DSL Talk

Yep, 100 years and bigger cars. It's the old saying "we can put a man on the moon but....". I have to believe the reason we haven't improved is simply because we haven't wanted to improve. I am sure politics plays a very large part as it does in most everything in the US. It's clear that if we could reduce our dependency on oil, worrying about what's going on in the Middle East would be much less of an issue.

I don't blame the president for this. I blame every American including myself. We like to complain but don't like to initiate action. Strength is in numbers and the media to be honest. When we had a few child abductions where the parents and community utilized the media, child protection laws began to sweep across the country. People like Bill O'Reilly picked up the cause and put lazy or non-responsive lawmakers in the spotlight. This greatly motivated them to satisfy the public outcry. Our votes are powerful motivators if used the right way.

Americans send conflicting messages. We complain about gas prices and having to worry about foreign oil but in the recent price wars initiated by the automakers, many Americans went out and bought large trucks and SUV's. We can't be hypoctitical about this. As long as we show that behavior, politicians will not take the people seriously.

I could go on but I'll step down from my soapbox :)

This topic can get me started very easily. However, I'll refrain from going on about it, just a short 37 page essay will do. Okay, shorter than that.
The price of gas is driving me crazy. My car prefers premium and it knows the difference when I choose not to use it and gets upset with me. So, I humor the 15mpg guzzler. It's 12 years old and cantankerous. But what really chaps my hide is that the oil companies have been making record profits for the past several months. That's record profits, as in setting new records for how much money that are making that is profit, as in profit like they have never seen before, as in greedy bastards.
A hurricane hits the south coast so they warn us that gas prices will go up as a result of the loss of oil, this week. They have not even felt the effect of the alleged loss of oil yet. Also, gas prices will go up because a holiday weekend is coming up and people will be driving to and fro.
In my few (maybe many) years of driving, gas prices have risen over 200%. WTF? So, it took all of the previous generation to go from a 20 something cents a gallon to 68 cents when I started, now it's 3 friggn' dollars a gallon and more. AND, I know people who are being paid by the government to keep their wells capped. They are getting paid the equivalent of the sale of that oil. Oh, but wait, there's a shortage. Okay. I should probably stop here before I blow a gasket......

Gas stations raise their prices 2 or 3 times a day even though they haven't received a new shipment of fuel. We had recent articles in our local paper about service stations not making any money on fuel. They claimed they only make money from the items in their convenience stores. With what we are seeing, how could we be expected to believe that.

My father-in-law owns a gas station, and his income is going DOWN because of these price hikes.

He only makes a few cents income on each gallon of gasoline that is sold and the high prices are killing him.

As a full service station, he gets to hear people complain to him constantly about the gas prices, which really brightens his day.

The worst part is that he still only charges them the same few cents over the his wholesale price and makes LESS money because the VOLUME sold every day keeps dropping.

People buy LESS gas which the price goes up and with the same profit per gallon it means that he has less money in HIS wallet every week.

No station owner makes a big wad of cash when they need to change their prices often. The price is set by the local marketplace and not by the price of the last shipment of fuel. When the price goes down quickly or when a price war with the station down the road begins and the same guy loses money on his last shipment I don't hear any customers complaining about it then.

Thanks for the insight. I just saw on the news in Indianapolis where gas stations ranged from $2.59 to $3.49. How can they do that if the margin is only pennies? It's a confusing matter for the average consumer.Is it the big guys vs the little guys?

In my father-in-laws case, he is a small independently owned full service station owner. But he sells name-brand gasoline, so he must buy this gas from the official local distributor.

The local distributor does not sell the gas at a low price unless the gas station is also owned by the mother company, or in the case where someone owns a local chain of gas stations and can buy a volume discount.

Believe it or not, on some weeks the RETAIL posted price for gas at a nearby BJ's wholesale club is actually CHEAPER than his contracted WHOLESALE price.

So it would actually be cheaper for him to back up with a tank truck and "pay at the pump" at BJs and then unload it into his gas station storage tanks.

But this would be a violation of his "name-brand" contract so he cannot do this.

I guess that the point that I am trying to make is this:

If you are trying to "follow the money" to figure out who is cashing in on the gas price hike and you are looking at the local gas station owner then you are looking in the wrong place.

I would look at the quarterly profits of the multinational energy companies and also the nationalized oil producing countries themselves.

They are the ones that are cashing in on this deal.

Of course the only reason why they can get away with it is because demand is exceeding supply at the moment.

If the Chinese economy suddenly slows down, the world will once again be awash in cheap oil.

It is a frustrating situation to be the end consumer and have no direct control of the situation except through personal conservation or maybe robbing your local bank :) , but then again there are many things in life that you cannot directly control, like your tax laws for example.

I do appreciate the insight.

It was interesting last night when Bill O'Reilly threatened to expose anyone price gouging the American people. He made the comment that it only costs about $4 to produce a barrel of oil while it's sold for $70!! That tells you where money is going AND if you have been paying attention, oil companies have been posting record profits. With cbagger01's insight it's obvious that the profits do not trickle down. Conservation is the key. I bought my first $3.19 gas last night. $20 buys 6.25 gallons...ouch! What disturbs me is that the politicians are already saying we need more refineries after what's happened with the hurricane..not a word about alternative fuels. It totally perplexes me.

Taxes are a whole other thing :-)

Hi All,
The typical price of unleaded in the UK is around 90 pence ($1.60) per litre!!!
A lot of small gas stations have gone out of buisness as they just cant compete.
The whole ethos of the price of gas is bound in pure politics.
I wonder what will happen IF we ever get other renewable sources up and running to the countries that produce oil products!
A long way off yet methinks.

here, for premium we got 50cents a litre. so my friend's friend got $15/week for his car,conservative . that's $60/month, whooooping 1/3 part of his monthly wage (or more). and they said we'll have multinational company gas station very soon..perfect !!