A thought I had today about oil prices.

[redirish28]

Okay Oil seems to be going down after it has been at the most recent high.


Now everyone is like OHHHH this is great but I'm feeling uneasy myself because it seems the prices always go down before it start to go up again and ending at a new High.


Maybe I am just being too negative but I'm not holding my breath. I think this news of oil going down is just to get our hopes up high. After Sunday when the "meeting" with the Iranian nuclear committee or whoever exactly it is.. I have a feeling it will shoot up and continue to rise so that by labor day it will be $5.00


I hope I am wrong. But I am getting very uneasy.

[woodsprite]

1. Same here. I just posted that I haven't seen a line at the pumps

in a long time, but there were lines out the whazoo at the Shell station today. It was $3.84 - not sure if that was before or after the 5 cent/gal discount on Thursdays.

[redirish28]

3. I've heard about gas lines. Hate to say it but I was a baby in the 70s..

[DesertFlower]

5. i was not. i was in my early 30s and it

was hell. sometimes we waited on line and burned gas only to get up to the pump which had run out. it was acceptable to be late for work, because we had to wait on gas lines so we could get there.

[redirish28]

6. WHOA!!!!! Sorry to sound like a goof... But that is scary....

I am worried. How likely will that happen again?

[DesertFlower]

9. about 5 years ago here in arizona

there were quite a few gas stations that were running out of gas. it lasted for about a week. i don't like the high prices, but i'd rather pay then go through the gas lines again. it's very scary when you're tank is on E and you don't know if you're going to make it to your destination. and if you do, you've got to worry if you'll find gas so you can get home.

[redirish28]

12. Not to make light of this issue you are talking about. I know it is serious.

BUT I myself have been in a simuliar situation. But I think I would have freak out in the 70s

[DesertFlower]

14. it was very frustrating.

i couldn't take public transportation. my job was in an area where i had to drive. my husband was able to take the subway. we lived in new york back then.

[redirish28]

16. My wife recently left a job where she worked one on one with

mentally challenge clients getting them out in the community and what not. Well, part of the reason she left was because of the gas prices because these individuals at up 1/2 tank in gas by the time she got to her client and they went out.


Can't image trying to do a job back then... It probably couldn't be done.

[cliffordu]

8. There were murders over gasoline during the embargo -

[redirish28]

10. OMG!!!! I can image people stealing gas... Hell I saw someone

using a hose to take gas out of a car. But actually murder...


I know I must sound like a real dumb idiot but honestly all of this was like 1 paragraph in my history book and the teacher never really said anything more about it.


How did it work? Did you just show up for gas and hope you got some?


Did emergency vehicles get gas first before anyone else?

Can anyone point me to some reading material.

[DesertFlower]

11. here's a link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

[redirish28]

13. Thank you.

[DesertFlower]

15. after the gas lines many

people bought compact (economy) cars. a few years later when gas was plentiful they went back to the gas guzzlers. i personally prefer small cars. i've had 2 toyota corollas, a tercel and now i drive a mazda miata. i get approximately 26 mpg.

[redirish28]

17. Not to out do you but My chevy Colbalt gets 32 miles per gallon in city

and I average 35 on highway.


granted it isn't as comfortable as a corolla BUT in my opinion it does handle better.

[DesertFlower]

20. hey that's great.

my 87 corolla got that. however, my 97 only got about 28. i guess the fuel efficiency standards got more strict.

my husband has a porsche and surprisingly it gets 27.

[cliffordu]

23. Not to outdo you, but my bicycle gets 65 MPC.

Miles per cheezeburger

[Truth4Justice]

26. With some tinkering, Chevy could have boosted that to 40MPG , IMO.

Although 35 MPH still isn't bad.

[Truth4Justice]

19. You bought gas for your car by the last digit of your license plate, odd and even days..

so people were buying 5 gallon jerry cans to get more gas if they could. The stores marked up the prices on the jerry cans since they were selling so many they ran out of them all the time.

Some weeks you were limited to ten gallons of gasoline per fill only (there were very few diesel vehicles, except for large trucks). There were lots of fights in the lines, people changing license plates on their cars to buy more gas illegally and gasoline thefts were way up. People were stealing gas any way they could, so sales of locking gas caps were WAY up back then.

Even farmers had a hard time getting enough fuel to grow their crops and they had to apply for "extra" by going through a bunch of red tape paperwork they had to send into the Department of Energy. Some gas truck drivers hauling fuel were stopped at gun point and their trucks and the fuel trailers stolen.

Truckers were having a hard time of it too, but the laws were more lax on commercial vehicles using diesel fuel over the road.

Of course police and other emergency vehicles were exempt from the limits.

It was tough times for sure.

[cliffordu]

24. And the amazing thing is that most of MY generation learned NOTHING.

Carter was right - we needed to wean ourselves off fossil fuels starting way back then - 34 YEARS ago.

I have ridden a bicycle as primary transportation since then - I have owned a car for five - five and a half years since..

But actually, I've USED a car as primary transportation for just over two. I've owned a couple that were dead...rehab projects that never got off the ground....

I lived and worked within walking distance whenever possible, bicycle distance whenever possible and for sure on public transportation if nothing else.

I had a job where I had to commute in a car and thought I was going to die. Any more I hate being in one, and will do EVERYTHING possible not to even get inside an automobile.

YMMV

[Truth4Justice]

25. If you can get away from owning a car at all, the $$$ you save is enormous over a lifetime.

Most Americans don't have the luxury of not having to own a car, due to many reasons, but good on you that you have managed not to depend on them.

One day we will get smart and bring mass transit back, like it should have been pre-1940's when we had electric trolleys in many cities, not polluting buses, like we have now.

[cliffordu]

27. I'm a BIG believer in mass transit - and, yes, I have had to consider very carefully

where I live and work to do without the auto in the last 10 years - My wife and I live pretty simply - and more slowly than almost anyone we know - you have to plan trips to town pretty carefully when on a bicycle.

I have a cargo bike to haul food and "stuff"....and with the exception of my online addiction, things are good.

[pscot]

2. It's called V-O-L-A-T-I-L-I-T-Y

It increases as systems begin to break down. This is only the beginning.

[DesertFlower]

4. i'm seeing less traffic.

i think people are carpooling and working from home if their job allows them to.

even though we have a good income, i find myself calculating what it costs me in gas to go somewhere. it's like do i drive to target to save a few bucks and use a gallon of gas or should i just buy at the local grocery store? we're thinking the same thing about restaurants that we eat in. we're adding the price of gas that will be used to the price of our meal.

[Speck Tater]

7. The drop is just speculators driving the price down from where it SHOULD be

based on fundamentals.

Why not? Everybody seems anxious to blame speculators for driving the price above where it SHOULD be. But speculators can make money when the price moves in either direction. Just depends on whether they are short or long.

So if upward movement is blamed on speculators, why not blame downward movement on speculators too?

What's really happening is volatility. Supply is falling short of demand and the markets, speculators included, are getting very nervous. This is not unexpected by peak oilers. Volatility marks the onset of impending chaos. Expect even bigger swings in both directions as the energy market comes unhinged and the wheels start falling off.

[Hannah Bell]

18. speculators make money on movement, period.

if supply is short, you don't expect big price swings downward in the absence of new supply.

[Mojorabbit]

21. Models are showing

a possible gulf storm from invest 94. I expect the prices will go right back up if the models play out.

[Awsi Dooger]

22. I've been warning about a gulf storm driving prices up 40 cents

Speculators thrill to overreact to any storm with a projected path to the gulf. That can overcome any market tendency in the other direction.

Let's see, the trading price has plummeted 40 cents, from $3.56 to $3.16. I haven't seen a penny change at the pumps. It's a classic case of fast to rise, slow to fall. If the trend were 40 cents upward, we already would have seen an additional 10-20 cents at the pump.