Posted on 05/17/2007 5:48:48 AM PDT by cweese
My goodness, people! Don't you realize that there are things in your life that you really need to be worrying about? What's all this weeping and moaning over gas prices?
With every single paycheck the Imperial Federal Government seizes about 14% of the money you have earned. This money is put into an income redistribution fund from which you may or may not draw a check when and if you reach a certain age. Die too soon and that money goes to someone else .. not to your heirs. Live long enough and you may .. just may ... get most of your money back, though there is no legal guarantee that you'll get a cent.
Yet here you sit pissing and moaning about gas prices.
We did the math here last week, but let's pull out the calculator again for those of you who don't come here every day.
First, the figures:
According to the AAA, one year ago the price of regular was $2.929. Today that price is $3.114. That's an 18.5 cents per gallon increase over the past year.
Now we go for the average gas mileage for cars in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that as of 2004 the average mpg for new cars sold in the U.S. was 24.7. In 1980 it was 23.1. So, to make a point here, we're going to go even below the average price for 1980. We're going to use 20 mpg.
Now ... for those of you who went to government schools, I'll do the math for you. You're driving your family of four 1400 miles to get to Disney World and back. That means you'll be burning 70 gallons of gas at 20 mpg. The gas is now 18.5 cents more expensive than it was last year. Let's go ahead and round that UP to 20 cents. So, we burn 70 gallons and each gallon costs 20 cents more than it cost last year. That's going to cost you an amazing $14.00.
Oh My God! What an incredible tragedy! What a devastating blow to your finances! You're going to have to spend $14.00 more to drive your family to Florida this year than you did last year! That's $3.50 for each family member! How in the hell are you ever going to be able to afford this? Alert your local radio station news department! Call the newspaper! Sound the alarm! Americans are being crippled by these rising gas prices! Call your politician. Something has to be done about the evil oil companies! Get the government involved! We need more regulation!
Oh .. and you people driving to and from work need to be outraged too! Are you doing your share of the whining?
The average commute to and from work in this country is 16 miles. Now of course we know that cars don't get the mileage on a stop-and-go commute as they do on the road, so we're going to lower the gas mileage figure from 20 to 15. So, you're driving 32 miles (on the average) to get to work and back every day. That is gobbling up about 2.13 gallons of gas. Go back to that 18.5 cents per gallon increase over last year and you'll see that you're spending about 40 cents more for gas for your commute this year than you were last year. That would be about $2.00 a week. Less than the price of a decaf skinny latte at Starbucks. A lot less.
Oh, the humanity! You're spending less than the cost of three text messages on your cell phone every day to cover the increasing cost of gas! Tell your boss you're going to have to quit! You just can handle this any more! Get fired! Go on unemployment! Forty cents a day! That's it! Your back is broken!
Come on people, wake up! Your governments -- local, state and federal -- are stealing money from you every single day to fund vote-buying programs. Your local elected officials are ripping you off to support welfare artists and to study the mating habits of Polish zlotnika pigs. How do you think they feel when they see you griping about gas prices? They LOVE it! They steal you blind and there you sit complaining because you're going to have to spend $14.00 more to drive your family to Disney World and back. They take 14% of the money you earn every day -- money you may or may get back with virtually no interest -- and you're spinning around on your eyebrows because you're spending 40 cents a day more to get to that job and back home again!
I drive a small car, but let me bitch nevertheless.
We have two small gas cans that we use for lawnmowers, weedeaters, etc. Together they hold 11 gal. of gas. Yesterday, it cost $36.19 to fill them.
That's probably not a lot to Neal, but it's a lot to us. Our spending habits have already been affected.
How is this a valid comparison? I don't drink 25-30 gallons of Starbucks a week.
Gas tax is needed to keep the roads repaired. I would like to know what in he** Pennsylvania does with the tax? Maryland and NJ have lower gas tax and better roads. Rendell
is making things worse. Looking at the gas pumps around this county show the wgts and measure employees have not run a check on them in a long time. You don’t even know if the numbers are correct.
I should add that I would be in favor of keeping the contribution mandatory, including the employer match. The difference would be that the money would go into a mutual fund or bank CD’s or some other currently approved investment vehicle in your own name.
This would result in just about every person who works the majority of their life be able to retire a millionaire.
The social security scam has been politic’ed to death but nothing has ever been done except increase the tax rate on us.
It is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world and the weak-kneed politicians wont touch it - with one exception: George W Bush. At least he tried...
Exactly. Neal does what I do when I argue this with idiots...use MATH!
After that the whine converts to, “but I can’t afford another $30 a month on gas” so I counter with, “cancel one of your three cell phones; get rid of cable; stop renting 10 DVD’s a month; go out to eat with your family ( or the movies ) one less time per month; quit smoking; quit drinking, etc.”
Oh, the horror of horrors that I even bring up these facts. The whiners aren’t really complaining about gas, they are complaining about the fact the extra cost is cutting into their other bloated non-bugeted spending items.
Most of these whiners probably pay for HBO just to watch “The Sopranos” so they can appear cool at the office on Mondays.
So what if they made $9.5 billion. They had over $100 billion in sales. That is around 10% - considered low margins for companies.
The oil companies make about 13 cents per gallon.
Do you know how much the government makes per gallon in taxes?
Federal govt gets 18 cents per gallon.
The State of California gets 40 cents per gallon.
California consumers are paying 58 cents per gallon to the government.
We really need to direct our scorn to the govt, not to the companies that explore and invest and take risks and drill and produce and refine and transport this product-all for 10% margins...
Do you ever buy bottled water?
Sure, he “tried” but even he knew it was bogus because, like all politicians, he wanted to “fix it” when anyone with half a brain knows the answer to SS and Medicare is ELIMINATING them and weening people off the ponzi scheme.
“The whiners aren’t really complaining about gas, they are complaining about the fact the extra cost is cutting into their other bloated non-bugeted spending items.”
Well said.
The state also uses that .40 cents to build roads and bridges and pay for it’s illegal healthcare. (lol liberal jab on that last one).
I have a problem with a company doubling it’s profits in just 2-3 years when it it pinching the pockets of 1/2 of America. If the states cut out the tax who is going to build the roads?
Yes, but if you buy a coffee every day you are spending $35 a week on coffee. I am the only one that thinks that is insane? Yet no one complains about it. Is it because you only have to drop $5 at a time and not the whole $35?
I think gas prices are bad, but how many of us have a lot of extras? How much do you spend per month on your “communication” expenses? Your cell phone, TV, cable modem, land phone line? All of which many of us deem necessary, including myself. How much do you spend eating out per month? Those quick lunches that only cost a few bucks, but add up really fast? I think many of us, me included, could make a lot of cuts in our spending. We just don’t want to. We would rather gripe instead.
huh? So we should cut back on luxury items like going to a baseball game with our kids so we can give big oil exec’s a bigger bonus so they can buy their second jet? Don’t get your logic.
The reason for the huge profits isn't the higher price we're being charged. It's the number of gallons being sold. Demand is through the roof. Add to that the fact supplies are down, and voila! Price increase. Don't they teach basic economics any more? Things like the difference between a profit and a profit margin, for example?
Let's put it this way. Say I buy pencils for $.08 each, and sell them in my tin cup on the street corner for $.10 each. That's $.02 profit each pencil, correct? Seem fair? It's only $.02, after all. If I sell 20 pencils, I make $.40 cents profit. Easy enough.
Now, imagine there's a sudden huge demand for my pencils. I am having a hard time getting my supplier to keep up with my needs. They're having a hard time getting raw materials. They have raised their price from $.08 each to $.18 each. That's a huge increase! In order to maintain my profits, I need to charge $.20 per pencil. But my margin isn't the same, is it? $.02 of $.10 is twice the size of $.02 of $.20, right? However, if I sell the same number of pencils, I make the same profit.
But, we said demand had gone up. I'm no longer selling just 20 pencils a day. I'm now selling 20 million a day. That means I'm making $400,000 profit every single day! Obviously, I must be gouging you, right? After all, the price I'm charging doubled! But as we see, I'm actually making a smaller margin than I was before. I'm simply selling more product.
If there is an area to be angry with oil companies, it's in the fact they haven't built any new refineries in a generation. Demand skyrockets, but capacity for production remains static? That is going to create shortages, which will result in price increases. So, you want prices to go down? Demand new refineries, and fight efforts from the NIMBY crowds to keep them from being built.
This isn't rocket science, folks.
Note, by the way, that I’m no economist. My education is in music. Therefore, I don’t claim my numbers are exactly correct, since I just pulled them off the top of my head.
Sorry, Neal, but in my neck of the woods, this morning gas is 15 cents more expensive than it was yesterday. And I am NOT happy about that.
It's time to take a good hard look at the supply issues here, including the larger issue of refinery capacity that is causing this problem. In wartime it is simply horrible public policy to be in the situation we're in.
They STILL using that line of $@!!!. I'm half way thru and I'll be working another 260 years before I retire a millionaire.
Payday has got to have a Coke to go with it. Ahhhhh, heaven, and a hell of a snack.
It’s nice when you have lots of money to burn and can tell all the little people that they shouldn’t complain about not having enough money to buy gas to get to work. They just made bad decisions by taking jobs that are too far away from their homes. They should move to the inner city.
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