Today I filled the Toyota, it cost $71.26. A new high. I feel bad for all you folk with your big V8's.
Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :
There's only one way that North American consumers can have any sort of control over gasoline pricing. There has to be a unified resolve to strike back and hit where it hurts most.....a major retailer's bottom line.
Think of this scenario, if you will:
Suppose a major retailer was boycotted, and nobody bought their gasoline from them for a prolonged period of time....nine months to a year. You still buy what you require, just NOT from that designated target retailer ( Shell for instance ). A total boycott of that duration will have an effect of no cash flow, but normal overhead expenses still have to be met. That would HURT...BIG TIME !!
To attract consumers back, Shell would be forced into lowering price, and competitors would have to follow suit. Shell might think this to be unfair....to be picked on in such a manner, but have they really shown the consumers any compassion lately ? They've "went along" because it suited their interests to gouge and stick it to everyone else....because they COULD. Well, turnabout is fair play, and if a sustained boycott could hurt a major retailer/refiner/supplier to the extent of rolling back prices, it would also "send a message" to the entire oil producing, distribution community, that THEY could be NEXT, and just maybe, they should start respecting their customers a wee bit more than they've been doing, lately.
With a communication vehicle like the World Wide Web, it just might be possible to get enough gasoline consumers on board to make such an event happen.
Posted by bruce ward (Member # 1289) on :
this reminds me of those stupid emials where people were saying "dont buy gas 1 day a week......UH WHAT GOOD IS THAT GONNA DO? Cuz Ill go the day after and buy it. dumbasses
I would have to wonder if this plan would hurt shell OR just hurt the station owners. this whole thing is political. there are things we dont know about whats going on. How can we as a whole make them lower prices? Just simply stop buying gas. Thats not going to happen though.
Posted by Checkers (Member # 63) on :
Hey Gang, Say and do all you want, but gas prices aren't going down that much any time soon. The simple truth is we need to find alternative sources of energy and cut back on consumption. It could be easier than you think. Here are a couple simple solutions for the powers that be...
Rather than subsidize mass transit by cutting these agencies a check, allow commuters to deduct the cost of taking mass transit from their taxes, or give the riders free passes to ride.
Offer more and better insentives to people and organizations that choose to purchase alternative fuel (other than fossil fuel) vehicles.
Offer similar insentives to any organization that promotes and executes car and van pooling, tele-commuting, 4 day work weeks or similar plan.
Encourage energy audits and weatherproofing of homes, institutions and commercial facilities by renewing and broadening the tax credit programs already in place.
On the flip side, penalize individuals and companies, by maintaining or increasing a high energy/fuel tax, that do not implement energy saving programs for their fleets and/or facilities. The revenue raised by these taxes can be used to help the individuals that can not afford or don't have the means to make these energy savings improvements.
I still beleive electric vehicles and mass transit are the way of the future. With the right types of investments by our government, institutions of higher learning and the private sector, we could easily move to solar and wind power and eliminate the need to rely on fossil fuels produced in foreign countries.
I have a few crazy ideas on how to make more power at a lower cost to the consumer, but I'll save them for another time
Havin' fun,
Checkers
Posted by Dale Feicke (Member # 767) on :
Even though the thought of a boycott is agreeable, I'm also with Bruce that this will do more to hurt the station owner than have an effect on the gas price.
Just the other day, a station owner was on the radio talking about how little they make on a gallon. Pennies. A good number of stations have stopped taking credit cards because they have to pay a percentage of each sale to the credit card companies in fees. As the price of gas goes up, the fees go up to where they can wind up making basically nothing on a transaction.
This problem is way higher up the chain than the stations....the speculators. That's where we as the people are going to have to come together and demand that this do-nothing congress get off their butts and get drilling here. We have plenty of oil, in various forms. We shouldn't have to be victimized by some salamander.
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Alternative energy is the way to go. You will never get enough people to join any kind of boycott.
Did you know that 30 days of sunshine could supply the worlds energy needs for a year? There are working models that use the heat from deep in the earth for electricity, solar cells that are way more efficient than current technology at 1/10 the cost to produce are in the testing stage, breakthroughs are close in separating hydrogen and oxygen from water very cheaply. You would fill your tank with water and it would be separated in your engine compartment just before it is injected into the engine which solve the danger of storing hydrogen in your tank.
We need to hang in there. Alternative fuel is getting close.
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
As a full time farmer I use hydro electric for powering the indoor hydroponics system but in my 64 I prefer 114 octane and as a matter of fact I gained 3 hours by shifting my bed so my head faces east when sleeping. Alternative fuels such as ethanol sucks for vehicles as gas mileage is reduced and power lost. Money is the main power in this world and those without it are lost.
Posted by Bill Biggs (Member # 18) on :
I'm gonna have to try that Joey, I could use 3 hours.
Posted by Bruce Evans (Member # 44) on :
alternative engergy...sure, great, whatever. It's where we need to head, but lack of oil is the problem that has made oil double in price in less than 2 years. It's not global warming or the Dali Lama either. The oil is still sitting there, and production rates aren't changing enough to have any effect. It's all politics and speculation that has driven the price up. If you realized that your shop could charge $1500 for a 3x10' banner and the customers were going to come in and pay that price instead of the $150 you charged them last year, simply because you have them by the marbles and they have to pay it....how much are you gonna charge them??
Posted by Dick Bohrer (Member # 905) on :
What would happen if oil consuming nations put a boycott on or increased the costs of all goods and services sold to our oil producing Arab brothers. With little or no manufacturing capacity, the lifestyle they have gotten used to would soon change. No spare parts for their Mercedes, no lightbulbs or spare parts for their generators, or the engineers to run them. Or we could get our @#&* together and develop alternative energy and let the oil producers come up with another source of income to pay for their goods.
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
What we really need....
I bet Ron Popeil has the solution.
.
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Got this one the other day
OPEC sells oil for $136.00 a barrel. OPEC nations buy U.S. grain at $7.00 a bushel. Solution: Sell grain for $136.00 a bushel. Can't buy it? Tough! Eat your oil! Ought to go well with a nice thick grilled filet of camel rump!!!
Posted by Ray Rheaume (Member # 3794) on :
Ken,
I have heard of the theories that you mentioned that by boycotting one major supplier, you would force them to lower prices and it would lead to the others following suit.
IMHO, that may be one of the silliest ideas in history.
Let's say that Shell was boycotted effectively. The demand would remain at the same level, but people would simply be switching to another supplier...for the sake of discussion, let's say Exxon. As the market value of Shell stock would assuredly drop by our own actions, subsequently, we would be increasing Exxon's value in the market. You could almost count on the end result. Exxon would buy out Shell stock with the surplus money WE gave them, Shell would go the way of the Dodo bird and Exxon, who never lowered their price since we were willing to pay it to them instead of Shell, now controls that much more of the supply.
Classic catch 22.
I'm sorry but I have to just laugh at how complacent and beguiled we have collectively become. Has anyone here had to spend 2 hours waiting in line, a la 1980 style, to fill up their tank? Personally, I haven't seen any outright indications that there's a shortage, just a whole lot of market speculators driving up the price based on...what? Turmoil on oil producing nations? OPEC reductions in production? A sudden, tumultuous worldwide decrease in lawn mower efficiency?
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the rest of the world has been paying a lot more for gas than we have for decades. We've had the resources to dodge that bullet for decades with nuclear, solar, hydro, wind and other alternative energy technology, all of which has back burnered by our own complacency...and in part...our egos. For every person out there who was willing to risk venturing into new energy ideas, there have been thousands of us who shrugged them off as flashes in the pan, go online and buy stock into the same old oil companies and pump that same money right back into their pockets at the corner Quicky Marts every day because it has been and still is the only option that has been promoted, marketed or offered for nearly a century.
The glorification of corn mash moonshine by renaming it "biodiesel" might be the biggest farce of all time. 30 years ago, this country sold surplus corn and wheat to countries we were in a cold war with. Now food prices are being increased world wide, causing riots in some nations, as wheat fields are being replaced by the same bunch of "investors" who are now driving the price of both crops through speculation on the stock market floors. This trend continues and you're going to be left with two choices....walk or starve.
Want some real solutions? Look up you the nearest nuclear power plant near you. It's probably been up and running for 25+ years. Has it blown up lately? Guess the tree huggers were wrong after all. While they kept spouting about the dangers to the indigenous spotted bull terriers and rare plaid aphids if one of them blew up...NONE OF THEM BLEW UP! Hmmm...maybe if we ran them at 10% more capacity, which in most cases might still be less than half, we wouldn't have to pay those lovely "fuel surcharge fees" every winter because the electric companies won't be using foreign oil any more.
Oh oh....NUCLEAR WASTE. yeah. Here's an idea...since they're already gonna be parking the space shuttles anyway, how about we load them up with the old rods and launch them on a one way trip into the sun, the nearest nuclear naturally occurring energy source. It'd be a whole lot better than putting them in a museum to collect dust in a building that cost a fortune to heat so our grandkids can be bored by them on grade school field trips in 2035.
I'm sorry if this rant got out of hand, but I've been in a lot of situations in my life that called upon someone to step up and solve matters. I've found that it's the people who offer common sense solutions and decisive action are the ones who do it best, not those who have to be elected, form committees and delay results, yet somehow we cling to the notion that they are going to be the one's who solve our problems for us.
What saddens and ires me more than anything is that, in my life time, true leaders....the people who offer hope and strive for everyone else's benefit in times of need...have become paralyzed under the heel of the dominant driving force of society today. Greed.
The need is great, but unfortunately, the greed is winning.
Soapbox back in the closet... Rapid
Posted by Dale Feicke (Member # 767) on :
That was good, Ray, except for the corn thing. That's ethanol, I believe. And I still think that's a viable alternative. Although vehicles don't get quite the mileage from it, it does work well, and is easily renewable, and can be made from wheat, alfalfa, oats, sugar cane, beets, or most any kind of crop plant. On its own, or added to gasoline, I don't know why not.
Some say we're just driving up the cost of food, poultry, etc. because we cant' grow enough corn. But what this philosophy doesn't take into account is the thousands of farmers in this country, sitting on millions of acres of farmland, getting a check every month from our government for growing....nothing. Subsidies.
When are we going to put their butts back to work? We are a good twenty years away from a viable replacement for petroleum. In the meantime, we need to be going after our own oil, which we have plenty of, while using some of the alternatives listed above to get there.
[ June 22, 2008, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Dale Feicke ]
Posted by Donald Miner (Member # 6472) on :
For what it's worth see if you can pull this up. You Tube-IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENERGY SAVER LIGHT BULBS! A buddy sent me an e-mail with this in it, I read it, very interesting, be sure to follow it all the way through. Don
Posted by Ken Henry (Member # 598) on :
The largest problem with "growing" alternate energy crops, is that it takes almost as much conventional energy to grow them, refine them,blend them, and distribute/market them, as the total amount of energy they will yield. Seems like a lot of effort for a net gain of a couple of barrels, if that.
Ray. The Exxon buyout of Shell stock might very well occur, as you're suggesting, but they would ALWAYS remember just how it came to be that they were fortunate enough to be one of the survivors, and not the victim of a boycott. If a major player can be brought to their knees once, the certain knowledge that it would probably occur again, if that mass of consumers got ticked off enough to make them the NEXT target.
It's about the consumers reclaiming a measure of respect and fairness, which I don't happen to think they're getting a whole lot of these days.
Posted by Kelly Thorson (Member # 2958) on :
Hey I like Dave's solution! $136/bu grain Wooohooo - farming justy got profitable. Posted by Kimberly Zanetti (Member # 2546) on :
Between gas prices and MASSIVE construction going on around the Sacramento area, light rail and other mass transit ridership is way up. So what are they doing? CUTTING funding for next year. Instead of increasing the number of trains or expanding it, they are going to cut back. The last train out of downtown Sac to the outer suburbs now leaves at 6:38pm. So anyone who thinks there's a CHANCE they'll miss the train is now driving. One more train later than that would dramatically increase ridership. God forbid the govn't agencies in CA did anything that even vaguely made sense. Freaking morons.
Posted by Len Mort (Member # 7030) on :
Dave I'm with you, great idea! Let's make a deal. I just filled my pick up a thirty eight gallon tank, for the sum of $143.15 @ $4.09 pg reg. Sure am glad it's a V6 Chev.
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
Question 1: What percentage of oil used in the US comes from Saudi Arabia?
Question 2: What two countries are the top providers of oil to the US?
Question 3: Who determines the price of oil?
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
DAVE SHERBY FOR PRESIDENT! Posted by George Perkins (Member # 156) on :
On the subject of ethanol, has anybody noticed the little stickers on the gas pumps saying ethanol has been added to the gasoline? All the pumps around here have them. Ethanol, like any alcohol based fuel, burns at a faster rate. So here we are paying higher prices for gas that's going to be used up faster I haven't bothered to check the mileage our car is getting...I really don't want to know Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
I think I remember hearing that we are subsidizing each gallon of ethanol to the tune of $.50 a gallon to the farmers??? Where's the sanity in that? I'm driving nearly half as much, a lot "gentler" driving and my car gets at least 30 mpg. I'll be one of the first on the block to get a hydrogen fueled vehicle when they come out.
Posted by Checkers (Member # 63) on :
For the record, (and someone already mentioned this) there is no gas shortage. Jack's post is one of many problems that are causing high gas prices. Most of them revolve around greed. Anyway, I'm happy to say that gas prices dropped around here about 5¢ over the last week. They still have a long way to go though. I do want to add some comments about what others had to say, it's nothing personal, so take it for what it's worth... Nuclear Power = Three Mile Island - The site of the United States worst nuclear disaster so far Ethanol still requires petroleum to work in vehicles, which doesn't solve the problem of our petroleum dependency. Hydroelectric, solar and wind power is proven technology that has been used for centuries. But, because these resources are so cheap and readily available, it won't be embraced by corporate america and our government is against it because they can't tax it.
[ June 23, 2008, 11:19 AM: Message edited by: Checkers ]
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Checkers: ....our government is against it because they can't tax it.
Dude! The government can tax anything.
.
Posted by Mike O'Neill (Member # 470) on :
$1.59 per litre here... somewhere near $6.00 per US gallon
Just put $110.00 into my Volks...
Posted by Jon Jantz (Member # 6137) on :
Dave Sherby, one subscription to your newsletter pleeze.
Posted by Michael Gene Adkins (Member # 882) on :
I live 50 feet from my shop, and that's a short commute! But when my customers feel the crunch, so do my sign sales. And that, lately, has begun to suck.
Posted by Deri Russell (Member # 119) on :
I just can't believe how fast it's going up. Now I don't drive the dragon wagon a whole lot, shop's here at home. But about a month and a half ago I filled up for $82. Three weeks ago it was $106. and then Saturday it was just under $120. Clare filled up his truck the same day for $161.
Yeah, and I spent the entire weekend agonizing about whether to buy this other vehicle I have had my eye on. It's a 1932 Ford 5 Window Coupe gas guzzler. Now gas wasn't the only reason I changed my mind, we have a daughter hitting College in September for 3 years quickly followed by our 2nd for 10 years University, but it was one of the reasons. I called and told him I wasn't going to buy it.
Sniff. Pass the kleenex will you? It's just too sad. Such a beautiful car, mint condition. Amythest in colour. And now she will be sold to some guy who already has 5 frigging cars. And she will probably sit in some stupid warehouse somewhere. Sniff.
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
In 1956 I owned a big buick and stationed at Gieger Field in Spokane,WA. Gas from the on base station was 19 cents per gallon. At 20 gallons that came to $3.80 to fill up ethyl 100 octane. They still make gas the same way here in the states what happened...The dip shyts who spoiled the climate also spoiled the arabs with offers of kindness at the benifit of our weakness. Thats why our weakness controls the price.
Posted by Ray Rheaume (Member # 3794) on :
Checkers,
The Three Mile Island accident was followed by essentially a total halt of nuclear power plant construction in the US. News stories about the accident and possible leakage of radiation sent a shudder through the country, but, to date, Three Mile Island was responsible for a whopping zero fatalities. There weren't even any injuries. Since then, tests have revealed that the level of radiation people were exposed to in the five-mile radius was equivalent to the amount of radiation a person is exposed to while flying on a commercial airliner.
If that was the worst we've seen so far, do you think it justified the ends?
How messed up is this? Every game winning athlete who has ever uttered "I'm going to Disney World" over the last 30 years has had a higher risk of radiation poisoning on the plane that gets them there than they would camping out at Three Mile Island for a week.
I'm sorry, but 30 years after the "China Syndrome" came out and, 12 days later, TMI happened, I'd like to think that we could get over the infantile overreaction and panic. The technology and safety issues with nuclear fuels has been improved enough to warrant it as a viable alternative to oil based fuels, probably far more now than it was when we WERE waiting in long lines to fill our cars back in the 70's.
Now that I think of it, does it seem odd to anyone else that the movie came out, TMI had a meltdown and shortly after, the lines at the pumps disappeared? Sorta like how the daily terrorist alert levels we saw after 911 went away after the Patriot Act became law.
Makes ya wonder, huh? Rapid
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
Exactly right, Ray.
What gets me is that Europe gets the majority of electricity from nuke plants. At least they understood that "The China Syndrome" was just a lousy movie.
I mean, my gosh,look at France. If they of all people can do it, why can't we??
What's funny to me is the amount of misinformation is out there as we look for a scapegoat for their misery. Particularly here in the US. We just soak it up like a sponge without really bothering to think about it. It just fits our preconceived notions so we run with it.
Oil prices high? Blame Saudi Arabia. It doesn't matter that we don't have any oil shortage at the moment and that they don't set the price. They just make for a convenient scapecoat.
Here in the US, we get the majority of our oil from Canada and Mexico - not Saudi Arabia.
Oil production in the US has been going down for years. Not because there is less oil, but because we won't allow drilling where the oil is.
And is this the politician's fault? Nope. Its ours.
We're the idiots who put them in power.
If I were from Saudi Arabia, I'd be laughing myself silly at how foolish Americans can be.
.
[ June 24, 2008, 06:50 AM: Message edited by: Glenn Taylor ]
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Clare filled up his truck the same day for $161. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Sniff.