Many fuming over soaring gas costs

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/173471p-151095c.html

The price of a gallon of gas could jump to as high as $2.25 this summer and federal officials are scrambling to put the lid on skyrocketing costs.

Drivers have watched prices climb almost daily this winter, with the cost of a gallon of regular unleaded averaging $1.73 nationwide last week.

"It's so horrible - I'm almost losing all my money on gas," taxi driver Fareed Ahmed, 28, of Brooklyn said yesterday. "It's killing the drivers. It's not enough to make for your living, your rent."

<snip>

But there may be hope. Crude oil futures, which had risen 28% over the past six months, tanked Friday after the Senate voted to cancel delivery of 53 million barrels of crude into the nation's reserves and sell it to refineries to drive down prices.

The chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service predicted last month that nationwide average prices will pass $2 by late summer, but Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned that New York City could see the $2 barrier broken by mid-May.

[mitchtv]

1. $2.00 barrier broken 2 weeks ago in California

however the self abosorbed dolts who inhabit this corner of Ca fail to make any connection to Bushco. They just know they got a lower car tax with Arnold. Now, if they can just learn to drive their unpaid for SUV without killing themselves and everyone else they can drag their ATVsand bikes out to the desert to chase rabits till their hearts burst and squash endangered tortises.

[dweller]

4. showed a clip of $2.79/g signs there-today's news

that's approaching the $3 barrier.

dp

[Kellanved]

14. wow - you're approaching European prices fast

About four to five Euros a Gallon here. Exchange rate aside, I would say that an Euro equals a Dollar (currently you'd pay almost exactly five dollars for a Gallon ).
Considering that the taxes are supposed to be lower, distances are considered to be bigger and cars tend to be larger, this is a disturbing development.

[jus_the_facts]

2. awwww.......

:nopity:

[bluestateguy]

3. Good

You folks just take that anger with you right into the voting booth, k?

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. But W gave me a tax refund

so now I have more money to spend. Too bad it doesn't cover all the increases in gas prices, medicines and local tax increases.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. I wish it'd go DOWN to $2.25 here in the Hi-Desert

And that's for regular. You don't even want to know what the premium grades cost.

[mitchtv]

9. Hi, LLIPS, haven't seenyou here lately

move to the Hi desert?

[koopie57]

7. didn't people

wonder why they were giving such big tax breaks to those buying hummers and suvs? I think this was part of the plan, get as many on the road as possible, than jack up gas prices. I don't mind paying higher prices on gas cuz that is the only way I can see people paying attention to how much they are using. Well, it bothers me cuz of those who are just scraping by now.

[gristy]

8. Gas going through the roof, and the gov'mint just sitting on

PPI numbers (neither Jan nor Feb numbers released). This shit is soon going to hit the fan. Big Time. :nuke:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. I wonder if gasoline is being hoarded by the military in anticipation...

...of another big military action? With less gas on the market that would certainly help drive up prices.

[haele]

11. San Diego military base commanders got their waiver

to set base gas prices to what the actual price per gallon to the base was instead of previous requirement - as wrangled with our great former military service congressmen, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Duncan Hunter to cooperate with the local business folks who were complaining back in 1984 thereabouts about commissary prices - to charge no less than two cents a gallon of the lowest price in their local as well as adding a 6% surplus on top of all items sold.

So now, the only places to get regular unleaded for under $2.07 for 9/10 gallon (cheapest in the county I saw yesterday - with the average at $2.11 for the county) is at the bases, at the price of $1.97. And that's still gouged.

The base CO's are using the argument of "military readiness" - if their sailors can't make it to base from housing, especially with the base closures that moved stations away from previously local base housing, the poor local state of public transportation and urban housing zone requirements that set most private housing away from business and base locations - it severely impacts the concept of military readiness and ability to do their job.

Unfortunately, the local civilian folks are starting to feel the pinch of the gas prices and don't have "business CO's" who can go to the local company owned Citgo or Arco station and twist the arm of the oil companies who bought out our county supervisors twenty years ago and have managed to keep the amount of franchise stations to a minimum and set prices to their comfortable profit-taking margin.

And it's not the yuppie SUV owners who are suffering. It's the small business contractors who need to use their own vehicles to get to job sites, the upper tier (non-Wallyworld/McD) retail folks who make their living on commissions, the shopper who needs to travel 10 miles to get to a real store to get real food...

California politicians in bed with the oil companies have been committing adultery against their constituants for a long time now. And now we've gotten to the point when they're spending "the family rent money" on their "friends".

Haele

[kentuck]

12. And how many people thought gasoline would be cheap after Iraq??

I know I heard many Repubs brag about the price of oil going down... I wonder how they feel now? Perhaps they can explain what happened to all that cheap oil?

[Ruby Romaine]

16. Mr Faux- was big on that one.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/13/1044927741662.html

He said the price of oil would be one of the war's main benefits. "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

Mr Murdoch's comments come just a week after he told Fortune magazine in the US that war could fuel an economic boom.

"Who knows what the future holds? I have a pretty optimistic medium and long-term view but things are going to be pretty sticky until we get Iraq behind us. But once it's behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else," he told Fortune.

Mr Murdoch believes there is no doubt that President Bush will be re-elected if he wins the war with Iraq and the US economy remains healthy.

"He will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of two to one."

[SharonAnn]

28. If the economy "remains" any healthier, we'll all be destitute.

For Pete's sake, in what world does Murdoch think the economy "is" healthy.

[Tuttle]

19. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson:

"What - did we lose a war or something?"

Tut-tut

[0007]

22. The pukes were always talking about cheap gas in the old days

[annagull]

13. Remember in the summer of 2000?

Remember what a stink the right wing made about oil prices, and then when Clinton tapped the Strategic Oil Reserves they howled 'unfair'? Where is all that outrage now? Didn't Chimpy say, "I will tell OPEC to open the spigots"?

[lanlady]

17. I sure do!

and I remember Mary Matalin going on TV and radio to sneer at the Dem's supposed lack of a national energy policy, and how candidate W would put one in place when elected. We all know what became of that....

[snippy]

18. "Open the spigots" is exactly what the lying Dipshit-in-Chief said.

[RamboLiberal]

30. Here's * criticizing Clinton and saying how he would solve

Hang him on it Kerry.

History of Candidate Bush Calling on OPEC to Raise Production
March 20, 2000: Bush Said President Clinton Should "Jawbone Opec" To "Open Your Spigots." "In January 2000, with oil prices at nearly $28 a barrel, Bush called on President Clinton to 'jawbone OPEC' to get prices to retreat. 'What I think the president ought to do,' he said while campaigning in New Hampshire where heating oil prices were soaring, 'is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say, 'We expect you to open your spigots,'" according to the Associated Press.

June 21, 2000: Bush Said OPEC Can Be Blamed As The "Main Reason" For Gas Prices. Bush said the "main reason" for high gas prices was OPEC withholding production and he "would hope the administration could convince our friends at OPEC to open up the spigots."

June 16, 2000: Bush Suggested We Work With OPEC To Ensure Low Gas Prices. "We should I think the -- we need to be working with our friends in OPEC to make sure that the price of crude oil, which doesn't rise to continue to force the price of gasoline up, particularly as the summer season comes -- is upon us."

June 27, 2000: Bush Said He Would Work With "Friends In OPEC" To Help With Gas Prices, Use "Capital," To "Open The Spigot." When asked for a concrete example of a solution to high gas prices, Bush said, "I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

http://www.grandoldpetroleum.com/openspigots.html

[Ruby Romaine]

15. my guess is that the price will come down in Sept/Oct & * will take credit

it will give the economy a short term boost, he'll release the reserves.

[ozone_man]

20. Great news. Time to get rid of that SUV.

Time to get rid of these monster gas guzzlers. The Earth would be much better off.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bleedingheart]

21. Perhaps with rising gas prices better technology will develop

or be promoted to bring about a shift from fossil fuels to solar/wind and more efficient methods of using fossil fuels..etc

I for one look forward to buying a fuel efficient Toyota by the end of the year if our financial situation remains stable.

[Joanne98]

23. Now that Bushco is a member of Opec

Of course it's going higher. DUH

[NeoConsSuck]

24. Fume all the way into the voting booths..

and voice your displeasure with this petroleum based mis-administration. Since the cockroach no longer has a lock on the 2004 election, his oil buddies have decided to "collect their dues" now, instead of waiting until after the election.

And I smile at these super patriots driving around in their huge SUVs and Dodge Rams who are taking it up the you-know-what. Their "Blood for Oil" plan didn't quite work out.

[Endangered Specie]

25. you know... I dont have 1 fucken ounce of sympathy...

for gas guzzler owners bitching about this... you know, they should get shipped to europe and try paying $6 a gallon

[haele]

26. Only if you toss in European public transport...

And European type zoning for business/housing.

Otherwise, it just means over half of the US will be unable to get to work or be able to go shopping to put food on their tables.
Community structure in the US tends to cause most of us to have to rely on our cars if we don't want to spend monday-friday sleeping on our worksite because of a three or four hour public transport commute to/from home and work.


Haele

[pfitz59]

32. US Zoning sucks......

Best farmland is paved over. Homes too far from work. Crazy quilt of commercial/residential/industrial/agricutural. We are living atop a shaky foundation.

[MadHound]

27. A couple of things

First, this is part of the reason why we are facing high prices
"Two senators Friday asked the government halt the filling of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and allow world crude oil prices to cool off."
<http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=682e447001f2b9c3>

Of course this is in addition to the fact that we are staring at the beginning of the peak oil period. And that Bushco is paying off debts to his oily backers.

But there is at least one short term answer that a lot of the population can pursue. Biodiesel, easy to make, easy on the wallet, easy on the exhaust emissions. Diesel cars a easily available, at a price range comparable to gas cars. If you want more information on this, here are some resources:

"From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" A great book with details on everything you need to know for turning fryer oil into biodiesel <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970722702/inktomi-bkasin-20/ref%3Dnosim/002-9658871-5014438>

The Dancing Rabbit Biodiesel Page: A quick compindium of how to make biodiesel, problems encountered and solved, with links to other resources.
<http://www.dancingrabbit.org/biodiesel/>

Or type biodiesel into your handy search engine. Biodiesel is the answer we need to persue in order not to be held hostage by the big oil interests. It is an action that you or I can take that will not only send a message to Bushco, but it is also good for the enviroment and can end America's addiction to fossil fuels.

[goforit]

29. Those Oil thugs need to make there $$$ somewhere.

The bright side to this is the republicans
have to pay the same price as well.