How's W doing?

i just asked you to explain your rant. you couldn't.


it's okay, you are just like the rest. no need to get all pissy.

 

and BTW, stop acting like your president created the situation in the middle east.


in case you forgot, he's not the one who killed your fellow americans that day. so he's taking out the (long overdue) trash in the middle east. big deal. it should have been taken out long ago.

unless you ride a goddamn pogo stick, STFU. you are part of the problem too.

 

C'mon, todd, pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news. The problem is refinery capacity and increased demand, not supply or instability.

 

Frank, is there factual information available on consumers' fuel consumption since gas prices started rising? I'm wondering if there would really be a gas shortage at $1.25/gal. Any info would be appreciated.

 

How would you categorize the 23% (average) take for state local and federal taxes?

This is an interesting primer on the components of gasoline pricing.

 

Not Bush didnt create the problem in the middle east, but he sure as hell didnt make it any better by invading Iraq.

Saddam wasnt the one who killed my fellow americans that day either, but we still went there to take him out for no good reason. Now dont start with how Saddam was/is a bad person we all know that. That still doesnt explain why Bush had such a hard on about going after Saddam though, when there are plenty of otehr bad people in the world.

Nope not riding a pogo stick, but I am driving a Jetta TDI and it still costs way to much to get around driving that.

 

That's a loaded question. Gasoline prices have been increasing since before you or I were born.

There was a gasoline shortage (contrived or not) in winter of 74 when prices jumped from around $0.33 to somewhere around $0.50 (best I can recall). and you had to wait in line for the few gallons they would sell you. Did you know waiting in line for gas is a great time to wax your car?

 

Art, I'm curious to know what basis you have to make that prediction, especially since Bernanke more than hinted yesterday that he's favoring a pause in rate hikes. Reaching 10% this year would require an unprecedented rate hike of 2.25% over the next 8 months - and I don't think that's ever happend in the entire history of this country.

Economic growth is proceeding just about right in line with what Bernanke believes it should be - and he believes it will slow down a bit all on its own without rate adjustments as the slack from the hurricane disasters is overcome, and as the housing market cools.

Why does your outlook contrast with the chairman of the Fed?

 

Geez, you people are difficult!

OK, have consumers reduced their gas useage since, say 2002? And would the amount of gasoline used in 2002 overwhelm today's refining capacity? Those are not trick/loaded questions. I have no idea what the answers are. Hell, I last bought gas in June 02.

 

Papa, it's not just US consumers, it's world demand. I'll see what I can dig up for you with hard numbers.

 

Thanks.

 

I don't know if these provide what you want but check these links:

From Knight Ridder

USA Today says use is going down or at least not increasing as fast as usual.

And this little graph knocks the hell out of my smartass comment about rising prices at least in constant dollars.

It seems that govenment statisticians don't work in real time because I haven't been able to find anything on 2005 -2006.

 

Cutting back just a little more could cause gasoline prices — which average $2.801 nationwide, up 57.7 cents from last year, according to motorist organization AAA — to drop dramatically, one veteran analyst says.

"If everyone decided to drive 3% less the next 30 days, prices would crash," says Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

I found this interesting. It confirms my thinking on this: gas is expensive because y'all don't really mind paying for it.

 

Papa, US demand article here.

 

Boone Pickens weighs in.

 

Close. I think we DO mind paying, we just are not willing to sacrifice personal convenience. IMHO, prices would have to stay high for an extended period to truly impact habits. And then the initial impact would be more significant on the lower incomes since they spend a disproportionate percentage of their income on neccessities. Higher brackets may just cut back on video rentals or eating out. this would further impact the employees in those businesses, but I cannot quantify it.

 

``I suppose there is that price-demand tripwire out there somewhere but we aren't approaching that,'' he said. `Consumers aren't changing their demand habit.''

Again, it seems consumers don't really mind.

Refinery utilization fell 0.4 percentage point to 85.6 percent of capacity, according to the report. Analysts expected an increase.

Frank, dumb question: if utilization is not yet at 100%, is capacity really driving the prices?

 

Yeah, I generalized. I was talking about the SUV/big-displacement crowd. Not so much the Honda Civic owners.

 

What is this gas crisis thing y'all keep talking about? Next time I fuel up the Casbreeolay, I'll have to pay attention to the price.

 

The sad thing is that there are a lot of folks that got into the large SUV's within the last 18 months because of big incentives, often folks that probably couldn't afford them under normal circumstances. Continued high gas prices will kill their value on the used market leaving these folks high and dry (or filing for bankruptcy).

Sucks for the American Auto Mfrs and their employees because the large option laden SUV's were good for revenue.