Have you noticed the mainstream media propaganda machine has been silent regarding gasoline prices? When they are dropping they gush about the huge benefits for the consumer and the economy. When they are soaring, the sound of crickets. They must keep the charade alive.
It seems gas prices have been accelerating at a rapid pace over the last two months, with a 12% increase since February 10. They are up 13% from the November low and up 5% versus last year. But don’t you worry. The BLS assures us that gasoline prices have been dropping for the last two months. Ignore the extra $10 showing on the pump screen when you fill up. It’s an illusion.
Now for the kicker. Gasoline prices usually fall from February through until May. Prices ratchet up around Memorial Day as the summer driving season kicks in and demand goes up. Last year prices fell from February 20 through May 1. This year they’ve risen in a straight line. Guess what happens in May? They rise some more. Last year we didn’t have a war in the Ukraine. Last year we had exactly zero damaging hurricanes in the Gulf Of Mexico.
Do you have gas pains? If you don’t now, you will in the near future. But at least the High Frequency Traders on Wall Street get richer by the day as they front run you in the stock market. We’ve got that going for us. And as a Federal Reserve governor once said, “Let them eat iPads.”
I understand Janet Yellen is dreadfully worried about deflation. She doesn’t see any bubbles and the housing market is in full recovery mode. Now do your duty and charge that gasoline on your credit card and pay the Wall Street banks 21% interest on the rolling balance. Be a good American.
Good thing you guys have me to decipher these mysteries.
Gas prices have risen because it was cold outside and snowed a lot.
Now that it’s getting warm, prices will fall.
You’re Welcome.
We didn’t have a “Winter” here in SoCal this year, and I just paid $4.39 a gallon for Regular. What was that about snow & cold, Stucky?
It’ll be “interesting” when you start paying the average EU prices for your petrol – between $8 and $ 8.50 per “US” Gallon.
Wonder how many of your “Gas Guzzling” SUV’s will be up for sale on the roadside, for not much more than scrap value then?
The American economy is pretty dependent on reliable, and CHEAP (in comparison to competing economies) energy, especially for transport (no long-distance electrified rail provision for example), so when that cheap energy (read, petrol, diesel, Jet A) “dries up”, the costs of everything (products, raw materials, services) will have to rise.
Whatever, it’ll get “pretty interesting, pretty quick” unless your Politicians think up some novel scam. No doubt they will too.
The only inflation Grandma Yellin is concerned about is her waistline. The Fed is utterly clueless.
Every time the price of gas is over $3.80, we go into a recession. We’re already in a recession. Housing is collapsing. It’ll take the Fed, the government, and the MSM another 9 months to figure it out. It’ll take the stock market another 6 months to react, with all the free money sloshing around. Even the threat of a world war has no effect on markets. It’s mind boggling and surreal.
I don’t care if she’s a female, or Jewish, she’s a clueless fucking idiot like the clueless fucking idiot she replaced….
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Average prices in various major cities across North America
Los Angeles – $4.32
Chicago – $4.16
New York City – $3.98
San Francisco – $4.32
Phila – $3.76
Cincinnati – $3.79
Washington DC – $3.91
San Diego – $4.28
Indianapolis – $3.78
Edmonton – $4.70
Calgary – $4.86
Toronto – $5.25
AWD, we never got out of the recession. I’m not even talking about the housing bubble in 2007-8. I’m talking about the economy cratering in 2000. Take away the reckless money printing and government spending since that time and you’ll realize that the economy has been contracting for 14 years now.
AWD – if you are right re that figure (and I’m certain you ARE right), then what’ll happen when it’s $8 a gallon (bottom of EU range).
America could quite literally seize up.
Maybe a good time to think about “relocation” to elsewhere??
I am hoping gas goes to $15 a gallon. It will keep the riff raff off the streets and out of my way.
We are now post-peak oil and “in the zone” of fuel depletion. People out here had best do something more effective to prepare for leaner times and higher energy cost than look for politicians to blame for their high-consumption, energy-guzzling lifestyles.
The only thing I’ll lay at the doorstep of our leaders, past and present, is their obdurate refusal to tell the truth about the situation, and, worst of all, their support, with policy and taxation, of systems and lifestyles that force most Americans to consume at least twice the energy to maintain their lifestyles as would be necessary to maintain comparable levels of comfort and amenity, if only we inhabited our country differently.
But, then, look what happens to any politician who tells the truth. Nobody out here wants to hear that we’re probably going to have to reduce our individual energy consumption by 50% over the next 5 years, entailing steep reductions in lifestyles and severe economic damage, and that the cheap oil based faux prosperity of the post WW2 era was a one-shot anomaly and is never coming back.
The delusional zombies wandering the highways of America have believed their masters and have continued to take out 7 year loans on massive gas guzzling machines. Here are the facts:
YTD vehicles sold (rented) to the American sheeple – 3.7 million
% sold that are large cars, SUVs, Minivans, or pickup trucks – 60%
% sold of small fuel efficient cars – 20%
Top selling vehicles:
Ford F Pickup – 18 mpg
Dodge Ram Pickup – 16 mpg
Chevrolet Silverado Pickup – 18 mpg
Houston, around $3.40…last time I filled up.
Worry about the price of diesel which used to be cheaper than gasoline and is now $0.70 more expensive than gasoline here in central PA. The price of Industrial agriculture produced food tracks diesel not gasoline. Gasoline powered farm equipment is now obsolete.
Admin, that reminds me of my favorite rant of late…Texas has this weird obsession with huge pickup trucks. Both Ford and GM make “Texas Only” versions such as “King Ranch.” Most are of the crew cab type and nearly all of them are late model and look like they’ve never hauled even so much as a load of barkdust ever (oh wait, they don’t have barkdust in Texas).
These trucks get shitty mileage, are not fun to drive and are a pain in the ass to view traffic around or see whose coming when they are parked next to you and you’re trying to back out. They are nothing but status symbols for a culture that is entirely alien to me.
Oregon has farms, ranches and pickup trucks, hell I’ve owned several. All of them were secondary vehicles for specific uses such as towing a boat. Pickup trucks should be old and beat up so you don’t give a fuck what you need to haul with it. They certainly shouldn’t be driven every day UNLESS you own a fucking farm or a ranch (or do landscape maintenance) and I can guarantee that nobody in Houston owns a farm or a ranch.
I’m here in Portland looking out my hotel window and unleaded is 3.81 per gallon,disel is 3.91 per gallon.
Two of my cars take premium, today s’ price – $4.639
My truck takes reg. $4.439
For some of us a truck isn’t a status symbol, I do all my own remodeling on my rentals, I couldn’t function without a truck. Yea that would be funny I could see myself hauling a load of Sheetrock or a kitchen full of cabinets in my corvette.
Westcoaster says:
“We didn’t have a “Winter” here in SoCal this year, and I just paid $4.39 a gallon for Regular. What was that about snow & cold, Stucky?”
Let me answer that for Stucky, dumbfuck. You never have a winter in SoCal, dumbfuck. Never. You live in the most fucked up, socialist state in the union. If there’s a way to fuck the middle class, California will find it ….. and hide it, dumbfuck.
I just paid $3.39 a gallon two days ago to fill up in Tucson. A dollar less than you did. Arizona has virtually no oil wells and zero refineries. California has plenty of both. Why the huge price disparity, dumbfuck? Your carbon taxes sneaking in, dumbfuck?
“Texas has this weird obsession with huge pickup trucks.”
—-Zara
So do most of the western states, including Arizona. I think there’s a phallic symbolism going on here. Whatever.
Our eastern-based, esteemed administrator has bucked the trend with his modified Honda Insight. As always, he’s a trend setter
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Fuck,whats BB doing in portland?
In defense of Dumbfuck, people can get acclimated to a certain temp and any deviation can seem either too cold or too hot. Folks from Arizona can feel cold here in SoCal because they are used to 120 degree days and we have 70 degree days here. The temp today was 65 and folks here were wearing parkas. Brutal cold.
Disclaimer: Any generalizations made here were for illustrative purposes only and not for official publication.
I’m in Vegas on a conference… talk about what is going wrong in the world, take a look at Vegas. Gas is $3.74. In my now home town of Wellington, New Zealand of about $8 U.S. per gallon and it is not a problem. Different economies makes it pretty scary for America if much higher will cause problems…
“% sold that are large cars, SUVs, Minivans, or pickup trucks – 60%”
That’s about right. 2/3 of the population is overweight, obese, or morbidly obese. The fatter people get, the bigger cars they need. And you need an SUV when you’re too fat to walk, to put your hoveround lift, your hoveround, and fit those cases of little debbie cakes, the 5 pound bags of M&M’s and cases of Coke and Doritos bought on your SNAP card.
Obesity Makes Us Waste More Than a Billion Gallons of Gas Every Year
Brian Fung Apr 30 2012
The condition is worsening our pain at the pump at a time when gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/obesity-makes-us-waste-more-than-a-billion-gallons-of-gas-every-year/256521/
My comment on blaming high gas prices due to the cold is because ……………. CABLE NEWS HAS BEEN BLAMING COLD WEATHER FOR THE BAD ECONOMY FOR THE PAST THREE MONTHS.
It’s called sarcasm.
You thumbs down voters ARE SERIOUSLY FUCKING BRAIN DEAD as are the asshole comments. Go seek medical attention immediately.
Z,
It is true what you say mostly about huge P/U, but most of them are small business write-offs. If they are over 6600lbs you get a huge deprecation the first year. I bought a 2004 GMC diesel crew-cab in 2004, gave it to my son 2013, it has only 29,000 miles and he uses for the rentals and ranch. I bought a King Ranch diesel crew-cab 2008 last year and the write-off was great. It has only 18,000 miles and it not especially fun to drive, but it has power everything and is real pretty. I haul raise bed dirt and construction sand for the chickens, but I put the dirt on a tarp so the bed doesn’t get dirty LOL.
Ilpoh, what will $15 gasoline and correspondingly high costs for all the things that depend on cheap fossil fuels, do to your BUSINESS?
Frankly, I’m scared. I use very little energy compared to the typical American and like to think I’m prepared to weather escalating energy prices, but now I doubt it. I find myself wondering if I shouldn’t have bought that smaller condo around the corner- cheaper to weatherize and heat, and spent the differential on a little urban greenhouse on the roof of the garage of someone around here who’d be willing to rent it to me. I’m hording warm clothes and bedding, and non-perishable food. I already don’t own a car, and live close to essential retail and transit, but maybe it’s time to invest in a bike to avoid higher transit fares. I use 105KwH electricity a month and think now, I should reduce that. And the gas stove has to go. I never use it anyway. Why pay $15 a month for the connection (my heat comes off the building’s boiler and is included in the HOA fee). I’m nagging my fellow owners about weatherizing the building to stave off stratospheric heat bills down the road. But most of them are either so obsessed with this month’s profit on the rental and already resent the HOA and the expenditures for essential maintenance, that I despair of getting them to see the wisdom in spending money to weatherize this place.
This is a good time to divest yourself of non-essentials, such as overly large houses, second homes, the crap languishing in storage lockers that you haven’t even looked at in 2 years, extra or recreational vehicles, and put the money in a safe place and invest in stuff that might smooth the road a little in the years ahead.
Nick, the difference between European and US gas prices is TAXES.
In the US, it looks like Peak Oil is gradually exerting it’s influence on price. I saw recently that major oil companies now need $120 oil to make a profit. So they are CUTTING exploration and development. The fracking boom will soon be bust.
Maybe nanotechnology will enable the cheap production of liquid fuels (and much else – I hope), but that is decades away, if ever.
Chicago, What will $15 gas do to prices of other things? Um… raise them? The solution to high prices is high prices. On another thread I bitched about trains because “trains as solution to everything” is stupid. I’d be prefectly find with raising the gas tax by $2 / gallon, though. Everyone would start driving small cars like Admin & me. It’d never pass, though, because people get more bent out of shape about a $1,000 / year in gas tax than they do about an extra $2,000 in income tax wasted on trains that no one wants to ride or Solyndra-type boondoggles. Hell, most people started paying an extra $1,000 in taxes when the payroll tax holiday went away and 19 out of 20 couldn’t even tell you when it ended. They also didn’t feel awash in free cash when it started.