Last Friday I filled up and paid 2.19 per gallon

[CatWoman]

today I filled up again at 2.69 a gallon.

The same old shit every time a hurricane hits.

[VMA131Marine]

1. How much has the price of electricity changed??

That Tesla Model 3 is looking better all the time.

[mcar]

2. Same here

[yallerdawg]

3. I always wondered how the gas in the pump at the station could go up.

They told me it's not about what they have in THEIR tank - it's about how much THEIR next tanker truck of gas is going to cost THEM.

And shortly, there may be no new tanker truck of gas, depending on where you live.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. It's actually very simple...

When a retailer sells something, and that something will be replaced by another something, the retailer has to take into account replacement cost.

Say a widget costs the retailer $1.00 and he sells it for $1.50. He didn't make 50 cents profit because of overhead and expenses, but he may have made 10 cents.

If the wholesale cost of widgets goes up to $1.50, he loses because he has to replace the widgets he sold with the more expensive ones. If it only goes up to $1.10, he barely breaks even, but could afford a loss on the next shipment.

There a gazillion arguments one can make about this, and all of them are already heard in Eco 102 classes, but it is the way things are done and you are not being cheated when they follow accepted rules.

And not everything is priced like this-- it's usually only things directly affected by supply and demand.

[Thor_MN]

15. Ridiculous.

If the wholesale price of an item changes, it does nothing to the cost of inventory in stock.

Its value increased, but its cost is the same as when it was purchased. It will cost more to order more and the newer ones, when sold, could be a loss if the retail price remains the same, but the cost of an item is set in stone at the time it was ordered from the supplier.

Sure, one can play games with how one accounts for inventory, but that is smoke and mirrors created to justify the wages of accountants.

[TreasonousBastard]

19. I said there were a bazillion arguments about this, and that is just one of them...

Aside from getting into FIFO and LIFO accounting, which would no doubt reinforce your feelings about the accounting profession, not all inventory has an absolute price agreed to at the time of ordering. Even when a price is agreed upon, whose currency is that price in?

[Thor_MN]

20. Being that the subject at hand is US gasoline prices, that is pretty obvious.

And obfuscating with irrelevant questions doesn't change the cost of inventory. The cost becomes fixed when it is purchased from the supplier. Regardless of the accounting games played, when a retailer purchases from a wholesaler, whatever the retailer paid is the cost of the inventory. Accountants have a thousand ways to lie about that to serve various purposes, but in the real world, the cost of something is what you paid for it, and is unchanged by future purchases.

[TreasonousBastard]

21. The suppliers' cost is not always fixed, and can change daily, but...

That's neither here nor there. This is simply the way things are done, and even if you have a legitimate argument, you cannot change it.

All you can do is complain.

[Thor_MN]

24. The supplier's cost has nothing to do with the cost of a retailer's inventory.

Bringing up extraneous irrelevant information will not change that your original premise is flawed.

Future changes in the price of a thing does nothing to the amount that was paid for that thing in the past. A retailer will not lose money selling something for $1.50 that was purchased for a $1 if the price of buying more goes to $1.50.

The retail price for inventory purchased in the future will have to adjust, but claiming that current inventories cost changes is ridiculous.

I have conceded that the are a multitude of account gimmicks to lie about the situation, but the fact is that if one sells something for more than they bought it for, they have made money. That money can get eaten by other costs such that an overall profit is not realized, but the resale of that item made money regardless of the fluctuations in price of more of that item.

I agree that games are played and there is nothing one can do but complain, but your statement that one can lose money selling something for more than they bought it for is false.

[mythology]

26. Actually they would lose money

Let's say I buy 100 gallons of gas at 1 dollar a gallon and need to spend 40 cents overhead for storing the gas, keeping the lights on, paying the staff and paying rent. Then I sell gas for $1.50, making myself a 10 cents to pay myself, but also to buy the next 100 gallons of gas.

That works as long as the price of gas doesn't go up. But if the price of wholesale gas goes up to $1.10, then I have to be able to make enough selling what I have, to pay for what I need to buy next. If I don't, then I can't pay myself, or if the price goes up enough, I can't buy more, thus causing the business to fail.

The point of a business isn't to be open today, it's to be able to be open tomorrow. To do that, one must factor in expected future costs in selling today's product.

[cwydro]

31. Thank you.

[Dem2]

32. Line of credit

Nobody pays as they go, they pay after they sell. Your arguments are why we get ripped off, you buy into the mythology.

[Thor_MN]

38. Nonsense.

You are buying into the account games.

If you bought at at $1 and sold it for $1.50, you made $0.50. Operating costs eat into to that to affect the overall profit/loss, but you made $0.50 on each of those 100 gallons when you sold them. If the price of wholesale purchases of gas goes $4 a gallon the day after you bought the 100 gallons, that does nothing to the cost of the 100 gallons you bought, you got it a $1 a gallon.

[Not Ruth]

28. Check to see what gas stations that are heavily price regulated are charging

For instance the ones on toll roads are often allowed to charge only a few cents more than their cost. They do not set their pricing.

[mitch96]

13. That always pissed me off...

They raise the price of the gas they already have purchased at a lower price .. and paid less for... Then when the price of gas goes down b/c of more availability, it takes them for ever to lower the price....
I suppose that's the way the gas station game is played... grrrrr
m

[Cicada]

4. I guess electric cars will end that roller coaster

If California passes the proposed $10000 per electric car tax credit, and Congress keeps the $7500 federal credit, an electric car here will cost less than $25,000. Combine that with five cents per mile as the cost of driving, compared to the ten cents gas costs me now, lower maintenance and repairs, lower risk of injury or death in a crash (no heavy engine to be crushed into me), it's hard to justify not switching.

And electric car prices are likely to get cheaper every year as volume increases and technology improves.

Houston -with its huge oil industry business - has a problem.

[customerserviceguy]

9. The oil and gas segment of the energy sector

may not have as much of a problem as you think, a lot of infrastructure is still in place to convert those fuels into electricity that will be sold to charge up electric cars in a growing proportion.

[Cicada]

16. Good point. But electric cars will use less than half as much.

Gas in an internal combustion engines wastes most of the energy in heat and braking. If we used the gas to make electricity for electric cars it would take less than half as much. So Houston will still need to shed a big part of their workforce.

[customerserviceguy]

17. Electrical power grids

are still pretty lossy. My hybrid car (a Hyundai Sonata) makes electricity from braking, and uses it to run the car when there's enough of it. Other than the charge left in the battery when I stop the car for the day, losses of energy are kept to a minimum.

[freddyvh]

29. I have considered an electric car...but

there are no charging stations where i live.
Western Iowa.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Well Goldman Saches get's their cut

no matter what happens. They own all the soft ware that powers the pump meters.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Before Harvey reg gas was $3.19 a gallon.

CA is very expensive, everything here costs at least 25% more than most states (especially the cities).

[onecaliberal]

7. Before the hurricane it was 2.89 here

[democratisphere]

8. Predator wall street companies can be counted on to screw as many as possible during times of

national crisis.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Saw it at $2.79 here in my part of Maine.

[jpak]

27. Yup up from $2.33

I filled my oil tank last week $1.98 a gallon - it's probably higher now.

[CatWoman]

35. 1.98 a gallon???

Where do you live?

[jpak]

40. No. 2 heating oil - Maine

[CatWoman]

42. lol

oops

read it wrong

[Yonnie3]

12. Today, in Central Virginia I saw a station out of gas.

I saw others with prices that had gone up around $ 0.30. They usually go up some on holiday weekends, 5 cents or so.

I had stopped in for non-fuel items and didn't notice the closed pumps until I left. The station across the road was pumping gas at 15 cents more than the the one that was out.

I am curious and would like to know if there are more closed stations in my area, but not enough to drive around wasting gas to find out. Nothing about this on the local news outlets.

[customerserviceguy]

18. Oh, oh

We're headed for central VA in a couple of days. We have enough in the tank to get us from SC to about Staunton, VA, but we'd need to fill up then to make it to NY. What town were you in, and how much was the gas at the place that had fuel?

[Yonnie3]

22. Charlottesville

It was $2.35 across the street at the more expensive one.

As I mentioned, there was nothing on the news and also I can add that there was no line at the other station. I go over to the valley near Staunton often and we buy diesel near there and gas up my car when needed. The prices there fluctuate differently than across the mountain. Lately prices in Waynesboro (near Staunton) have been 15 to 20 above Charlottesville.

[customerserviceguy]

23. Well, that price looks pretty good

compared to what I've seen in SC. Thanks for the tip, will check out Charlottesville, we will stay the night in Waynesboro, but not fill up there. There's a Days Inn motel in Waynesboro that we can stay at for only fifty bucks by using 3,000 Wyndham Rewards points, and it's a reasonably good place. I've been there five times in the last two months, and I always get a good night's sleep, with the added bonus of the Silk Road restaurant nearby, great food, and reasonable prices.

Thanks so much for the help! We really look out after one another here.

[Yonnie3]

25. A look at Gas Buddy this morning shows ...

that prices have risen more than 20 cents over the last 24 hours. It is tough to say which area will be cheaper in a few days. Much of the gasoline in Waynesboro comes from the pipeline north of Roanoke and for Charlottesville from the pipeline west of Richmond. I don't know where they haul from when the pipeline is not running and the pipeline terminal's tanks are empty. This could change where the least expensive fill up is located.

[customerserviceguy]

45. Thanks

I have Gas Buddy, and will be monitoring the situation as we approach the Charlottesville/Waynesboro area on Tuesday evening. I really can't get anything sooner than that, I'm certain that PA and NJ will be pretty high. We have close friends who came over to dinner tonight, their son came in from NJ by air, and he says it's around $3 a gallon on the Jersey Shore.

[salin]

14. Had the same gouging - a week before the storm hit.

Indiana - predatory/peremptory gouging.

[CatWoman]

36. Hi Salin

long time no see

[salin]

39. CatWoman!!!!

Great to see you. It's been too long!

[elehhhhna]

30. I'm in Houston and filled up Friday for 2.59

Lots of stations still without gas but it's improving.

[Orrex]

33. Mine was $2.54 last week, $2.79 this morning.

I have my own roof over my head and no floodwater in my house.

I try to endure the extra $0.25 per gallon somehow.

[Freddie]

34. $2.85 today, $2.15 quite recently

Philly burbs. Ugh. Saving my Giant gas points for DH's Santa Fe which has a bigger tank than my PT Cruiser, plus he has a longer commute. We talk about one of us getting a Prius but car payments are not in the budget.

[nolabear]

37. It's already 3.09-3.29 in the PNW. I hope they don't find a way to raise it here.

We're not part of that customer base but I don't trust them not to work something in.

[OnDoutside]

41. It's about $6 a gallon in Europe ! Be thankful for your cheap gas !!!

[CatWoman]

43. gas in Europe has always been expensive

[TexasBushwhacker]

44. Still cheaper than California