previous legislation Congress passed. What better way for our government to force refiners to spend more money at the whim of some politician in Washington. That will sure make gas prices go back down huh?
Want to get some of that money back? Right now the oil field is rife with work for people wanting to actually work. I mean back-breaking, noisy, dirty work that pays a kid out of high school close to a hundred thousand dollars a year. It's not glamorous and you won't learn anything that will get you a white collar job later but it's there and it's going to be for some years to come. We're in another oil and gas boom right now folks. It's going to take years to reach the level of oil and gas production in this country to match what we are using every day.
Remember who you voted for come next election. Are they part of the poroblem or part of the solution?

[82 GT]

I promised myself I was finished with this thread but after reading the previous post, I though I would add my 2 cents once again.
Mr.50 , I honestly see your point when you mention the inflation factor. I makes sense.

MEDIK , your theory also makes sense BUT...here's what's wrong with it. You say stop driving so much but the goverment buys tons of barrels of crude oil for the reserves, which, at the time, we had plenty of. This, in turn, keeps the demand for fuel high no matter how much Americans conserve fuel.
Second, the people with the large, expensive SUV's, don't give two shits about how much they pay for fuel. If you can afford these large, gas guzzling vehicles, you can certainly afford to drop a $100 into the tank. Mentality like that also keeps the demand high.
Think about it....if you're a wealthy person are you really going to care that you have to spend an extra $20-$25 at the pumps.....no...of coarse not. I wouldn't.
For your theory to work, everyone that owns a gas powered vehical, would have to cut back on their driving habbits and that is not going to happen with mentality like that.
I'm not crying about fuel prices because I can't afford it but I would like to have the extra money for other stuff.
I would like to contribute more to my 401K but with everything on the rise, it makes it that much more difficult.

[ultraflo]

The 100 octane unleaded turbo blue I run in my Mach1 has managed to stay at the same $3.89 that it was at the beginning of last year...

Originally Posted by ultraflo

The 100 octane unleaded turbo blue I run in my Mach1 has managed to stay at the same $3.89 that it was at the beginning of last year...

really? that is surprising actually.

[MEDIK418]

Second, the people with the large, expensive SUV's, don't give two shits about how much they pay for fuel. If you can afford these large, gas guzzling vehicles, you can certainly afford to drop a $100 into the tank. Mentality like that also keeps the demand high.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Maybe I forgot to finish part of my last quote. EVERYONE is going to have to stop driving so much. Did you know that we are driving MORE now than we were two years ago. On average Americans are driving more than when gas prices shot up two years ago. Not just the big rich SUV drivers (which by the way, I take tremendous offense with your reference that only rich people can afford to drive but I'll address that in a minute) but every one of the little buzzmobiles I see every time I visit San Diego. The traffic never seems to stop 24 hours a day out there. Something else too, how many do you see in the express lanes? Not many. Phoenix, California, Washington DC, you name the place we as America are too self involved to share a ride with the people we work with every day. Oh, there are a few but there again, it seems the country wasted a lot of taxpayer money building carpool lanes that sit empty until after rush hour is over.
Theory? It's not a theory that we are running on one tenth the number of refineries we were in 1970. There wasn't a shortage then and there's none now. The plant I work in is running at maximum but our tanks are as full now as they were a month ago. The summer rush had more to do with inventories than Katrina did. Yes, there were spot shortages while the big pipelies were down but that should have corrected itself by now. And it has according to gas prices. Remember. . . .oil companies jack prices up in an attempt to make us drive less and use less gas bacause they forsee an opportunity for shortages later on down the road. It should be a harbinger of things to come, not a reason to gripe and blame politicians.
Let's address government stockpiles of crude oil. Do you actually know how much they have for us? Not even a day's worth of crude, that's how much. If you turned off the wells, the tankers coming from Russia, and the middle east, they government stockpile wouldn't last a day. It's a joke. The only reason they keep them around is that it makes politicians warm and fuzzy thinking that they have us convinced that we're safe relying on the spare oil they stocked up on. It's a joke. I'm not making this up, look in the business section of your local newspaper. It tells right there in black and white how much crude oil we go through each and every day of our lives and it makes the federal government look awful stupid when you consider how much oil is in this so-called government reserve. The only affect that releasing the oil they said they were going to was the same affect that 9/11 had on the price of gas. People THOUGHT there was going to be a shortage so they went into a panic-buying frenzy and caused spot shortages across the country. This time, with Katrina, the government said they were going to release some oil and people relaxed a little. The jobbers realized the panic was about over and prices started going down. It happens every time there's a hiccup in the oil industry nowadays.
Here's a little lesson to mull over. The plant I work at suffered through a series of really bad luck events beginning in January. Failed airfins, an explosion, a couple of fires. . .all contributed to our not being able to produce ANYTHING for 123 days. That was 144,000 barrels of crude that didn't get processed every day we were down. Did you see a jump in gas prices? Nope! not a one. Why? Because the press didn't get wind of it that's why. The good ole news media didn't have the opportunity to put America in a panic like they so love to do. We're so far back in the sticks, they didn't find out about us.
Now, let's talk about the people with the large SUVs who don't give a crap about how much we pay for gas. Your theory is full of bugjuice. Like I said, I drive one and I've had to shut down a lot of driving lately. My son who has a 120mile commute (one way) has opted to live in the town he works in for the 7 days he has to be there (7 on and 7 off) Why? Because we pay the same price for gas as everyone else and it hurts us just as much as the next guy. I've gone from driving about 3 tankfulls out every month to one. That's with two of us driving it to work. I've ressurected an old Suzuki 750 to get to work in a week or so. We look for ways to consolidate errands to make the most of the gas we have. I'm not sure how much you think a person has to make for a living to buy one of these things but it's not much more than most small cars on the market these days. (Besides that, California has more little cars running around the state than anyone and they use more gas than most other states.) I drive it because I like the room and yes, I choose to pay the penalty for doing so at the pump but don't tell me I don't hurt every time I fill up. You don't have a monopoly on cash limits here. I've got a Mustang in the driveway that's a clutch and a X-pipe away from being finished enough to drive but guess what? I spent most of the extra money on gas last month. I still stand by what I said. You want to slow the price of gas down a bit? Stop driving so much. EVERYONE. If theres' no market for the stuff, it won't be worth as much. Another thing, next time there's a calamity like the one that happened to the Gufl coast, dont' cause the prices to shoot shy high by lining up at the pump in block long lines to get the last drop of gas before the next truckload shows up. This kind of crap feeds the media like a school of sharks. One front page headline with a picture of the morons sitting in line for gas is usually all it takes for the gasoline distributors to start seeing dollar signs. Why do I say this? Because I know several of them and they love this stuff. It would take weeks for an event like that to start affecting the gasoline and oil reserves in this country. OK, forget I mentioned reserves, insert the word inventories for that. Anyway, I don't mean for this to be mean spirited but I'm sick of the lies that the national media is telling about anything that affects this country and on this subject, I can shed a little light. I've been in this business for over 25 years now and I laugh every time I see a story on the gas crisis. Not because of the effects but becasue of the lies I see in the news over it. Think of how many personal owned vehicles we have in this country. Millions upon millions. Think how much gas we would save for another day if each of those vehicles drove just 2 percent less each week. I don't have the answer buy can bet it would make a big dent in the price of gas in this country. Till then, I can promise that there are a lot of folks out there who are doing all they can to make as much gas as they possibly can with the equipment they have to work with and they'll continue to do so as long as we can.

[Unit 5302]

I've never met or talked to a person working for an oil company that wasn't brutally patriotic about their company or their industry. They always have a dozen really lame-o reasons why they're not to blame. How it's the government's fault. How it's the consumer's fault. How it's OPEC's fault. It's never the oil company's fault, though.

Comparing the costs today vs 20 years ago looks good on paper until you start seeing things like Exxon Mobil recording a $10 billion profit last quarter.... That's more than any company in the history of the world.

The oil companies ARE price gouging. There is no competition in the industry since the monopolistic merger of Exxon and Mobil. The companies in that industry are recording record profits for their industry, and in the case of the aforementioned Exxon-Mobil, in any industry in the history of the planet. The comment that oil companies jack up the price to control our driving habits is ludicrious, and simply insulting. They jack up the price because they know our driving habits, and how to take advantage of them.

Refineries routinely go down in this country. Having one or two down isn't uncommon. Especially around or just before a typical driving holiday. That creates a theoretical shortage and voila, a reason to jack up prices. I've seen it used on several holiday's especially Memorial Day and Labor Day.

The argument that you can find a good job just around the corner is positively uninformed. Many states in this country have urban sprawl models in place that limit the expansion of business into the suburbs or away from the existing major metropolitan areas. With housing costs rising in the 10-20% range for the majority of the US metro areas, it creates great pressure to move further away from the major employers and commute further to work.

It's not the federal government keeping the oil industry down by not allowing more drilling in North America. It's the federal government pumping billions of dollars of tax breaks and grants into the industry as a political kick back in turn for the soft money under the table that our politicians get from big oil. The lame attempt at passing the buck along is just the average joe in this country speaking. Most people can't take responsibility for anything, and they simply pass the blame along. As if oil companies aren't a major part of the problem.

Whatever.

[ultraflo]

Originally Posted by digital3.3

really? that is surprising actually.

Just goes to show how much of a 'game' it is to jack with fuel prices. Before it was raised to $3.89, it was $3.69 for the longest time, even before/during/after the price hikes associated with 9/11.