Gas Prices. My rant, feel free to add your own

[NightWatcher]

Gas is teetering at 4$ a gallon just like the speculators told us several months ago (how fucking convenient). I have been forced to take a second job in addition to odd repair jobs since my own business has dried up because people just arent spending money like they used to do. The taxi that I drive some nights gets 15-20 mpg. The last two nights I drove it, my average take home was just a smidge over what I would get at a minimum wage job flipping burgers due to the cost of gas and cab rent. Some hacks are contemplating parking their rides because they arent making it anymore. Are people out there still going to chain restaurants, like Applebees?- cause I'll be waiting tables again soon if I cant afford to fill up the cab.


Please feel free to add your own gas rant

[mac2]

1. The WSJ had an article telling there is an over supply of

oil sitting in tankers of the coast of Iran. Just waiting for it to be purchased. After the summer months watch it plunge. Right now they are flush with profits.

Does this not sound like the Carter years where the tankers were off New York waiting? That was a false oil shortage too.

The oil and commoditiy markest need to be monitored by our government. Lack of over sight has resulted in a lot of crisis in this country including Enron.

[Andy823]

6. Read this link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x361402

I have never bought into this idea of "supply and demand" as being the cause. Oil companies are doing the same thing that Enron did, but on a much larger scale!

[Subdivisions]

14. So, I suppose you won't buy that the cumulative effects of

stories http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=auA2G9v81BqM&refer=news">like these are contributing to high oil and gas prices?

Perhaps you should go and discover just how much oil the United States imports from Mexico and then contemplate what not having that oil any longer will mean.

[madrchsod]

7. production has`t dropped enough to justify these prices per barrel...

there`s a lot of speculation that is driving up the price and lining the pockets of the uber- rich around the world.


a container ship`s fuel consumption is measure in--barrels per hour.

[taterguy]

2. My family was killed by bombs dropped during an oil war

Well, not really but the fact that so many other families have been truly destroyed by oil wars makes it difficult for me to work up too much enthusiasm for complaining about the fact that it now costs me 50 more cents a day to get to work on the days that I choose to drive.

[pleah]

3. No vacation trip home to see the family.

Bummer. My mother is 76 yrs. old would like to get home at least once a year to see her, but we just can't afford the trip home. Every year since Godless Warmongering Bastard has been in power, we cut back a little more.

sigh

[TexasEditor]

13. Go visit your mother!

The price of gas will seem trivial after she's gone.

[barbtries]

4. i fill up once a week.

four weeks ago, it was 3.52/gal
three weeks ago, it was 3.62/gal
two weeks ago, it was 3.75/gal
last week, it was 3.82/gal
i assume my next fill up will be at 4/gal.

i read on this board that driving is already down over 4%. that percentage will rise, prices will fall, blah blah blah.

what gets me is i came out from CA last Sept/Oct, got to Raleigh on 10-3-07, and never paid more than 2.57/gal. what also gets me is i can recall back in the day, as a child, when there was a gas station on each of the four corners on every semi large intersection and the gas wars brought the price of a gallon as low as 15 cents.

what gets me is recalling my ex's t-shirt circa 1980 with a picture of a gas pump with the needle edging to the threshold of one dollar a gallon.

to answer your question, no, my son and i do not eat out much anymore, especially at non-fast food joints. we still manage bojangles about once a week.

things are bad all over and getting worse...everything's going up but my paycheck and it is very discouraging and depressing.

[Andy823]

8. Gas went up

Last week, Wednesday I think, to $3.96 a gallon. I told my son that by the weekend it would be up to $4.00, I was wrong, yesterday it had gone up to $4.06! Ten cents in just over two days. People who came over to my area for the holiday will now pay 10 cents more per gallon to get home than they did when they showed up on Friday!

I have cut down on my trips, and make every trip count. I have parked my diesel pickup because it is now $4.99 for diesel. I use my van, which gets over 25 miles per gallon on the highway, only when I have to take the whole family some place. I use my ford Focus, which gets 34 miles per gallon for most trips. Seems like most average americans are cutting back thanks to Bush and his big oil buddies! :mad:

[madrchsod]

5. people driving big suv`s going 80mph on I-90 in wisconsin-illinois

they are the ones who bitch the most about high gas prices and the drivers who are driving 65...

oh yes- truck drivers on the same road driving 70-80 at almost 5 dollars a gallon and getting 4-5miles per gallon.....

[Warpy]

9. Right, and I know what it takes to get the meters adjusted

because my cabbie friends went through it all in the 70s. Most of them did park their cabs and some indies sold their medallions just to get enough money to live on while they figured out what to do to get food on the table.

Other than appealing to the public to increase tips so you can keep providing the service, I don't know what you can do besides trying to hang on while the powers that be fuss and fart around about giving you half the increase you really need.

This really sucks. Folks, if you take cabs, tip the driver and tip him well, even if the cab does smell like cigar butts from the last passenger.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. Are we going to see the Tuk-Tuk come to America?

Like the ones they have on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand? If things keep going the way they are, American cities might start looking like Beijing, China, where thousands of bicycles compete with thousands of cars for the roadways.

[CRF450]

11. Right at about $80 to fill up my truck. Fuckin A...

The little $10 gas allowence I'm getting every week from the company I work for isn't helping THAT much.

[mac2]

12. So sorry.

There was a gas crisis during the Carter years where you could only get $5 per purchase. To take a trip you had to drive, full up, drive, fill up, etc. Carter de-regulated the gas price so they went full force up.

We knew it was coming back so we bought a boring, not upscale Toyota Camry. It has lasted a long time but still doesn't have the milage of the new hybrids. We plan on buying a hybrid after we move to where we are going to retire (if there is money left in our stocks and the dollar doesn't fall more than it has).

Even if the gas prices come down (and they will but not to the previous price of $1.50/gal) try to purchase a smaller truck/car for the future. If and when your business recovers.

European gas prices are higher but they get something for it such as national health care or public transportation. We don't.

The government lack of management and controls can make your life misearble. Even if you are "involved" they don't listen. We had an election in 2006 demanding "change" and they failed to listen.

They fear Hillary because she says she wants at the oil companies for their market manipultion. Both she and Obama have been in Congress and little of our "wish list" for our country has been changed. Having more Democrats is the push every election but when they run such globalists and war mongers for election just doesn't do it. Too many vote with Republicans.

Nope this "bring them up to us" has resulted in "bring us down to them" by the corporate oligarchy.