Maybe there is a gas shortage.
But the main reason for the recent spike in oil prices is that we are buying petroleum on the world market with all these worthless Bush dollars.
In fact demand has dropped in California for the past few years - absolute, not just per capita. I’m sure this is in part due to the high prices.
The sin of the Bush administration and the old Congress is not letting oil companies have a free ride, but in not pushing for a decrease in consumption. Hydrogen cars are fine, but so far away that it makes no sense for them to be the major solution.
Whenever there is a surplus of oil, prices drop as fast as they rise, which I think proves the oil companies don’t really control it.
I pick door #2…higher taxes on corporate energy providers past a certain level of profit. Either that or eliminating the government teat that corporations depend on to maximize their profits.
Sorry, but I could use a goddamn break. My bus fare just went up $0.50, too and that’s added another $20/month in transportation expenses. I’m being bled dry here.
Assuming you’re not a trucker, bus driver, or something similar, have you considered trading in that vehicle for something smaller? If all you’re doing in your vehicle most of the time is commuting, small car pools, grocery shopping, and Costco runs for the sort of stuff one usually buys for a household, a Honda Civic can get the job done without costing $82 to fill up. I know, because mine does, and I pay about $30 a week to fill it up.
You can rent or borrow a larger vehicle if you need one a few times a year. That’s what I did when I had a Pontiac Sunfire and needed to move Mr. Neville’s stuff from his old apartment to our new one. If you’re saving $50 a week on gas and spending $150 to rent a van for that one week when you need it, you’re still $2400 ahead for the year.
You don’t need an SUV for kids. My sister and I took very long car trips- from Maryland to Florida, for example, which is 23 hours (we did stop somewhere for one night)- in the back seat of my mom’s Plymouth Volare(sp?). I don’t think it had that much more interior space than my Civic does. We survived. I suspect many other Gen Xers had similar experiences.
I sound like a conservative here (which I’m definitely not), but a larger car or SUV is a choice and a luxury, not a need, for most people. I would estimate at least 75% of people could make do with a small or midsize car if they tried. I don’t think we should be punishing the oil companies to bail out people who choose to buy a large car, truck, or SUV when they could get by with a small or midsize car, unless those people were lied to or misled by the oil companies when they bought their vehicle. And I really can’t see how the oil companies could have been doing that- the car companies and dealerships, maybe, but AFAIK the oil companies have never made any kind of guarantee that the price of gasoline wouldn’t go up arbitrarily fast.
Most people make at least $20/hour (that’s about $40k/year), so if you have to stand in line for an hour, you’re out $20 (probably more). For many of us, our time is our most important commodity.
You think raising taxes on oil companies is going to lower prices??? Well, as you originally said, you are not an economist.
Sorry, but you can’t legislate prices. If you try to do that, you’ll constrain supply. For must of us, that’s a worse option.
Anne Neville, I know where you’re coming from and many times I’ve thought the same thing. FYI, I don’t have an SUV (nor do I want one), I have a minivan: Ford Windstar to be exact. My family has only one vehicle and we chose to get one that would comfortably fit our family for long drives to visit out-of-state parents because I don’t fly. Of course, we can’t afford to take those trips anymore. I have two children, aged nine and seventeen (going on 10), who must be separated when in the car together, lest I pull over and start bashing faces in.
In order to save money, my husband uses the car only for going to his work (around 2 miles away) and other necessary errands such as grocery shopping, appointments etc. I take the bus downtown to work (around 9 miles) and use the car on the weekends for only necessary trips. I carpool when I have the opportunity; six kids in a vehicle is not quite so bad when they aren’t siblings and the ride to school is short. We spend most of our time at home, though. Granted, we don’t fill up as often because we’ve cut out quite a bit of convenience and fun driving, but it still hurts to see that $82 receipt when we do. Especially when it used to be around $50 when we first got the vehicle.
Lastly, we bought the car used and got an incredible deal on it. Probably saved about $2000. I’m quite attached to having a decent sized vehicle around me as long as their are crazy truckers on the highway here. I have a little driving phobia due to seeing a small car that was utterly smashed beyond recognition by a trucker going to fast and having been in an overturned small pickup accident myself. I know it’s crazy but you make do. I tend to avoid riding with people if they have small cars.
I used to be able to afford these little idiosyncrasies. This is what makes me angry. I am not trying to hog resources unnecessarily. I just want to be able to afford feeling safer and accommodating my family. Is that too much to ask?
Ever hear of anti trust suits?. They were invented to fight oil companies which continually seek to end competition. Much legislation has enacted to fight the natural tendency of companies to control the industry. One of the purposes of government is to protect the powerless from the politically and financially strong companies.
But no company has a monopoly, and every time Congress has done an investigation, they have not found anti-competitive practices. So what law would you use to go after these alleged oligarchies?
I’m all for eliminating tax breaks for oil companies, but let’s face the facts: that won’t do one thing to lower prices, and it could very well cause prices to increase.
I’m not sure what you are talking about here. Which 5 companies now?
Well, such is life, I guess. I’m just a mother with two kids currently trying to get by on maybe around $25k/year. I’m not pleased at all with the way things are going and you can get your bippy I’m gonna say loudly, and with my vote, that all is most certainly not well with the status quo. Somebody ought to start listening because the rest of us at- or near- poverty level citizens (and our group is growing fast) tend to get quite restless when they can’t feed their kids and financial stresses keep on piling up. I, for one, am mad as hell.
Class inequities, capitalism at the expense of a sound economy, and government waste are damn good reasons for a revolution. I think this country has a lot of potential, but I hate to see it squandered as politicians spew platitudes about our rosy future, while acting as if nothing is seriously wrong now. Lots of us only see things going from pretty bad to worse.
OK, tell me what you think should be done and why that would make things better. I don’t mean to belittle your situation, but unless you have a solution that can actually work, I’m not sure what argument you are trying to make.
If anything, you should expect gas to get more expensive, not cheaper. Anything we do to try and curb global warming is going to mean cutting back on fossil fuels. So unless we turn to rationing, that’s going to mean higher prices.
I hope people aren’t forgetting that we’re talking about basic needs here. Something that even poor people can’t do without. The price of fuel is not something that is only dealt with at the pump. It effects utility prices, food costs, job stability and so many other things. It’s having a very negative impact on our economy. And, of course, the poor feel the brunt of that because they are already eking out a living. And yet the oil companies are sitting pretty.
I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not gonna pretend to have all the answers. This is simply a desperate plea for some understanding and relief.
Sorry, I wanted to be as polite as possible about this until you started talking about revolution, but I’ll be blunt: you need to figure out exactly how much money you make (“maybe around 25k”?) It’s the first step to formulating a budget - something you obviously don’t have and desperately need. If you have a variable income (waitress, for example), you need to figure out a “safe” baseline pay, budget yourself to live off of it, and consider any additional money a bonus to pay off debt or add to an interest-savings account. This is very basic stuff that a person with 2 kids should know.
Well, personally I’d love to go green. My husband wanted to buy a Prius before we ended up with the Windstar. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a price we could make work. Demand outstrips supply, particularly in the used market.
He also dreams of going solar. We rent, so not really an option, but even if we owned, converting to solar energy is a very costly undertaking and the utility companies charge higher fees to supplement power during winter months when less solar energy is available.
I recycle like crazy, and while it saves me a little money, I make nothing from it. Yes, there are tax breaks for these little things, but those don’t usually help a struggling family that can’t afford the initial investment.
Perhaps if the government took more of an interest in phasing out our dependency on fossil fuels, we’d be in a better position to live more simply, more efficiently, and more economically sustainable. But as long as you’ve got a corporate interests in a cush chair at the legislative table, these things are but a dream.
:dubious: Africans in war-stricken countries in their 3rd year of drought deserve understanding and relief. Americans making twice minimum wage and using the internet need to suck it up.
The problem is that, currently, other forms of energy are more expensive. But why do we need the government to cut our dependency of fossil fuels? If we, as a people, want to do that, then we can. But we have to be willing to pay for it. I’ve been looking at solar for my home, but it’s just not cost effective yet. I’m hoping it will become so within the nect 5-10 years.
One problem we have right now that might be able to be addressed is that the dollar is very weak. Since oil is priced in dollars, it’s price is going to go up as the dollar’s value go down. But we’d need to raise interest rates as a first step to make the dollar stronger, and that might be even worse for the economy than higher gas prices.
In short, this is not a problem that the government can necessarily solve. Everyone in the world (except maybe people living in certain OPEC countries) pays through the nose for petroleum. We as Americans don’t have any right to cheap gas just because we’ve become accustomed to it.
As I mentioned, my husband was laid off after 14 years last year. I have had medical problems that kept me from working for over a year. We moved into a cheaper place and both managed to get part-time jobs with no benefits for very little pay: $20/hour between the two of us. I guesstimated our annual income based on forms for assistance I recently filed and the federal poverty guidelines. I could very well be slightly off, yet we are still having difficulty making ends meet without assistance. Rents are high, utilities are higher then they’ve ever been and still going up, and costs for basic needs like food are also going up.
You are right that we need a budget. Right now, though, I’m just trying to keep a roof over our heads and a little food on our table. Every month we cut something out that we simply can’t afford anymore. My internet access is gifted. My cell phone is paid for by someone else on a temporary basis during a current crises that necessitates. I’ll discontinue that again (like I did last year) once that’s over with. We are applying for aid, which is something that we really didn’t want to do. What we would really like is to get back on our feet with a decent income that enables us to pay our bills and worry less about the basics.
I am trying to get us out of this mess. Every day is a struggle, but I now see things from a perspective I never imagined I would. I see people who have been doing this for years. I don’t want to be one of those people. So, yes, when I have $100 in my pocket and I have to decide between gas/bus money or food, I’m very concerned and angry.
And I apologize for allowing my emotions to overcome reason. Seriously, though, the problem is apparent to a fair number of people besides me.
I’m not sure what you mean by “regulate”. States already regulate utility companies with PUCO’s. Unless it gets FUBAR’d (like California) this process works very well. It doesn’t mean the price won’t go up, it means you’ll have power available at an efficient price. When you DON’T have hot water the real bitching starts.
As for gasoline, the price is a fraction of what other nations pay. That’s due in part because of the low taxes we pay on it. The price could be lower but we choose to purchase the resources of other countries and drive gas-guzzling tanks. So while we are stuck with market prices for fuel we still have the option to lower fuel cost with more efficient vehicles.
I understand the job loss your husband is going through (been there and I’m there again) but I budgeted for
$3.50 gallon LAST year. I budgeted $3.25 the year before. To maximize my financial situation I drive a car that gets 33 around town and 38 on the highway. It’s 8 years old now so I back it up with a beater that gets similar mileage. If you’re going through 22 gallons a week in fuel then restructure your transportation requirements.
Wow. Just wow. So, because I’m struggling financially due to a sagging economy, I don’t care about Africans? I feel for their plight believe me. But I am an American and last I heard out of my President’s mouth, we were the most prosperous country in the world. So, tell me again, why our own children are living in poverty while the guys in Washington cut funding for subsidized healthcare?
Actually, Bush didn’t want to raise funding as much as the Democrats did (assuming you’re talking about SCHIP). That’s not a cut. But I’m not sure what that has to do with the price of gas…