Not even an excuse this time

[Guest Dans 77 Limited]

Have noticed while driving and heard it on the news the other day..... gas prices are going up again.

No tornadoes in venezuela, financial panics in Dubai. Rusty pipes in the gulf or any of the other excuses the oil companies trot out when they want to bend us over the table and cop a feel. Guess they just dont care anymore.

I hope I live long enough to see an alternate to petroleum based product tested and brought to market and leaving all these greedy price gougers stuck with tank farms full of oil that they cant even give away. Now thats justice.

Blood pressure is starting to drop .

Dan

[keiser31]

Have noticed while driving and heard it on the news the other day..... gas prices are going up again.

No tornadoes in venezuela, financial panics in Dubai. Rusty pipes in the gulf or any of the other excuses the oil companies trot out when they want to bend us over the table and cop a feel. Guess they just dont care anymore.

I hope I live long enough to see an alternate to petroleum based product tested and brought to market and leaving all these greedy price gougers stuck with tank farms full of oil that they cant even give away. Now thats justice.

Blood pressure is starting to drop .

Dan

Dan...I have to take a deep breath when I hear about price gouging because EVERYONE is doing it....food companies, fuel companies and all of the rest of the necessity producing companies. Because they can. That is their excuse.

[JohnD1956]

Agreeing with both of you. No matter what any official source says, with the exception of Real Estate in a few areas of the country, the price of EVERYTHING has gone up since the recession was on the horizon. Gonna be a world of hurt if things keep going like they've been.

[Guest Skyking]

When was the last time any of you people got a raise at work? It's been 4 years for me and none in sight! In the 41 years I've been printing, I never seen it this bad. Maybe I should start printing money............:confused:

[Guest WEB 38]

Bob I was also in printing for 42 years, The way the goverment is spending and giving it away there going to have to give up sheet fed presses and go to web presses. Bill WEB 38

[Guest Skyking]

Bill, I have two more years and then at 66 I'm out of the printing business. I figure by that time there will be no more offset printing. It'll be all digital. It's already starting in my shop and it's pretty nice at that. Our trade will be another dinosaur.............like letterpress.

[Guest WEB 38]

Bob Thats what closed down our shop 10 years ago, Glad I was 60 and was able to take an early retirement. I worked on both sheet fed 1, 2, and 4, color and 4 color web,the last 15 years as plant super. Good luck and hang in there Bill WEB 38

.

[NTX5467]

Prices are not supply/demand driven any more, especially gasoline. Reserves are high, but are being "controlled" to manipulate prices--as I understand it. Refinery capacity and output has also been manipulated, just as the number of working refineries has been over recent history. The price of crude oil is not the determiner of gasoline prices that it once was.

Whatever the vehicle propulsion "fuel" of choice, somebody selling it can alway try to manipulate prices as they might desire. NOT that the historic supply/demand model is broken, just that it's been manipulated and perverted to suit "some" rather business.

In prior times, an oil company could brag about how many gallons of gasoline they sold from their own supply network, when gasoline prices were probably under 50 cents/gallon. Back when there were many smaller gasoline sales oil companies. Now they might brag about how much territory their company serves . . . after purchasing the smaller regional gasoline sales oil companies nationwide. ExxonMobil's $$$$$$$ profits would not be an issue if the two companies had not combined, for example.

It would seem that, with an economy trying to pull itself out of the dumper, affordable fuel prices would certainly help things. When fuel prices got consistently above $2.00/gallon locally, work associates stopped going out to eat at lunch, choosing "sack lunches from home" instead. As fuel prices increased, consumers made other choices and started to limit driving. Now they've learned how to survive with less driving, so fuel use is down enough that the statutary amounts of ethanol used for fuel are now in jeopardy of not being attained, hence the recent desire to increase the ethanol amount in gasoline to 15% from the current 10% ("statutory" from the Renewable Fuels Act), so the amount of fuel ethanol can be met.

It seems that so many "saviours" of our planet and "getting us unadicted to foreign crude oil" orientations have highly marginal total effects on foreign fuel imports. Yet these are "must have/do" things that many proclaim to be beneficial (observed to benefit one "cause" or another, rather than really be significant in impact). EPA fuel economy ratings (now claimed to be related to the famous "carbon footprint"!) might help, but as more people drive more cars via normal population growth and dissemination (with longer commute times!), the only really viable choice is "fuel"/electric hybrid vehicles for more congested "city" driving. Whether the "fuel" is gasoline or diesel can be an open discussion.

NO simple answers, as some might desire to believe!

Happy, Prosperous, and "Fun" 2010 to all!

NTX5467

[Guest WEB 38]

Can someone tell me how all the gas stations all change there prices at the same time. the same amount, where is the competition? Are we all as stupid as they seem to think. Bill WEB 38

[Guest WEB 38]

Can someone tell me how all the gas stations raise there prices at the same time the same amount? Is this not price fixing. I thought price fixing was illegal. We need more government. WEB 38

[wildcat1562]

says it all

Greg

[Dave@Moon]

Can someone tell me how all the gas stations raise there prices at the same time the same amount? Is this not price fixing. I thought price fixing was illegal. We need more government. WEB 38

That's largely a mid-west phenomenon.

When you tell this to people in California or New Jersey they simply refuse to believe it. I think they don't get it because they already have "more government". I know a simple, 50 year old law in Pennsylvania prevents it from happening.

But you should know that recommending "more government" around here is tantamount to cheering for Stalin. This is a non-political forum, as long as you profess to despise a Democrat (as has been exhibited 2 times on this thread already without penalty from any moderator) which is code here for "more government". The other guys just wouldn't do that, would they?

Edited January 2, 2010 by Dave@Moon (see edit history)

[Dave@Moon]

NO simple answers, as some might desire to believe!

There is one simple answer....., just buy less of the stuff by any means necessary. I'll leave it to the reader to determine for themselves how to do that, although I'm sure pride will prevent it for many.

Pride does not come before a fall in energy prices, however. On that you you can bet the house.

[Guest sintid58]

(When was the last time any of you people got a raise at work? It's been 4 years for me and none in sight! In the 41 years I've been printing, I never seen it this bad. Maybe I should start printing money)

At my workplace they CUT everyones wages 5% in November, then a couple weeks ago we go news that come the new year they are going to be cut another 5%. Thank goodness I have a stable second job that I can work at. The second job is pretty flexible driving truck and I can make up most of my lost income by working a little longer each week. Of course that means I will have to work 7 days a week most weeks.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Probably not a popular thing to say, but here goes. When I started working at the age of 16 in 1952, we sold gas for about 0.23/gal. My wage was o.60/hr. Believe that equals 2.60 gal I could buy for an hours wage. This mornings paper here in Springfield, MO shows avg price of 2.36/gal. Using 7.75 as min wage[may actually be more] that would buy 3.28 gal. AND most cars get at least twice the milage as then. My 2 cents.

Ben

[Guest WEB 38]

Just to clarify my earlier remark, needing more government was supposed to be a joke. WEB 38

[Dave@Moon]

Probably not a popular thing to say, but here goes. When I started working at the age of 16 in 1952, we sold gas for about 0.23/gal. My wage was o.60/hr. Believe that equals 2.60 gal I could buy for an hours wage. This mornings paper here in Springfield, MO shows avg price of 2.36/gal. Using 7.75 as min wage[may actually be more] that would buy 3.28 gal. AND most cars get at least twice the milage as then. My 2 cents.

Ben

Adjusting for inflation ( The Inflation Calculator ), 23 cents in 1952 is the equivalent of $1.78 today. Oil is becoming increasingly rarer and harder to extract, and this is the main cause for accelerated fuel cost inflation.

[Guest WEB 38]

Anybody remember in oil first shortage when Tricky Dick turned out the christmas lights at the white house and assured the country that the world was almost out of oil, that was almost 40 years ago. We still have oil the only difference is the price. WEB 38

[John_Maine]

Oil will drop again when the "recovery" falters which will be when gas gets over $3-$4 a gallon again. I feel we are going to be in this cycle until we find an alternative to oil. Oil is going up again because the economy is going up. The price of oil will reach a level that will cause Americans to stop spending again; when we do, oil will drop. Then the economy will start to recover, oil will go up, we'll cut back, oil will drop, etc. I believe we will see several years, if not a decade, of this cycle.

[Guest kaycee]

I think I'm going out in the cold tonight or tomorrow and fill up five or six five gallon cans with gas to store for my old cars, dump in a little Stabil, and when I get home I'll get on eBay and look for some WW2 ration stickers for my cars. I'd walk to the gas station, but I do'nt think the legs will handle it and anyway I can't carry five or six full five gallon cans at a time.

kaycee

[Guest Skyking]

Oil is becoming increasingly rarer and harder to extract, and this is the main cause for accelerated fuel cost inflation.

We've been hearing this for years. There will always be oil and the greed that follows.

[Reatta Man]

Can someone tell me how all the gas stations raise there prices at the same time the same amount? Is this not price fixing. I thought price fixing was illegal. We need more government. WEB 38

First, as for the price increase, look on the roof of ALL of these stations, even the few mom and pop stations left. Notice that satellite dish? They are not watching ESPN; those are linked to the wholesale prices of gas stock. And, in the digital age, they all have access to the retail prices others are charging.

This, however, is NOT a need for more government, but rather an understanding and an affect on the supply vs. demand that has and will continue to control the wholesale cost.

As for the need for more government, NO, NO, NO!! Government has gotten us dozens of blends of gasoline for specific markets, manditory "protect the (fill in the blank)" and thousands of people just waiting for this congress to buy into the "cap and tax" movement in DC so they can all get a piece of the billions of dollars that Al Gore and his people will be controlling.

In other words, government helped make this mess, but they DON'T have an exit strategy as to how to get out of this mess.

[old-tank]

When oil prices dropped, the price of gas went down, but not other oil products like motor oil. And everybody like delivery companies that increased prices because of fuel costs never reduced prices. On top of that the gas does not get you as far as it used to. It's called ethanol. I avoid it but it is getting harder all the time around here. It started with Walmart and grocery chains and now it is probably 75% selling gas with 10% ethanol. I avoid it in my old iron for sure, but also in more modern vehicles even though they digest it without driveability problems. An example of not getting you as far as it used to: Take 2 same brand stations a mile apart, one is selling real gas for $1.49 and the other is selling 10% for $1.39. A 20 gal fillup will save $2...sounds like a good deal. But my 97 F150 gets 17mpg on real gas and 16mpg on 10% ethanol which means that I can go 340 miles vs 320 miles. It will take more than a gallon to go that extra 20 miles so that $2 savings up front is now at least a 70 cent loss. And what about all that extra carbon that is killing the planet:rolleyes:.

When I first saw this post I wondered how long it would take for ol' Moon to crawl out from under his rock...not long.

Willie

[Dave@Moon]

First, as for the price increase, look on the roof of ALL of these stations, even the few mom and pop stations left. Notice that satellite dish? They are not watching ESPN; those are linked to the wholesale prices of gas stock. And, in the digital age, they all have access to the retail prices others are charging.

That's not how the long running mid-western scheme has been working for the last 10-12 years.

Corporate owned station managers get a fax about 24 hours in advance with a price and time the next day they must be at that price. The remaining franchise owners (now a distinct minority) see the price change, and immediately match it. If they resist on any grounds, suddenly they aren't able to buy gas for their stations any more.

The best way to beat it is to know which stations are corporate owned and watch their prices. As soon as the manager gets the fax he will (usually) reduce his price to the absolute minimum he can justify (usually only a few cents, but mostly coming after a few days of stable prices), giving himself and his employees (and likely his friends) an opportunity to beat the price increase.

It happens almost every week here, with increases ranging from 10 to 30 cents. The only way to tell what the real price of gas is doing is to watch how fast or slow the price moves after collusion day.

Edited January 3, 2010 by Dave@Moon
typo (see edit history)

[Dave@Moon]

...and thousands of people just waiting for this congress to buy into the "cap and tax" movement in DC so they can all get a piece of the billions of dollars that Al Gore and his people will be controlling.

Cap & Trade is a means to deal with climate change. It has nothing to do with gas prices, although you can no doubt expect climate change measures (including Cap & Trade) to effect prices dramatically in the near future.

In other words, this is a really dumb time to be buying a gas hog for a daily driver.

[Dave@Moon]

And what about all that extra carbon that is killing the planet:rolleyes:.

When I first saw this post I wondered how long it would take for ol' Moon to crawl out from under his rock...not long.

Willie

There is no "extra carbon" when burning ethanol. The carbon in ethanol was CO2 last week/month/year when the source plant material incorporated it. The carbon in gasoline was last in the atmosphere a minimum of 80 million years ago.

BTW, my rock now has 2 Triumphs under it right now, the Buick is gone and I don't watch this forum that much any more.

[Guest sintid58]

(And everybody like delivery companies that increased prices because of fuel costs never reduced prices)

Most if not all the trucking companies did not increase the rates they charged when the price of fuel went up. We use a Fuel surcharge rate that varies as the price of fuel goes up or down and when the price of fuel drops so do the rates. Another thing is because of the economy freight is extremely slow and shippers have been using this to price and reprice rates. A large shipper here in Sioux Falls has rebid rates 3 time in the past year and a half and now my company no longer hauls their product for them. Rates have come down up 15percent in that time period. Huge trucking companies like Werner Enterprises and Swift that just 2 years ago were recruiting drivers from anywhere they could get them have laid off drivers and gotten rid of equipement. Banks and other financial institutions that finance the trucking industry are keeping trucking companies in business. These companies should have been closed down or went bankrupt but are kept going because their equipement and other assets are not worth anything and the banks feel it is better to keep them operating than to take huge loses by closing them. The company I work for went from 5 people in driver recruiting to 1 and we closed our driving school which was one of the first in the country and has been operating since 1975 continuously. As I said on another post I have taken two 5% pay cuts since the first of November. I put in a post on this site on April 20th 2006 that in my industry there were already signs of a severe slowdown and said that tough times were coming. I can tell you this right now the recovery they are talking about is not happening and there is no sign of the recession ending anytime soon. We in the shipping business will see it first because of the nature of our business. I believe all the talk about the economy improving is just an effort to make the public beleive it is and get them to start spending again.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

WOW, Dave. Nice site. Using the same calculator, the low wage earner is WAY ahead today.

Ben

[old-tank]

Sid, I was referring to UPS and FEDEX, etc not lowering rates. I don't know what they are doing to or for their drivers, but the consumer is still getting gouged.

I had a discussion with an employee of Valero Petroleum yesterday and was informed that they would be going to 10% or greater ethanol in all gas soon. He agrees that it is crap, but economics rules. It seems that ethanol is cheaper than gasoline and it is a cheap way to increase octane, subsequently reducing refining costs. So the oil companies make more, we pay more, out old cars don't like it...

Willie

Edited January 4, 2010 by Rawja (see edit history)

[buick5563]

First, as for the price increase, look on the roof of ALL of these stations, even the few mom and pop stations left. Notice that satellite dish? They are not watching ESPN; those are linked to the wholesale prices of gas stock.

Satellite dishes?

[Reatta Man]

Yes, Mike. They are about the same size as a Dish Network or Direct TV dish.

They process secure credit card transactions and follow the ups and downs of fuel prices.

Joe

[buick5563]

Joe,

I was actually trying to lighten things up. I was amused to be building a Christmas Lego garage with my son assembling two satellite dishes less

than two hours after I had read your post.

[LINC400]

A few things.

First, I work for a transportation company. We use a lot of different trucking companies, not just one. When gas prices went up, they all added a fuel surcharge. When gas prices went down, very few removed or even lowered it.

Higher gas prices caused many consumer goods to go up in price. For example the grocery stores jacked up prices massively to cover transportation costs. However, none of them reduced prices when gas prices went down. Some stores are now claiming they are lowering prices to "help consumers in this bad economy". This is a load of b.s. They take a few cents off hugely inflated prices to claim they are saving you money. However, with these "reduced" prices, you are still paying much more than you did for the same item 1 1/2 years ago. Most people are too stupid to notice. They just see a reduction and think they are getting huge deals.

Many companies have reduced the size of their product yet kept the price the same. For example toilet paper and paper towels now have many less sheets than they previously did. Or other products are now fewer ounces for the same price the larger size used to be. This is even more successful as most people notice an increase in price, but hardly anyone pays attention to a reduction in size.

Also I have zero sympathy for anyone having a harder time finding zero Ethanol gas. Be happy you can still get it. Gas has been 10% ethanol with no other choice for many years here. I used to avoid it, but gave up trying to find stations without it about 10 years ago. For the last several years, all stations have Ethanol. And my cars run worse with it, newer and older.

I also worked at a gas station in the late 1980's. It was a franchise, yet the company would still try and dictate what price we could sell the gas for. They would call, not fax, and send out a rep every so often to see what we were charging. The gas stations themselves make very little money on the gas. Usually only one or two cents a gallon. It is the company that makes all the profit. A few times they even wanted us to sell it for less than what we paid to match the station down the street. Yes a station owner can tell all his buddies to fill up before the price goes up. But that only allows for a 15 minute window or so to buy it.

Finally, I am opposed to any kind of government sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. However, I think we will see the same kind of price gouging for gas every summer, starting sooner and ending later, unless something is done about it. The gas companies certainly are not going to decide they want less profits so they can help everybody out. If people conserve and use less gas, they will just produce less to keep the price high.

Edited January 5, 2010 by LINC400 (see edit history)

[Dave@Moon]

For the last several years, all stations have Ethanol. And my cars run worse with it, newer and older.

When I was in grad school in Iowa in the early 1980s Conoco was the only outlet that sold gasoline without ethanol, and there weren't that many Conoco stations. 98% (at least) of the gas pumps were 10% ethanol, then called gasahol. They were decades ahead of the curve. Farm states!

Also the weekly gas price thing (I'm told) began here in Cincinnati in 1999. Before that gas went up and down pennies at a time like any commodity.

Finally the law that stops these shenanigans in PA is very simple. It's illegal in PA for a gas station to change it's price twice in 24 hours. While this was done to stop an early 1950s scheme of jacking up prices during rush hour, it also stops this kind of scheme. The reason is that region-wide price-fixing like this requires the cooperation of every gas station. If one guy changed his price 1 cent since yesterday and everybody else has to go up 30 cents today and he can't, guess where everyone's going to be buying their gas.

[Reatta Man]

All of this continues to indicate how sensitive our situation is when it comes to oil prices. Much, if not nearly all of this, is due to the fact that we (American companies) don't control the wholesale cost. For example:

Too cold up North? Prices go up in the South and West.

Pipeline breaks or is shut down in California or Arizona? Prices go up in Atlanta or Miami.

Some terrorist (man-made disaster catalyst) blows up a well or storage tank in HateAmerica land? Prices go up everywhere in the U.S.

We need to find, deliver and process more oil on our own soil and the soil of our true friends. And this does NOT include some third-world dictator that is trying to be treated like a 'big man' on the world stage, or some terrorist nation selling oil for nukes in order to threaten Israel, or the leaders of some sand-box country that we wouldn't even care about if they didn't happen to have some oil THEY are willing to drill for, deliver and process, at THEIR price.

At least we can still depend on the Canadians to deliver oil and honor their commitments.

Joe

[Guest WEB 38]

Oh Oh Its time to bend over again. WEB 38

[Dave@Moon]

We need to find, deliver and process more oil on our own soil and the soil of our true friends.

We've been over this a hundred times in a hundred ways. Suffice as to say finding ways to do the same things using less of the stuff is by far the path of least resistance.

BTW, today's collusion price increase in all of southwestern Ohio: 24 cents to $2.79/gal. The biggest one we've had in probably 6 months.:mad:

[Guest Skyking]

Yesterday morning I bought gas for $2.63. I just drove by the station and it's $2.69. That's the biggest increase here in a while. This is nothing but greed.:mad:

[LINC400]

The Tuesday before Christmas it was $2.59 a gallon, Christmas Eve $2.75, New Years Eve $2.79, and this week $2.89. I guess they didn't get enough gouging in before Christmas. I don't see what difference it makes how many times a day they are allowed to change prices if the end result is a 30 cent increase in 2 weeks without changing daily.

[Guest windjamer]

:D Hey Dave, you traded a BUICK and only got two new Triumphs in exchange??:confused: I would have held out for at least two Triumphs AND a Prious.