What A Crock Of @#@##@#$!!!!!

D

D Chapman

Guest
Guess I should not complain about the $1.82/gallon I spent today.
 

Ajax

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
78
0
Snoqualmie, WA
I'm still not complaining about the 2.30 US$/Gallon I pay here. Used to pay 6 US$/Gallon when I still lived in Europe. Added to that you paid road tax based on the weight of the vehicle which was roughly 1000 US$/year.
:eek:
 
P

peterca

Guest
I still don't understand why people bother complaining about the price of gas. Are you entitled to low prices yet still want a "free market economy"? If prices are artificially high then don't pay them and it will eventually lower to meet demand. If they are high because of scarcity or price fixing coming out of the Middle East, find another source of fuel which isn't as volatile (pun intended) and you don't need to import.

Being completely reliant on a foreign source of anything and then complaining about the cost is usually pointless. Unless you just felt like you had to vent, then more power to ya.
 
S

Sergei

Guest
peterca said:
I still don't understand why people bother complaining about the price of gas. Are you entitled to low prices yet still want a "free market economy"? If prices are artificially high then don't pay them and it will eventually lower to meet demand. If they are high because of scarcity or price fixing coming out of the Middle East, find another source of fuel which isn't as volatile (pun intended) and you don't need to import.

Being completely reliant on a foreign source of anything and then complaining about the cost is usually pointless. Unless you just felt like you had to vent, then more power to ya.

You cant stop buying petrol, b/c you dependant on it. Its about same as saying that if you dont like prices for electricity - dont use it and it will go down. Well - its not going to, sorry. Petrol prices around the world have pretty much nothing to do with demand and/or supply. Oil prices - do a bit, but not petrol. US pretty much artificially lowering own prices, but think about it - if Shell can sell 1 gallon for like 6$ somewhere in Estonia, and same gallon would go in States for about 1.5$ - guess how brain of company would work :)

Its even more screwed for airlines. Look at how cheap you can fly in Europe. And look how much you would pay for same mileage trip in States.. :) Yet fuel would be actually cheaper in States. Where money r going? :)

PS: its above 2$ here for past couple months. But its ok. Could be 6$. Just have to bite the bullet and start thinking on how to make it all run on alternative fuel.
 

Alan

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
348
0
52
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
www.alre.ca
Peter,

I hear what you're saying however, we don't rely on foreign oil here. Alberta produces it's own oil and is in fact one of the major world producers. We have more reserves here than OPEC does. We supply a majority of the oil to the rest of the country and import a large portion of it to the US.

What doesn't make sense is that Alberta gas prices are higher than some of the other provinces that have to rely on us for oil. A large portion of our fuel is taxed and a significant portion of that revenue generated doesn't stay in the province. It goes elsewhere, mostly the eastern provinces. So our infrastructure, like roads, is not properly kept up for the amount we pay. On top of that, Alberta's primary economy is oil based so increasing fuel prices like they're doing seems counter productive when the folks who help these oil companies make money can't afford to get to the job sites because fuel costs so much and most who work in this field need trucks. We're talking mostly 4x4's, big duellies, etc. The ratio of trucks to cars is like 3 to 1. You can easily drive down the road an not see more than a handful of cars while everyone else is a truck of some sort.

On top of this every year you hear of Alberta running surpluses of $700M - $1B to even as high as $2B one year. We haven't had a deficit in our budget in years and have almost paid off our debt completely.

So if you sit from where I'm sitting, you might see why people get annoyed here...and the recent gas hikes is just another example of this BS.
 
P

peterca

Guest
"You cant stop buying petrol, b/c you dependant on it. Its about same as saying that if you dont like prices for electricity - dont use it and it will go down. "

Why? Why can't I stop buying it? At least for a car (not withstanding all the other uses of petroleum in plastics and such). I don't depend on it. I use it because it is currently the cheapest/easiest way to go and my truck came with a petrol engine. There's nothing other than a lack of funds stopping me or you from switching to something not dependant on foreign petroleum. Please explain why *I'm* dependant on it.

As for electricity, that's not the right kinda comparison. If I live in the city I might rarely need to drive a truck, but I'll almost always need electricity. You don't "need" to drive as much as you think you do and higher gas prices will show that. Hmmmm....maybe it is like electricity, cus when the price goes up, you'll use less but there is more government regulation over prices with electricity in most states. But then again, as with petrol, you have options for using alternatives sources for electricity.

Being stuck in a mindset that we, as a nation, HAVE to have petrol is one of the reason we are in the perceived jam that we are in with high prices.
 
P

peterca

Guest
Alan, Didn't catch the Canada part. You make a good point from that point of view and any time you're making the wealth for another part of the country and not getting any benefits would surely piss you off.

I've also read about a large portion of the problem in the US being from refinery output rather than total import costs. Currently the US is close to exceeding the stateside refinery output and when that starts happening more and more as more cars are on the road, prices will only increase even if oil prices level. Although that may be good news as we'd require more foreign refined product locally. Although, looking at the political problems we have with "importing" Canadian drugs because of the large drug manufacturer PACs lobbying our Legislature, I'm not sure we'd see a lot of that any time soon.

Personally, on sunny days, I plan to ride my bike to work more often
 

p m

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 19, 2004
15,617
837
58
La Jolla, CA
www.3rj.org
boycott the gas stations?

Peter, it's yet another "boycott the gas stations" to get gasoline cheaper thing.
No, if you, a hundred of your friends, and hundreds of friends of your friends, will stop buying gasoline completely, the price will still be there. Moreover, a few gas stations may (hypothetically) go out of business, which will allow the others to jack up the price even more.
What will the all the industrial operators do? Push their delivery trucks?

I completely support the idea of public transportation in large cities - but it ain't happening anytime in the next 30 years or so. And the prospective of riding a bicycle alongside with 18-wheelers and concrete trucks doesn't appeal much to me, especially on a 105F day like this.
 

utahdog2003

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
1,842
0
North Florida
actually, in a free market, if you stop using a product or service, any product or service, the price will fall to reflect the lack of demand in an effort to increase that demand.

So go ahead, use less electricity and the cost will eventually be less!
 
S

Sergei

Guest
Peter - its exactly same as electricity. Yes i can walk most of time, and i do that actually, but i am living in small town and to get even to bigger shops to buy goods i need to drive. Same thing - in order to deliver goods to Durango - trucks needs to be driven. If they wont - delivery will fall on horses, which is interesting option, but i dont see, somehow, people going for it. My point is - you cant refuse from using it. You can increase economy, same as with electricity, but while you , as particular person, can stop using petrol - current economy will not even notice it. There is such thing as lobbying of interests, so more efficient and alternative engines would be blocked by that, untill those who block would run out of money to pay for lobbying. Good example of such thing - long life + brighter electrical bulbs. While stuff was invented dozen of years ago on how to make even old ones more efficient - its been bought in as patent and never made it to production lines b/c it was not good for manufacturers - they would sell less. There has been tons of inventions that followed such destiny. Including better petrol engines , and engines based on quite different priciiples from internal combustion ones...

Utahdog23 - cost of electricity will not go down b/c of lower consumption in one point.

Guys. Stop dreaming about "free market". Its not working like that. Look at the health insurance. How many of us really using it? Heck i havent been in doctor office for 8 years now. Yet i have to pay piles of money for it. And price going up each bloody year. I switched between few providers to find lower cost, but i know that none of my old providers lowered prices b/c of some people leaving. You have to have it. While you might not use it, some bod next to you - will. And price will go up.

Totally free market means anarchy anyway. B/c of potential alliance creation in order to raise prices. Portions of it still has to be regulated, while you not thinking about it :) Yes States got some laws about it, but they arent really working very well (M$, anyone?)

Latest example - ask any person in Colorado how much their car insurance dropped after switching off "no-fault" model. Entire proposal was to drive insurance prices down. Ha, bloody, ha. "well we now have to offset costs somehow" is exact phrase of my (former) insurance agent.
 

Alan

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
348
0
52
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
www.alre.ca
I'd be totally for public transport if it was better here. Everything is so far from each other and people are so reliant on their cars that the gov't doesn't feel a need to make the public transport system any better. If the subway system even reached remotely close to where I live, I'd be using it all the time or even the busses. I'd rather save my truck for recreational purposes than drive it to work every day.
 

Blue

Well-known member
Mar 26, 2004
10,043
856
AZ
Please explain why *I'm* dependant on it.

you answered your own question:

I use it because it is currently the cheapest/easiest way to go and my truck came with a petrol engine. There's nothing other than a lack of funds stopping me or you from switching to something not dependant on foreign petroleum.

You're dependent on gas, pure & simple.
 

dave_lucas

Well-known member
Apr 19, 2004
638
0
52
Golden Colorado
?Latest example - ask any person in Colorado how much their car insurance dropped after switching off "no-fault" model. Entire proposal was to drive insurance prices down. Ha, bloody, ha. "well we now have to offset costs somehow" is exact phrase of my (former) insurance agent?

Exactly! :mad: I do not know of one person that actually had their insurance drop by more than a few dollars.

Another example is that they are raising our water prices here in Colorado because people are using less water. Their reasoning is that it still costs them just as much money/ more money to provide less water so they need to raise the price to provide less water. So not only do we have to live with brown grass due to a supposed drought now we have to pay more money for the water we use. :rolleyes:
 
C

campbell

Guest
It's the fleecing of America, and the World. It's naive to think that any big business or the government would do anything to help the consumer. It's interesting that the gas prices always go up in the summer time. Is it really because of production and the reserve. I doubt it. We need to come up with an alternate means of fueling vehicles. This would allow for OPEC to increase their reserves, and thus fix all of the oil problems in the World. In the meantime I am still going to drive my SUV and boat, getting about 13 MPG each, and pay $1.90+/gallon.

Am I going to get a knock on my door from some guy in a black suit and sunglasses for talking about an alternate fuel? :)
 

LostInBoston

Banned
Apr 19, 2004
690
0
41
Wandering aimlessly
Biodiesel. The next vehicle you purchase, should be diesel powered. And only fill it up with biodiesel or a biodiesel blend. this will eliminate your dependancy on gas. plus if prices get too high, its easy to make for less the $1 a gallon.