GAS

[Oldragbaggers]

No problem. At first blush, that might have been my response too. And in fact my husband and I have moved many times to take advantage of better opportunities. But for some people, and for a lot of different reasons that we may not even be able to imagine, moving isn't always an option.

But at any rate, as bad as things are right now, things have been worse in the past and I still have faith in the hardworking, determined, resourceful people of this country to turn things around again. This is still a great country, and with all due respect to all our teardrop friends all over the world, in my opinion still the best place on earth to live. We'll come out on the other side.

In the meantime,

[Oldragbaggers]

or

[8ball_99]

I'm not a fan of it, But the simple truth is gas is going to keep going up.. Look at those prices pete posted.. People in the us complain about 4 dollars a gallon when a lot of places are paying twice that.. If 3.80 a gallon hurts and you don't for see your income going up I suggest you move close to town. I live about ten miles from work. I drive a 3/4 diesel truck for my daily driver and my wife drives a half ton v8 truck for hers. A trip to "town" cost us about 6 bucks each. Sure I wish it was less but I expect it to be more in a few years.. I laugh when I hear those give aways on the radio and they say free gas for a year then they say the amount is 2grand or 2400.. At 400+ bucks a month of fuel 2500 bucks is more like gas for 6 months

As far as work drying up in a given area.. Thats nothing new. With this economy I'd agree its worse now then it has been. There are tons of dead tons around the US. Plants close mines get shut down factories move. People have had to move to find work since this country was started. The economy sucks but sitting in one spot waiting on work to pick up is a tuff move anytime.

I have a feeling sooner or later people making long commutes to work simply won't be practical. It will be cheaper to just move close to your job. That or everyone will have one of those little 3 cylinder matchbox cars for their daily driver lol I'd almost rather move..

[Oldragbaggers]

These days "just moving" is also easier said than done. So many people are upside down on houses that they couldn't sell if they wanted to that, unless they want to add foreclosure to their list of problems, a lot of people are just plain stuck.

It's so easy to just assume there must be some simple answer and that if someone would just do this or that they would be able to solve their problem. Easy peasy. If it were that simple there wouldn't be so many people in such dire straits. People's problems and lives are usually more complex than that. And none of us are really equipped to judge the life decisions of someone whose life we know absolutely nothing (or only surface facts) about.

[rowerwet]

Gasoline prices
Date Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands UK US
9/17/12 8.56 7.89 8.46 9.32 9.06 8.58 4.15

pete

somebody has to pay for all the "free" stuff the govt. over there "gives away", comes down to how much you want to run your life and how much you want someone else to control it. those other countries chose the way I despise... the extra cost is taxes, the choke collar on every tax payer and employer.
A simple search of the oil prices shows that when the possibility of new oil coming on line is there (more area open for exploration) the price falls.
The refinery maintenance causing a spike in price is going to happen until we build more refineries, something NIMBY's and bunny-huggers always find an excuse to keep from happening in the scale needed.
Russia and other countries that are doing well now are drilling and selling oil, gas etc. the same thing could happen here if the EPA, dept. of energy, etc. would get out of the way. The problem has been a long time coming and there are plenty of people from both parties standing in the way.
Personally I have a job, but airlines, just like long haul truckers, only can do well with low fuel costs, (jet fuel is over $5/gal) and on top of that we are seeing the dying economy for real in the continually dropping air freight levels. Last Christmas season we had contracts to fly empty airplanes because one customer planned on a normal season that didn't happen.
electric cars and windmills may help but they won't solve the problem.

[cherokeegeorge]

On monday gas here in La Crescenta ca was $4.13. On Thursday it is $4.65. And the presdent says "things are getting better"

[Woodbutcher]

Give em hell Slow. Your words and actions do inspire people. Maybe you don't have a lot of money but you are a "rich man". Keep doing what you can and it will pay off.

PLEASE ride your horse into vote. That plan sounds like a fun day. If you decide to do it we want pictures!

[S. Heisley]

After the summer, the oil companies shut down some parts of the refineries for maintenance. While these are down, the price of gas goes up. It's the law of supply and demand and it happens every year. The oil companies say that they should be done before Thanksgiving and prices will hopefully go back down by then. At least they wait until after summer vacations to do their maintenance. Can you imagine where gas prices would be in the summer if they didn't?!

[pete42]

Slow
don't let anyone and I mean anyone stop you from saying what you believe.
wheather (is that spelled right?) you believe it or not we all feel your pain.

pete

[Riptide]

Yes, the refineries do maintenance this time of year. The other thing they do is convert over from "summer blends" to not summer blends. The EPA mandates many different blends for different parts of the country for summer....near fifty in all from what I have been told. I find it hard to believe that that much custom variation is required! Sure clean air and lower emissions are good things, but part of the price of nearly everything you buy in this country is over regulation, and we all pay that price, at the pump or the cash register.

My inflated 2 cents!
Kerry

[NathanL]

California is suffering from pretty much the perfect storm.

1. They had a couple of refinery incidents/fires while another refinery was down for a turnaround. Most turnarounds are scheduled years in advance and is not a normal changeover from blend to blend. One of the refineries has it's cracking unit completey down (IE they are putting in another) and it actually cracks the hydrocarbon chains into usable products so you don't just put a new one in and turn on a refinery the next day. So right there instead of one cracking unit at a refinery (not sure how many they had running at that particular refinery) they have multiple refineries down.

2. So far California has not asked for an EPA waiver on California/regional blends. I'm not sure what the hold up is here, but normally when something like this happens the state ask the EPA and it gets a waiver so that it can use blends from outside it's region and other refineries. Louisiana got one during hurrican Isaac in August so that they could use any blend gasoline for a few weeks during distribution issues following the storm.

3. Geography. Most of the west coast is not connected to the refineries along the gulf coast so they can't import gasoline once they do (if they do) get an EPA waiver.

4. Neighboring states, Oregon doesn't even have a refinery so right there that's a problem, a state they can't import from and a state that is going to get caught in the California problem.

Today Exxon announced it is starting to ration gasoline at it's terminal faciliy. So right now there are two options in California, up the price and try to reduce the demand and allow you to buy whatever you want or ration what they have.

Put me in the category of I don't understand why gasoline isn't $10/gallon when people will buy 99.9% at $5/gallon as they did at $2.50/gallon.

Another reason nobody wants to hear is the amount of crap you have to put up with to do business in California if you are not a "clean" type business or a service industry. I own a company that builds and does structural steel maintenance for refineries and chemical plants along the gulf coast . Because of the amount of work we have done for Exxon - we have a cost plus maintenance contract on the structural end - we were asked to bid on a project in California for Exxon/Mobil. After flying out there and getting to know the lay of the land I honestly came up wth a price about 3 times what we normally would charge due to a combination of the labor rate and the amount of regulations and paperwork requiered to do business, some of which was only for businesses located outside the state. I didn't even submit my bid because I have known companies that gave wild out of the realm of possibility quotes and were dropped from the bid list and I thought mine seemed so high it was in that category. The winning bid on the project was so far above and beyond the price I came up with now I am glad I didn't bid for an entirely different reason. All that cost is factored in and is a large contributing factor to why gasoline (even before this problem) was average $1.00 to $1.25/gallon more expensive that most other regions.

[GPW]

This all seems to be silly , when people are paying $10 for a gallon of water ... bottled water... think about it ...

[Gladtobehere]

Wow. There are a lot of great comments/sentiments in this thread, but also some understandable desperation.

And just for a little background, I was layed off in January 2009, at age 55, in an industry (High Tech....AMD) and am only now seeing a glimmer of the possibility that job levels may recover a little, but probably not at AMD. BUT who, besides Wally World will hire someone my age???

There is no doubt in my mind that people who work the land are undervalued and under paid for their efforts in the US and Canada and many other places. And it has little to do with the current politicians.

HOWEVER, in my opinion, it is the result of the way we do business. The big food companies and distributers, aka grocery stores get the huge markups and the big bucks in their quest for profits. (When a farmer has a bad year, he sucks it up and hopes for relief. When Wally World has a bad year, they move the store to a more profitable location.) But, that (and taste) is why I try to buy more at the local farmers market and pay 3-4 times the grocey store price. (When I can afford it) I am also diabetic so I don't eat much that comes in a box for health reasons.

Anyone who thinks gas prices are going down, should probably take a closer look. Yes I would love to return to the 33 cents per imperial gallon I remember back in the late 60s, but I do not think that will happen. I could fill the car, get 24 beer and have a good weekend camping on $10.00.

Actually it has been 50 years of experience and my love of camping that now has me driving a Toyota Matrix pulling a 500lb Tear and still getting 30+ mpg. I also use bicycles to get around in town, but the local idea of a bicycle lane is to put blue dots on a map rather than making a bicycle lane or path. But, we also get a winter with snow and ice and I refuse to put snow tires on the bike.

In any case, I frequent this forum because of the good people and their commitment to the tiny trailer of camper. And I look at those 5th wheel monsters with satalite dishes that populate the camp grounds and wonder how much gas or deisel, they are consuming and what kind of job they had that allows them to retire and afford such oppulence and utter disregard for a dwindling resourse. (Ohh they probably worked for a public utility or in some assembly line job during the fat times.)

I hope I have not offended anyone. because I have no desire to do that.

But despite being new here this thread just begged for an opinion and possibly a little more fuel. But I won't comment on poitics because, we don't need any nitro methane in this gasoline thread.

I wish you all well.

[Oldragbaggers]

This all seems to be silly , when people are paying $10 for a gallon of water ... bottled water... think about it ...

But I don't have to drink 2 gallons of water just to get to work and back. (Not that I would spend my money so foolishly. And I would guess that the people walking around with a bottle of Smart water in their hand aren't the same ones who are worried about how to put food on the table or how to put enough gas in their car to get to work.)

[GPW]

Even the desperately Poor here all walk around with a bottle of water in their hands ... Just the way it is ... here...