Posted on 02/19/2012 7:18:33 AM PST by blam
Ridiculously High Gas Prices Expected To Hit Major US Cities By Memorial Day
Calculated Risk
Febuary 19, 2012
From the Mercury News: Gas prices surging beyond $4 a gallon -- and they will go higher
Gasoline prices are rising at an almost unheard-of pace, and painfully so in California, where the cost for a fill-up now exceeds $4 a gallon in five cities and is approaching that dreaded mark in numerous others, including San Jose and Oakland.
The statewide average of $3.96 on Friday is 25 cents higher than just a month ago and 46 cents more than this time last year. ... Some oil analysts predict $4.50 a gallon or more by Memorial Day on the West Coast and major cities across the United States such as Chicago, New York and Atlanta. High gasoline prices is one reason American are driving less. Brad Plumer at the WaPo discusses a few other reasons: Driving, gas prices and the end of retail
Americans have cut way back on driving in recent years. Total vehicle-miles traveled has stagnated since 2007. One big question is whether this is a temporary blip due to the downturn — unemployed people, after all, don’t commute — or evidence of a long-term structural shift.
Theories for a structural shift generally involve demographics: America’s swelling ranks of retirees don’t drive as much, while kids these days prefer Facebook to motoring around with friends. But there’s another possible factor: the torrid growth of online shopping. Phil Izzo has the numbers, which are striking. And below is a graph of gasoline prices. Gasoline prices bottomed in December and have been moving up again. Note: The graph below shows oil prices for WTI; gasoline prices in most of the U.S. are impacted more by Brent prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
* People using less gas, the price goes up.
* People using more gas, the price goes up.
Price of food, electricity, etc. soon to follow.
Except for government cheese, which seems to have no relation to the real world, will continue to flow unabated.
For now.
I don’t think the US economy could endure gas prices higher than $4.20 (national average). Once gas prices reach $4.20 the economy will begin to crater and demand will begin to drop off.
Republicans’ fault!
FUBO!
Look away, nothing to report here...
Just kidding - it’s Bush’s fault !!
Don’t you guys ever learn???? The gas prices are going up because the economy is starting to boom. DUH!!!!!
Well, those who must drive, whether to commute or to haul, are going to continue. They will just have to cut back somewhere else. What will go away will be discretionary driving. In both cases I expect aggregate demand to decline variously across the board. Expect anything related to leisure to take a particular hit.
Makes you wonder if turning the American middle class into serfs who cannot escape where they happen to live wasn’t the ultimate purpose.
You are probably already aware of this but I thought I would pass the tip along for good measure. If you are storing gasoline long term, make sure you purchase a fuel stabilizer product to mix in it for storage. Most any auto parts store and/or Walmart, Autozone, NAPA, etc. carries it.
Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
Febuary 19, 2012
It's not just gasoline consumption that's declining--petroleum and electricity consumption are also dropping. Is that indicative of economic growth?
(Are people lying for Obama?)
A number of readers kindly forwarded additional data sources to me as followup on last week's entry describing sharply lower deliveries of gasoline. (Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking? February 10, 2012)
The basic thesis here is that petroleum consumption is a key proxy of economic activity. In periods of economic expansion, energy consumption rises. In periods of contraction, consumption levels off or declines.
This common sense correlation calls into question the Status Quo's insistence that the U.S. economy has decoupled from the global economy and is still growing. This growth will create more jobs, the story goes, and expand corporate profits which will power the stock market ever higher.
(snip)
(The CIA uses the electrical use in foreign countries to get a 'true' reading of economic activity in those countries)
1. We are exporting more oil than we import.
2. Gasoline consumption has dropped off the table in this country.
3. Gas prices are going up?
It’s all part of the Obama reelection campaign. Watch gas prices tumble in October because Obama says the Keystone Pipeline can be built. And the sheeple will fawn and vote for him.
Remember folks, there is a glut of gasoline at the moment. Not only petroleum usage but gasoline (to put in your putt-putt) has fallen off a cliff over the past two quarters.
The high cost of gasoline that you see is the impact of a devauled dollar. The dollar is losing its purchasing power, thus you need to spend more of them to purchase the same amount as a short time ago.
But it’s a good thing that the government excludes food and energy (gasoline) when they are calculating their bogus inflation rates. Because they do, the masses can live in la-la land thinking the Keynesian economists and the socialists have saved the economy.
Of course! If a bird poops on a Democrat’s car at a gravel crossroads somewhere on the high plains of western Kansas it’s all the Republicans fault and Bush’s too even though he hasn’t been in office for over 3 years.
Where I live is so far out in the boonies. We do have bus service though. If I drove to the closest market town it’d cost me $15 r/t. I can take the bus for $1 r/t.
Yup.
As you so aptly put it, this is "another thrust of the blade in the backs of the American people by Obama the destroyer". In writing for the Democrat propaganda instrument, the Washington Post, Mr. Plumer conveniently neglets to discuss the key reason for higher gas prices is the complete absence of any viable energy policy for the US. Does anyone really believe this is not intentional?
They have been telling themselves and each other for decades about "America's love affair with the auto" and how we are determined to drive gas guzzlers around no matter what. Obviously, that view is no longer accurate, if it ever was.
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