Yep. When I started driving in 1979, my recollection is that gas was around $1.25, which was abnormally high at the time. For the next 20ish years, gas fluctuated around that price. Since then it has nearly quadrupled. Here’s a table that shows that curve through 2004. Prices are now around double the 2004 price.
Hmmm, what would make an effective gas price revolt? Well, one idea springs to mind, but I’m not sure Boston Harbor can take another infusion of non-seawater material.
Lemme get back to you.
In August of 2001, I moved from my parents’ house near Detroit to Kalamazoo, Michigan, for college. I honestly can’t recall ever filling up for less than $1/gallon when I was at the university. 9/11 happened, and gas shot from $1.19 to $1.79, then stabilized back at $1.49 for months.
Of course, Michigan has some high gas taxes, so that may have something to do with it. IIRC, 45 cents per gallon goes toward state and federal gas taxes.
I think the lousy housing market really makes the “move closer to work” thing a catch-22 for many people. I’m very glad we were able to do so six years ago. Of course, what happens when the recession hits hard and one of us needs to find a new job–could be completely across the metro area!
I wish more companies would get in line about helping to conserve gas. My husband and I used to work at the same company, but it was like pulling teeth to get us the same schedule so we could carpool. Telecommuting isn’t really a viable option, at least in my job, but why not four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days? Why won’t my company install a bike rack…maybe no one bikes to work because there’s nowhere to park the darn bike (and nowhere to shower and only a bathroom stall to change.)
Naw, you’re just in a slump! 
[sub]ducks and runs[/sub]
Hoping this doesn’t land me in the pit, but considering we have a President whose family has been in bed with oil producers forever, this comes as a shock? The billions and billions of dollars in profits made by the major oil companies are obscene. I believe one of the grand, promised, benefits of a war with Iraq was we would also have their oil to finance this debacle…yeah, that has happened. And McCain’s lame-ass solution of a “gas tax holiday”, saving you about 18 cents per gallon for a few months, is simply stupid and useless.
Luckily, my SO and I both work less than three miles from home, but still the money we spend on gas per month is ridiculous.
You want a revolt?
Dump the Republican Party in November - completely.
Stop buying American cars. Period. Force Detroit to wake up. (It was just on MSNBC today that some car lots are no longer taking SUV’s in trade-in’s, and many people are forced to export them to foreign countries to get anyone to buy them!)
BEST ANSWER:
Buy less at a time!
Gas companies see what consumers pay…if they see millions of pump purchases of $100 and more, they figure all is right with the world. When they start seeing NO purchases over $20, they start to figure things have about hit the limit.
Correct. I deal with car loans. I saw someone a week ago trade in a 2003 Chevy Trailblazer for a 2007 Honda Civic and got $3500 for their Trailblazer. Yuck.
There will always be a market for specific vehicles; it’s hard to haul 8 people in a Civic, it’s hard to plow the road or haul firewood in a Mini.
People will have to make logical decisions on their automotive purchases instead of buying with their hearts.
That being said, losing 5k by trading in a SUV for a subcompact stinks. It It sounds silly, but you do save money trading in your 20MPG vehicle for a 35MPG vehicle, even with a $5000 initial loss is a savings of 12,000 miles x 15MPG= 800 gallons a year x $4/gallon = $3200 savings on year one.
Mind if I put on some music while we’re waiting?
[SherylCrow]Gasoline
Will be free, will be free… [/SherylCrow]
I find it interesting that Americans seem to loathe everything about Communism, except when it comes to fueling their vehicles, at which point they magically become hardcore Marxists, demanding that the State (or somebody) hand them out energy for prices that have nothing to do with market forces. Current prices for gasoline at the pump are primarily a supply/demand issue, coupled with the current weakness of the US dollar vs. other currencies. One can ‘revolt’ all one wants, but the only sure way of driving energy prices lower, in any reasonably long term, is to use less and ease pressure on the system.
I’m really not picking on Ruffian here, but his post brings up a fundamental point: Americans seem to assume that low energy prices that allow them to maintain elaborate recreational systems are somehow a right rather than a (probably) temporary circumstance.
In his view, he absolutely needs a large pickup truck, presumably with a fairly powerful engine, because he…wants to support a horse as a family pet. I’m not suggesting in any way that he should get rid of the truck or the horse, just that maintaining large animals for recreation requires huge amounts of energy, and the issue of energy cost is a bit bigger than just the type of vehicle one goes to fetch hay in. Heck, my brother’s in pretty much the same boat. Like Ruffian, he’s got recreational horses to support, but in his case he has enough spare cars laying around that he can use the truck only for truck-like tasks rather than as a really inefficient commuter vehicle. On the other hand, is there any real savings in costs? He and his wife have six vehicles between them, plus a tractor, plus a carryall, on a 17-acre farm, all to keep three horses fed and happy. That’s quite a lot of infrastructure just to able to ride a horse every so often.
Hey, myself, every couple weekends I drive about a hundred miles round trip, by myself, down to the Houston Ship Channel for no other reason but to hang out and take photographs. I have a reasonably economical vehicle, but it’s still driving for nothing more than my own entertainment, and I feel I pretty much have no moral choice but to accept the increasing cost of these entirely useless (to anyone else) trips without complaint, or to accept that I’ll have to do less of them
.
Anyone ever heard of carpooling? Even poor people can carpool. Just 2 days a week can take a nice chunk out of your gas bill. That means, of course, that we would have to interact with and depend on other people in some fashion, so it’ll never happen.
QtM got it on the first pass, the only thing that will reduce gas prices is for all of us to reduce consumption. No amount of “gas-free” days or changing buying patterns will do anything if we don’t reduce overall consumption.
FTR, I’m a she. 
Then you should change your name to Ruffienne.
Noted. Sorry.
Not everyone can carpool. Some people live in areas where no one is going where they work. Others have inflexible work hours, or are going to school as well as working. The casual answer is ‘Just move!’ But this is not a good time to sell a house, and a house closer to one’s employer might cost three or four times what the homeowner currently owns. I thought about renting an apartment near work, but a studio/efficiency apartment there costs twice what I pay for the mortgage on my three-bedroom house. I heard Ian McKellen on the radio a few years ago saying people (in L.A.) should ‘just move’. Easy to say when you live in a city with great public transportation and you’re making millions of dollars a year, but I can’t see a housekeeper moving to Beverly Hills so she can walk to work.
I cut my fuel consumption by two-fifths by telecommuting, and then I cut that by half by getting a more efficient car. I save on parking by parking at a Park & Ride and riding the bus into downtown. (The company subsidises the bus pass, so it only costs me $13/month vs. $9/day to park downtown.) But many or most people don’t have these options.
Invent one of those cars that runs on water.
My friend’s parents managed to use $600 in gas just driving around Southern Ontario for a week recently. :eek:
I don’t understand this. Would not the companies look at total sales? Why would the number of transactions matter? In the short term (weeks, say), individual buyers aren’t going to be buying that much less fuel.
Unless you mean the same number of transactions, but each for only $20 instead of $100? That simply reduces to ‘use less’.
Maybe you don’t remember, or maybe it didn’t have as much of an effect in your area, but gas prices dropped drastically shortly after 9/11. ISTR we bought a bunch of cheap Russian oil, or at least that was the explanation I heard at the time. I saw it as low as $0.80 a few towns over before the end of the year, and like I said I don’t think we had the cheapest gas in the country.
Now that’s funny. Gas is demand inelastic. People will use the same amount of gas over the same period of time, and the gas companies don’t need to inspect the receipts to know this.
Some of you people say some really off-the-wall stuff sometimes. Buying $10 worth 4 times is the same as buying $40 worth once, yet somehow you think that doing this will cause downward pressure on gas prices? The Underpants Gnomes had a better grasp on economics than that.
Well as far as a revolt goes may I suggest burning Houston to the ground then again maybe the whole state of Texas should go as well. Of course if you go this route it won’t decrease prices but your displeasure will be felt. Along this reasoning one wonders what fuel should be used to propagate the blaze oil or gasoline?
An interesting thing to note from the table that squeegee linked to is that US gas prices, when adjusted for inflation, were lower in the 1980s and 90s than any time previously. Of course the consequences of these low prices have been a lack of corporate and political will to increase overall vehicle mileage rates* and develop viable alternatives and a lack of overall public will to change behaviors.
One way to decrease prices is to decrease demand. The problem is that a lot of the world demand increase is happening in China, and how do we say to them “Stop it, you’re costing us money by your desire for a better life”? They need to spend the billions of dollars we are sending them on something, and for many this is a car that uses gas. Domestically we can decrease demand by the methods suggested already covered in this thread, but that will have a limited impact as we go into the future and demand increases in other parts of the world.
A second way to decrease prices is to increase domestic supply. There are several problems here. One is that most of what can be tapped efficiently is already developed. As the price goes up, more areas can be tapped and supply increases. That is the supply/demand balance; the “unseen hand” of economics. Of course there are many areas that could be economically developed at great environmental cost. These include ANWAR, the coastal areas off California, etc. Are you willing to destroy some environmentally significant areas for $500 - $1,500 per year?** Oil shale in Colorado is perhaps feasible but it would take many years to get up to any significant production levels (still a fraction of daily use) and having studied this closely I know that you would probably kiss the water quality of the Colorado River goodbye. (Sorry Las Vegas, Los Angeles, etc.)
Thirdly we can make gas cheaper to process by cutting back on the anti-pollution measures implemented in the past few decades. Of course, that would screw up the environment as well and the consequences for us all would be significant. Or we could get rid of State and Federal gas taxes which would throw millions of people (including me) out of work and again, the consequences would be horrific.
What I wonder is **What should the price of gas in the US be? ** If you pick a value, what is your rationale? What are the consequences?
Part of me likes the increase. It allows Americans to understand what most of the rest of the world has been experiencing for the past 3 decades. It might decrease usage and result in less emissions being pumped into the air. It also might result in some technological innovations that would help the environment and make us prepare for the real crisis ahead when oil actually does start running out. If we don’t decrease our usage now or develop alternatives, what are future generations supposed to rely on? I just wish there would have been progress on this in the past 20 years. But, the low costs resulted in a total lack of will from the US government, related industries and the public to address the problem.
But, the real way to revolt, use less gas - but it won’t help much in the long term.
- From a recent PBS Nova program, while there has been a 30% improvement in engine efficiency, US consumers have pissed away the improvements on bigger vehicles and more trucks/SUVs. As a result, the overall vehicle mileage is actually lower in the US than it was in the 1970s right after that gas crisis and the implementation of CAFE standards. OK, Nova didn’t say “pissed away”, but that’s my take on it.
** I drive 22,000 miles /yr. My previous car got 21 mpg. Therefore I used 1,050 gallons per year. If gas were a buck cheaper, I would save $1,050/ year. My new car gets 30 mpg.