Just a comparionToday, a barrel of oil sells for $123.43, and gasoline sells for, on average in my area, $3.93 a gallon.
Back on May 7 of this year, a short 80 days ago, a barrel of oil was selling for $123.53, and gasoline was seeling for, on average in my area, $3.61 a gallon.
And I'm supposed to think the problem is that we're not drilling off the coast of Alaska and NOT that oil company executives are greedy sons-of-bitches? Sorry, I'm not that stupid.
POLT Listening to "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits
This is no place for open-toed shoes! - Carson, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy
8 comments:
Nope, you're not stupid at all. It's good that you notice, most people don't. It's what's called in economics as 'sticky pricing'. Prices have a tendency to go up very fast, but they return to the original price much, much slower (ie. sticking their way down). This happens across all product lines. Most people don't pay attention to this because it's usually with a product they only purchase sporadically. With oil/gas there is a much closer relationship with the product, so people notice it more...plus it's in the media every day these days.
Did you notice how much the market reacted a couple of weeks ago to the simple psychological effects of being told that drilling would start? Like I said before, most of this rests with the speculators. And if you look at the rate of inflation over the past 30 years and compare it with the price of gasoline, you'll find we've been underpaying for a long time. Not that I'm going to complain when prices come down :) They will come down, but $3 will prob be the norm.
I hope you don't mind me being a bit of the ying to your yang ;) I just think the media frenzy helps feed the issue more than it would be otherwise. Just like they do with the economy as a whole. Sure, it's not as strong as it used to be, yet we've still had growth in nearly all aspects of the economy.
The thing to remember with all of this. You can't ride an elevator forever. Eventually it must come down. Same with an economy. If anything, this is the time to invest (if you do) as things will turn around, just like they always have.
Did you hear what our wonderful congress is attempting to do now? Since the public is actually using less fuel now (a good result of the high prices), there are now less gas tax revenues coming in. To offset this, they are considering raising gas taxes since they figure the public seems willing to pay $4 a gallon. Gotta love politicians. They're all wrong...the two sides are closer than you think. I say we implement term limits for congress so new blood can get in there once in a while.
OK, enough of that. Have a great weekend. Go do some shopping with mom or help in the yard. You're going to go nuts over all this ;)
oh wait, you mean it's NOT all just supply and demand, as we've told all along???? Wow, who knew?
Yes, it IS the speculators as well. Thanks to Phil gramm, Mccain's economic guru, who got the Enron loophole into law, thus allowing the speculators to be unregulated, look what's happened? Gee, if we closed that loophole think the price would come down? You yourself point out how the price dropped once we said we might at sometime in the future, maybe do some drilling. So if the price drops when we TALK about doing something, how much will it drop when we actully DO something?
But it's noit just the speculators. I mean, after Katrina, which did indeed have a devastating effect on the Gulf, but didn't touch, as far as I know, the Alaska pipeline OR the middle east, gas prices alomst doubled in the span of a week. Aren't we importing 70% of our oil? And as you pointed out in your last yang to my yin (or is it vice-versa) the gas we;re paying for now was purchased a month ago. Therefore, the price shouldn't have risen for a month. But it rose within a week, thereby, almost doubling the profits the oil companies made on that oil they bought previous to Katrina, but sold to us afterwards! I mean oil that was already processed into gas and was in the truck on the way to my local gas station is what they shot the price up of. It's obscene.
it's all a scam. What we NEED to do is NOT to drill more and continue our bad habit, we need to develop alternative sources: air, water, solar, geothermal. Lets give our tax breaks and incentives NOT to the companies who are currently making the largest corporate profits in history. Instead, lets' give them to the people and companies who are trying to develop these resources. Big oil has more than enough money, they don't need my taxdollars too.
Man....this thing shoulda been a post all it's own. :)
HUGS...
Hell, with both Bush and Cheney being involved with the oil industry I knew we'd be over the barrel so to speak.
And the peak oil thing is bullshit. There's oil every fucking where. It's just that prior to $100+ barrel prices it wasn't worth drilling it out. Now it is.
Plus you're seeing people using less gasoline. Which is really killing our public transit system in RI since it depends on 1 cent of the gas tax for funding. So when it's needed most it suffers most.
Just a little reminder....
Don't forget to refer to the oil by it's proper type, that being "light sweet crude", when you are referring to barrels of oil and their prices.
These adjective monikers heavily imply that there are many many other types of oil out there and lots of those other types may be either a lot less or a lot more, cost wise, than the "light sweet crude" that is so amazingly popular and associated when referring to our gasoline and other petroleum products.
Has anyone looked into rubber bands as an alternative energy source?? Just curious...
Furry Godfather.
Great point. And everytime there was a report of crude going up all the local stations (Shell) in my burb would jack the price up. Yet it has remained at 3.93 per gallon the last few weeks here as well.
The issue of gas prices hits me pretty hard since I travel about 100+ miles per day (fortunately I have a fairly fuel-friendly Honda Civic), so any little bit of change significantly affects my budget.
But Tug's right -- we here in the states have enjoyed the cheapest gasoline in the world for years. In fact, everyone else kinda shakes their heads at us complaining about the prices here when many countries are paying double what we are.
However, that's not to say that our system isn't pretty fucked up. With speculators, a powerful oil lobby, and simply the basics of capitalism, it's an incredibly complex knot that's not going to get untied any time soon. If ever. :-(
That's an eye opener. I'm guilty of not paying enough attention to this issue until it started affecting the prices of goods that are trucked state to state.
Also, I can certainly get behind Tug's idea of term limits...
Greedy to say the least. Gas in my are is $4.25 a gallon, you've got it cheap!
Post a Comment