My gas prices came down 30 cents! I'm FURIOUS!!

The BBQ Pit
21

<< P.A. announcement >>

**There will be no punching of pregnant women in the guts in this thread.

Go find one of the abortion threads to do that kind of thing in.

Thank you. **

Also want to point out that the entire American lifestyle, society, civilization, is predicated on the existence of the internal combustion engine. My house is a mile (literally) from the nearest grocery store, mile and a half from church, mile and a half to my kids’ school. And I know lots and lots of people who live even farther away from things, out in the suburbs. Diesel-fueled trains and trucks bring the food from the farm to the factory to the warehouses to the local grocery stores. Without the internal combustion engine, either as cars or busses or trucks or trains, our whole society would collapse.

I don’t think we’ll see America as a society begin to explore alternatives to the I.C.E. until worldwide petroleum reserves are actually running dry, gurgling around in the bottom of the barrel, and American gas prices really do go up to $10 or $20 a gallon.

22

I feel for people who cannot avoid gas consumption and find that the rise in prices is hitting them (and their businesses) hard.

Yet I have very little sympathy for people who have inefficient vehicles and whine about high prices. That’s like buying a convertible in the summer and then screaming to the government to do something about the weather when December rolls around.

The real problem, oh inciter of violence against pregnant women, is that we are such a “hop-in-your-car-and-go” society that you have no other alternatives. If gas prices had stayed where they were in the 1970s, maybe public transportation would be a lot more available. Maybe you’d have a rail line right outside your driveway. Or perhaps the rent on your apartment would be half what it now because its distance from work/school makes it so much less desirable to most people. I could go on. I assume you see the point.

23

My heart just bleeds for you, Tim. I’m sorry you’re so strapped.

But then, some people manage to get where they need to go without a car at all. Funny, innit?

DDG, you’re certainly right about this:

“See the USA
In your Chevrolet!”

I just think it sucks, that’s all.

and I think you’re also right that 'Mercuns won’t abandon gasoline until it’s worth more than gold.

24

DDG, the only thing that could piss a person off more than Big Oil arbitrarily dropping the gas price 30 cents a gallon in one day would be my situation, where they’ve dropped it only 4 cents.

I’d also like to note, in response to manny’s post, that gas prices had risen about 40 cents a gallon in Michigan, and had reached $2 per gallon for regular unleaded, before the pipeline break near Jackson. And keep in mind, Michigan is not using that reconstituted fuel like Chicago and Milwaukee.

Every governmental or independent agency that’s looked at why this happened in the Upper Midwest has come away saying there is no logical explanation for why the prices have skyrocketed. Big Oil can rattle off their laundry list of excuses, but it’s bullshit. It’s price-gouging, period; just checking to see what they could get away with.

And anyone who tries to come off as cool by saying the gas price increase where I live is no big deal or is a good thing, etc., is cordially invited to torture their anus repeatedly on the tailpipe of my SUV.

And speaking of SUVs … I’m not going to defend the dorks who drive one that never sees snow, ice or gravel roads. All I can tell you is, I regularly drive 30 to 100 miles a day in northern Michigan winters.

For those of you that don’t live in, oh, about six U.S. states and several Canadian provinces with similar winter weather, please, don’t even try to speculate what it’s like. The winter weather you call a state of emergency, we call Wednesday.

I almost died behind the wheel of a shitty winter vehicle on more than one occasion, and I resolved to get a big, heavy, 4-wheel-drive vehicle and live a little longer.

So go fuck a cheese-grater.

And thank you.

25

Yeah, the gas prices dropped here a little. But now it’s the holiday. Up they go again.

Milo’s right about the price increase before the line break, too. One more thing–that line break was NOT news, until the prices started getting out of control. Us Michiganians were scratching our heads and saying “reconstituted gas? What reconstituted gas? We’re not using that here.” Then it was “Oh wait–we forgot to tell you. Everyone else that’s got nutty gas prices is using reconstituted gas. You guys had a line break. Sorry about that.” Go figure.

26

I’m an American ex-pat living in the UK. If I did all my coversions right, I just paid nearly $5.00 per gallon. In a recent article on reasonmag.com (can’t find the link, sorry) there was an article showing that as a percentage of average income, gas prices in the US are about as low as they’ve ever been.