Huge jump expected in price of gas(analysts foresee 24-cent increase)

[RedEarth]

Expect to pay about a quarter more for a gallon of gas by the end of the month with the upward spiral beginning today, a leading energy analyst warns.

Peter Beutel's prediction sent Nick Santoro of North Fort Myers to the pumps to fill up his sports-utility vehicle Sunday.

"That's why I'm here now," Santoro, 56, said as he bought fuel at the Hess station on McGregor Boulevard north of the Cape Coral Bridge, where regular unleaded was selling for $1.959. "I think it's crazy," he said of climbing fuel prices.

A project engineer, Santoro drives 200 to 250 miles a week between job sites, so he is sensitive to any fuel cost increase. "It's a hardship," he said.

Beutel, president of energy-price tracker Cameron Hanover, told CNN he expects prices to jump 12 cents a gallon early this week and another 12 cents by the end of the month as gas stations across the country try to keep pace with big jumps in the prices of oil and wholesale gas.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050307/NEWS01/503070427/1002

[Guckert]

1. Simply the price of Freedom and Liberty. dont you remember 9/11. DUH.

DUH!!!

[Goathead]

2. 'Peak Oil' I'd like you to meet American Consumer

American Consumer, this is Peak Oil. Ohh... You two have never met? Well, American Consumer you have been in that coma for quite some time and Peak Oil your been kept under wraps in a virtual prison since the day you born, it's no wonder you two don't know each other.

read: heavy sarcasm

[bunny planet]

30. Yes, American Consumer. GET A CLUE. It's going to get a bit more expensive

than 25 cents a gallon soon, uncomfortably more expensive.

Wake up Sheeple!!!

[Itchinjim]

3. An SUV in friggin' Florida....

they get what? 8-9 feet of snow a year?
Cry me a river Nick.

[Toucano]

5. Right on!

The "real hardship" is wasteful shits like Nick.

Anyone driving 200-250 miles a week needs a more efficient vehicle whether gas is $1 a gallon or $5 a gallon.

[barb162]

9. most of the SUVs in this country aren't needed for the "snow "

reason, since plows do it overnight, etc., in populated areas.

[FloridaPat]

18. Hey, we need them to pull trees off homes during the hurricane

season. Or, we need them because we have so many elderly who need big cars to get it and out with their bad hips. Or we need them because we have so many elderly who can't drive - the bigger is better excuse.Or we need them because there are so many of them you look stupid not driving them.

[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

4. For every threat

an opportunity. Beware the law of unintended consequences.

If prices continue to soar, look for more local stores to thrive, and the big box stores to suffer. If there is a return to community based enterprise and the big chains suffer, the Repubs will suffer in a huge way.

I am suspecting there is something else going on here though.

If you are going to introduce a new product, you want to enter the market with as high a price as you can since you will never be able to command more money. Prices always drop as competitors move in.

I think our government is playing chicken with OPEC. Which economy is going to flinch first?

OPEC has far more to lose. Any instability and they lose their countries. Oil is the main resource there. If we let the price run up then turn off the demand, they collapse, especially if a newer technology is introduced that is less costly than their operations.

Just a guess, as I suspect much of these pricing increases are contrived.

DBDB

[barb162]

7. they won't collapse; they are holding all the cards. How do we turn off

demand? Are school buses not running tomorrow? Is everyone walking to work tomorrow? Are trucks not making grocery deliveries tomorrow? Are planes and trains not running tomorrow? We can't turn off demand! Newer technologies will take 20 years for switchover in equipment, etc.

[bunny planet]

31. And pray tell, what is this newer technology we are 'ready' to introduce.

and less costly too! What country or planet are you living on?
Just asking.

The price increases are contrived for the moment, but the underlying cause is most probably the peak of production of cheap oil, plain and simple.

[elehhhhna]

6. Thank God they don't count gas in the Feds Inflation Statistics.

Ouch.

[AllegroRondo]

11. It will trickle down soon enough

transportation costs for goods will go up, and get passed on to the consumer.

[elehhhhna]

19. They don't factor groceriesinto Inflation, either. "too volatile"

[Career Prole]

23. Rest assured, the costs always do trickle down.

For some reason, the profits don't.

[xxqqqzme]

8. wow - U think

Jimmy Carter was on2 something in the early/mid 70's when he tried 2 get a national alternative energy program going? 'n he was ridiculed?

[cliss]

13. My thoughts exactly.

Right before I got to your post, I was thinking about Jimmy Carter. Remember the oil Embargo in the 1970's? The writing was on the wall BACK THEN. Carter tried to do what should have been done back then. The US should have adopted those measures 30 years ago.

Instead, the car manufactureres started going back to the Fat-Ass gas Hogs a few years later.

And here we are, back in the mess.

[Delphinus]

14. Yep.

I was talking to a friend of mine last week, when gas prices jumped from $1.88 to $2.09. We need to stop being wasteful.

[Nay]

27. Remember how the repubs just laughed their asses off at Carter's

sweater when he had those news conferences about the energy problem? He's too good a man to say "I told you so, you dumbasses" so I'll tell the American public myself:

TOLD YOU SO, YA DUMBASSES!!

And, for all the pubs who live WAAAAY the hell out of town so they don't have to rub elbows with anyone not exactly to their liking -- enjoy paying for gas to commute 50-100 miles per day!

Oh, and by the way, we know you got a few acres and go on and on about how a "country boy can survive," but you haven't planted a seed or butchered meat for, oh, about 3 generations now, so cut the shit.

[Bluzmann57]

10. I was talking to a couple of guys at work about this

recently and they were bitching about it. I happen to know they voted for bush so I laughed at them and said to them, "I told you so". I got called an arrogant bastard by one of them. I just walked away from him chuckling all the way. I sure ain't happy about higher fuel prices though, as I am involved in transportation and equipment which uses gasoline and diesel fuel and would prefer to keep my job.

[barb162]

12. typical Bush voter response, huh? They swear at you rather than Bush

[bunny planet]

32. I'd investigate or get your company to investigate Willie Nelson's new co.

Willie Diesel. I think he has a fleet of commercial trucks running on biodiesel and is expanding the business to other enterprises.

We are all going to have to investigate alternatives on our own at a community level. This government will do NOTHING until it is no longer profitable for them to push a petroleum addicted culture.

Cheney and other robber barons have quietly been investing in energy companies (FLP, Florida Light and Power) that are developing green energy, and the Blivet lives in a solar powered house in Crawford, believe it or not. They want to sew up ownership of those industries before they encourage others to switch over to green power. They just don't want the 'little people' to get hip to the fact that our cheap oil party will be over soon, before they've had the chance to squeeze every last buck out of it.

[fryguy]

15. election is over, Saudis can cease supressing the price for their friends

they said it was what they were doing. they did it. and now they can go back to inflating world oil prices by limiting production.....

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/19/news/international/election_saudi/

NEW YORK (CNN) - A top Saudi official has assured President Bush that his country will increase oil production to lower gas prices before November to help the president's re-election prospects, according to a broadcast report Sunday.

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, discussing his new book on the run-up to the Iraq war on CBS' '60 Minutes,' said Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States and a long-time friend of the Bush family, has given the pledge that "certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly."

<more>

[LizW]

16. Guy at the station was changing the sign

while ago when I was filling up. It was a four cent jump today.

I got the pre-increase price, though, because they have to change the sign first, and then the pumps.

[beyurslf]

17. Every time I complain about the cost of gas for my car.... I remember the

suckers in the SUVs paying double what I do!

[LibertyLover]

20. Gas prices

Even before the most recent hikes over the weekend my husband and I started planning for them. For recreation, we are historical re-enactors and generally have to carry a lot of stuff with us, like period tents, etc., but we have significantly scaled back on the events we go to, what we bring, etc, so that we can use my Honda Element, which gets better gas mileage than his Jeep Liberty towing the small trailer. And in a year or two, when our toddler is a little bigger we are retiring his jeep, he'll use the Element and I'll get a mini for commuting to work and errand running, etc. We vetoed a summer vacation driving around Colorado (we have to be there anyway for a family wedding) because of gas prices and hope that with the purchase of the mini and the element being relatively new, we'll be able to hang on until new technology, like hydrogen, is available.

One of my collegues was moaning today about having to fill her Cadillac Escalade up this weekend (with the "W is for Women" and "WISP _ Women in Support of the President" bumper stickers on it) - "I just put gas in it on Wednesday, where did it go?" How about the two trips home during the kid's soccer practice on Wednesday ("I forgot my coffee, then Jimmy forgot his, um, part of his protection equipment."), the "quick" (only 5 miles away) trip to the mall Thursday on your lunch hour, the "minor" detour Friday evening to pick up the dry cleaning, followed by the outing later that evening for milk and Saturday morning for bread and eggs? As she detailed what she had done over the weekend and then wondered where the gas had gone, I realized that she didn't have a clue and wouldn't get a clue even if she rubbed clue mating essence all over her body and paraded naked in front of a herd of horny clues while doing the sacred clue mating ritual dance.

[Coventina]

24. LOL! Great post!

:thumbsup:

[trogdor]

21. Dude drives 250 mi. a week in an SUV.

In Florida. Idiot. He has absolutely no right to bitch about the price of gas. None. Zero.

I'd get a Honda Civic. Big enough to be comfortable, small enough to get 40 mpg, fast enough to run rings around SUV's.

Up here in the Lake Effect Zone, Subaru makes what you need to drive.

[catmandu57]

22. I've got a 1984 Subaru wagon 4wheel

I'm considering selling it because I don't drive enough to justify even having a car. With a proper tune up and driving with some sense I can get 24+ mpg.
It's in really good shape, very dependable, I was thinking 600.00 would be a fair asking price, now, I think I may wait until later in the year to see what price I can ask then.

[adigal]

25. I have an X-Terra and I live in snow country

and have kids and dogs and skis, but I am thinking of something that gets better gas also. I get about 14 mpg, it is killing me. I was thinking of a Subaru, which is better than I get, or a Honda CRV. Anyone know what kind of mileage the CRV gets??

[soup]

26. Check this site

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/

and this one for personal reviews on individual cars:
http://www.carsurvey.org/

[adigal]

29. Thanks!! n/t

[bunny planet]

33. CRV gets about 26 miles per gallon.

[Karmadillo]

28. Bill Clinton still refuses to take action to bring the price of oil down.

Damn him. Once the President Who's Almost Like Churchill starts jawboning the Saudis, we're going to see some real changes. Then the People will learn which party is the party that gets things done.