Anyone else notice they're going through the roof again??

Its getting to be a game to wake up and see how much they rose since you went to sleep last night.

And why is that? Are they getting a jump start for the Summer? I filled up one day last week it was $2.31 and the very next day it went up to $2.44

How much is gas where you are SC?

Termites.

Take the bike like the rest of the world!!

Tell me about it!! I went from driving less than two miles to work to 27/28 miles. Seems like I'm puttinjg gas in my car every other day. Probably seems so cause I am. I can imagine what I'd be paying if I had a gas guzzler.


TIS

I know how you feel TIS. When we lived in WV my hubby was like 10 minutes from his job so the gas lasted awhile. But sinced we moved to Ohio he has to drive an hour 1 way to go back to his job in WV. He takes my car alot cuz it is better on gas but I hate driving his truck.

Yeah, it's discouraging. For work I drive about 1300 miles per week. While some of it is reimbursable, my office trips are not. Between my wife and me, we're paying close to $200/week in gas.

Exxon, by the way, had record profits last year. 2007 will be big as well.

I remember an outcry about 10 years ago when gas prices had a sudden increase of about 20 cents. It seems now that I went from paying $2.12/gallon to $2.55 in a week or two.

I was listening to a news story on the radio during my commute, in which an oil company exec attributed the sudden rise in price to "summer demand" (at the time, my thermometer read 14 degrees). Also, he blamed instability in the oil producing region and the fact that a bomb went off close to where Dick Cheney was. How dumb do the oil companies think we are?

Anyway, with the increase in gas prices, we can expect a corresponding spike in the prices of consumer goods.

I filled up 2 weeks ago and paid $2.159. I've filled the tank twice since then and it rose to $2.319 and then $2.419. Slowly but surely, I'm going to see my Shell bill creeping up. Luckily, Shell came out with a promotion two years ago, and if you buy gas at a Shell station and use their MasterCard, you get 5% off your gas purchases. It's helped the bills a little bit. You can be that they're not giving that deal any longer!!

I take the bike a few miles to work, and only uses my car for long drives, once and a while, beacourse i care for the nature.. but i gues americans isent so familiar with that word (exept for Gore)

Please think of the kittens the next time you make another egregious (read: stupid) statement.

It's a combination of things.

Uncertainty about Iran's nuclear emissions have created an unstability in the middle eastern oil producing countries which in turn has affected crude oil prices.


Many refineries have shut down, retooling to produce cleaner-blend gasoline. So with those refineries shutting down to try and convert their production over to cleaner blend gasolines, less gasoline is being produced right now.

The approaching driving season is just around the corner.

Put these three things together and add in the fact that many of these foreign oil producing countries are taking advantage of our dependance on their oil and just manipulate prices because of the middle eastern situation, and you have a recipe for rising gas/oil prices.



Don Cardi

I'm sure the awnser STILL has something to do w/ China.

'The Chinese have done it Jerry!!!'-Costanza

Why generalize all 300 million Americans minus one?

I appreciate your efforts to downsize the use of your car, but think about distances. Denmark is a small country, things are always close to you. In America distances between places are often just not small enough to use a bike.

According to GasBuddy.com prices by me are around $2.31-2.43/gallon -- I suppose that's pretty "cheap" considering NYC/Brooklyn/LI start at $2.58. LA ranges from $2.69-3.35?? Miggie, Cleveland starts at only $2.19 it says (then again, prices can change quickly in a few days)...

http://www.gasbuddy.com

Check out that site for the lowest/highest gas prices in your area

Actually, Gore has an advantage in being more familiar with this than most Americans. He invented the internet.

I don't live in Cleveland. But thanks for looking for me Geoffy. The cheapest where I live in Salem is $2.36.

When I was at Becky's this past weekend in Newport News,VA at a WAWA station it was $2.29. I'm sure it went up though.

Keep in mind that the price you pay at the pump is a function of futures' contracts. Months ago investors bid on the oil that is going to be available this week. They bid it high or they bid it low. It's speculation on their part based on factors they believe will limit or expand supply. In the end, it's all a function of supply and demand.

A.K.A-China.

(I walk to work everyday, it's great, sometimes erotic. Especially when I see threads such as this one! )

Gas has not been $2.19 in Cleveland in over 1 month. But they shot up to $2.50 practically overnight, then came down a bit and have been holding around $2.39 in most areas. It's ridiculous.

Yes. Speculators act or re-act to news and world events that may have an effect on supply and demand. They are not the sole reason for driving the futures markets up or down.





California has one of the, if not the, most toughest emissions laws along with some of the highest taxes on gas in the country.





I'll pay those prices in a heartbeat! Last night I paid $2.61!


And as the price of oil and gas goes up, watch how high the price of corn will go with it!

Don Cardi

What's wrong with bikes?

Are you angry with bikes for one reason or another? Were you molested by a bike as a child? Did a bike kill your father? Rape your mother?

Jokingly or not, there's no need to reference someone's mother and father in that manner.


Don Cardi

With all due respect, I honestly don't think DJ is the type to be offended by a joke of the kind. That's right up his alley. It's absurd to be offended by the thought of your mother and father being wronged by a material possession to begin with.

DJ is a smart, well-humored guy. If he's offended by such context, I bet the universe would implode.

Well the nearest gas station by me is $2.73 but in my area it is as high as $2.97 - $3.00. I'm sure L.A. would be more yet.

I don't believe there isn't a way to decrease the price, and I really don't believe any explanations we've been given as to the reason. We are chumps without a choice. The price can go to $10.00 a gallon, but we still have to work. We still need our cars. I hate not knowing where all this money goes. I'm sick of all the bullshit.


TIS

TIS -

I believe that there are answers on how to lower the price of gasoline and oil. First step is to get away from dependance on foriegn oil. We need to drill for our own oil on a much larger scale. I think that we had this same conversation back when hurricane Katrina destroyed some of our oil platforms in the gulf coast. There are so many untapped areas in the north where we can drill for our own oil. But that's been a very controversial debate that has been going on for years.

The scenerios that I gave above are major factors that contribute to the rise in gasoline prices. Do the big oil companies manipulte the news and world events in their favor? Of course they do. I don't deny that. But the reasons that I gave above are factual and are amongst the main reasons as to why oil/gasoline prices have shot up recently.

As long as there are tensions in the middle eastern oil producing regions of the world where we depend on getting our oil from, and enviremental advocates continue to lobby against drilling in our own nation for oil, then we will always be at the mercy of organizations like OPEC, the Saudis' and people like Hugo Chavez.

Someone mentioned China a couple of times in this thread. Well they are not that way off base. China's economy has soared in the past few years, along with the economy of India. And the soaring economy of those nations has allowed more people of those nations, probably more than ever before, to buy more cars and do more driving, which has placed that much more demand on the supply of oil/gasoline. And the middle eastern providers of the world oil supply, along with the Hugo Chavezs' of the world, are taking full advantage of these situations, lining their pockets with our hard earned money.

Recently an ethynol based gasoline was produced, and I believe by June of this year ALL gasoline sold will require a larger amount of ethynol in it. This was done to help our envirement and cut down on polution producing emissions. However, we will pay for this conversion in another manner. Ethynol is produced from corn. And as I posted earlier you will eventually see the price of corn rise because the demand for corn, to produce this ethynol, will rise. And again who pays for it one way or another? We do.


Don Cardi

Well DC, I do agree that we have to get away from our dependency on foreign oil. I know there are many groups opposed to going into these untapped areas, yet if that is within possibility and will help us I don't see where we have a choice.

The thing is, this has been suggested as a possibility for a very long time now, and nobody is doing anything about it. I'm not sure what the answer is, but we shouldn't just throw up our hands and forget about it. Unfortunately for us "average" people, we (understandably I guess)only seem to pay attention to it at times when prices skyrocket.


TIS

Very good point about China, India and other nations whose demand for crude has increased exponentially, DC. The world market for fossil fuels has more buyers than ever before. Moreover, I was surprised to learn recently that the largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the the United States is Canada.

Yes, we get about 1.8M barrels per day from Canada, 1.5M per day from Saudi Arabia, 1.2M per day from Mexico, and about 1M per day from Venezuela.

While Canada is probably the most stable nation that we aquire oil from, it still does not address the fact that we are at the mercy of other nations to supply us with our energy. Other nations are drilling for, refining and profiting from selling their own oil, yet we refuse to enter into the business of supplying ourselves with our own oil and become major world providers of energy ourselves.

The EPA with the support of some congressman and senators has stopped us from drilling along the continental shelf of the United States. That is oil that rightfully belongs to America. And now it is being drilled by Canada, Spain and Cuba, with help from both China and India. Cuba's government owned oil corporation, CubaPetroleo using money from China's national oil company, Sinopec, is now exercising its right to drill for and refine oil in the Straits of Florida. China is slant drilling. Slant drilling is what oil companies do when the oil they are trying to tap is on someone else's property. You and I both know that China will try to tap into reserves on the American-side of the Florida Straits that legally belongs to the United States based on a 2-year renewable treaty that was negotiated with Cuba and signed by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

This Carter-Castro treaty created an imaginary line through the middle of the Florida Straits. All oil rights south of the line belong to Cuba and the balance belong to the United States. Every two years, the treaty expires. Every president since Ronald Reagan has renewed it. There is a shortage of oil refineries in the United States because of EPA regulations that shut over 80% of them down during the Reagan-Bush and early Clinton years. Yet the Florida Straits treaty allows foreign oil companies to come within 50 to 90 miles of the American coastline to drill for oil!!!

Go figure!



Don Cardi

SC

If you want an answer to that question an EXCELLENT book to read is Oil on the Brain by Lisa Margonelli. I can't recommend it enough.