Gas costs $1.93 in PA. Anyone still think the war was about oil?

[iamme99]

Good apropos comic here: http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2004/05/12/

[Monocracy]

@El_Kabong

Well, I’ll take your word for this, although I have no data in front of me that says this is so. But what is the effect of inflation over that period? Is not a significant amount of this apparent rise due to inflation?

As for my claims, it’s been all over the news that crude oil prices have reached their highest points in 14 years (when Iraq invaded Kuwait). And the 50% increase in reatil price is just personal experience, i remember before Desert Storm that gas was about $1.10-1.20 a gallon in my area, during the war it spiked sharply to about $1.30-1.40, currently, it just passed $2.00.

And i don’t think inflation would matter when comparing crude prices to retail prices, as they are both affected by inflation.

According to the chart about halfway down the page at this link, during the admittedly short time period shown, there does not seem to be any pattern at all that I can discern wherein retail prices are maintained at an artificially high level after prices for crude or spot-purchased refined products fall, nor is there an indication that retail gasoline prices rise independently of either crude or wholesale refined prices. As you’ll note, btw, this chart is part of a 2001 FAQ entitled “Why are gasoline prices falling so rapidly?”

That chart looks a bit fishy to me. It’s saying that at the beginning of 1999, gas prices were below $1.00 and at certain points in 2000 and 2001, gas rose above $1.60. I haven’t seen gas prices below a dollar since the 80s, and i’ve never seen them higher than $1.60 except in the last year. The site claims that there was a 48 cents drop in the national average of gasoline prices … i was a car owner at the time, of a gas-guzzler no less, and i remember no such thing.

Perhaps you may want to think about one more thing: Whoelsale milk prices have risen to historically high levels over the past three or four weeks, yet hardly anyone seems to be yelling about a conspiracy to run up milk prices artificially. Why might that be?

Shh. Don’t tell Bush or after he gets re-elected he’ll start a war on Canada to infiltrate their dairy trade. I’m printing up the “No War For Milk” bumper stickers now.

@RTFirefly

I’m not a student of the energy industry, so I don’t know what the truth is about our refining capacity, but the price of crude isn’t the only place between the wellhead and the pump where supply-and-demand can play out. If here in the USA we have more people who want to buy more gallons of gasoline at $1.80/gallon than the refineries can produce, then the price of gasoline will go up. Or we can cap the price of gasoline and have gas lines, like we did in 1973-4.

Yes, demand definitely will affect the price, but it will affect it differently depending on a free market or a monopolistic system. If one person controlled all water on Earth, he could sell it for $50.00 a glass, but in a free market system, Evian can only get $3 a bottle. So are these rises in prices caused by poor energy planning or by unfair business practices? Yay, America is either incompetent or corrupt.

[elfkin477]

@RTFirefly

Say the price of gasoline needs to be at $2.50 a gallon before supply and demand come into balance. (If we’re lucky, that’s all it will take.) They’re now just under $2 here in southern Maryland. If the market takes the price up to that level, some of the difference will go to the oil producers (mostly overseas), and some of it will go to the refiners and resellers.

If we get there by a 50-cent tax per gallon, the consumer experiences exactly the same thing, only we achieve some benefit by reducing the deficit by tens of billions of dollars annually. Or we could just give it right back. And that’s my wild-ass idea: we give it back to the people, in advance. Just like with the tax rebate back in 2001, we send everybody a check.

That sounds nice in theory, but I don’t think it would be practical or fair in practice. The people paying $40,000+ for a brand new SUV that leave the showroom getting 12/mpg (I kid you not, look in Consumer Reports Auto editions) can very well afford $3 a gallon for gas. Even $4 or $5. They might not like it, but it’s not going to hurt them as much as those of us with older cars that are still twice as fuel efficent as their monstrosities. I think you’d have higher poverty levels before there would even begin to be a move towards more fuel effiecent vehicles.

AFAIK there weren’t many SUVs (besides pick-up trucks) in the 70s and early 80s, so I don’t think we can compare people’s williness then to give up their larger cars to people’s potential williness now to give up their SUVs. People seem really fond of the damn things.

That chart looks a bit fishy to me. It’s saying that at the beginning of 1999, gas prices were below $1.00 and at certain points in 2000 and 2001, gas rose above $1.60. I haven’t seen gas prices below a dollar since the 80s, and i’ve never seen them higher than $1.60 except in the last year.

In early 1999 the gas prices in NH were at or just under a dollar for several weeks. And in late 1999/early 2000 it rose to over $1.69 before they started to fall again. The only reason I remember this is that was the year’s span I kept track of how much I spent on gas. 1/7th of my pitiful living stipend (I was in AmeriCorps*Vista from 11/99 to 11/00) each month went towards gas since the position involved a couple hundred miles of driving each month on top of driving 50 miles rt a day to my office. Fortunately, we were partially re-imbursed for mileage as well.