yea don't we all... haha

 

Times like these it pays to have a Honda....

The main reason why our gas price is so high is the federal and state tax on
gas is high...and we can't drill for oil in our own country or off shore...

Plus no new refinery plants in years.

Oh yeah, we are now using part of our food source for gas...and now
our food price are up......

How can we get oil prices back down? Drill for more oil and cut gas taxes.

Supply and demand, plain and simple.

 

Huh...? Pretty sure the national oil supply can't keep up with our consumption, so we have to import oil. And oddly, there's unrest in the place where we buy most of our oil, go figure...

The thing that I really hate is that oil prices are up partly because people are fleeing the stock market, and buying commodities (like oil). When the quest for personal wealth impacts the economy underpinning your wealth, you'd think someone would get a clue...

 

^^^ valid point

 

Premium up here in Canada was $4.96/gallon for premium when I filled up yesterday. We had $4.25/gallon last summer.

 

Supply and demand is simple.

The rest of it isn't. You think our gas taxes are high? Look at the rest of the world. Our gas taxes are pretty low. I disagree with the idea of cutting taxes. We should have been taxing the hell out of gas to begin with, which gives us significantly more wiggle room in the price of gas. I am as far removed from the republican party and this administration as you can possibly be and I don't blame Bush for the rising price of gas because there ain't jack **** he and congress can do. They can make a < 10% dent in the price of gas. At $4 gas, the combined state and federal taxes are between 10-15% of the price of gas.

Refinary's are actually currently operating under capacity, because the price of gasoline (based on the price of raw inputs) should be higher but the refinary's know people will get super pissed if the gasoline rises with the same percentage rise as the raw inputs (oil etc) so their goal is to produce as close to the current demand as possible to minimize risk, and right now, this is less than the refinaries are capable of putting out. Even if we were at capacity and needed to build more refinaries, it doesn't actually make a bit of difference as currently refined gasoline is artificially cheap compared to the raw inputs required to refine gas. This is actually supply and demand working in "reverse". The refinaries know if they push refined gas to what it should cost, demand would drop significantly both hurting their images and their bottom lines.

But still, the problem is nothing to do with the cost of gas. We're stupid if we think we can be driven by the cost of gas. The problem is we need to wake up and understand that oil is a finite resource. We can price gas at $10/gal or $1/gal and it doesn't change the fact that if we don't do something about it, we will be screwed eventually. Maybe not in our lifetimes (but it's becoming increasingly more likely) but in the next couple of generations.

Unfortunately, the average person doesn't think in terms of the long term future and health of the world, so the best way to make them aware, is keep the price of gas high, and make people clamour for better alternatives (not this corn based ethanol sh*t) or for their next vehicle buy one that makes a lot mores sense.

But, there's this lovely psychological factor too. You have idiots trading in their 1 year old SUV because the price of gas is too high. The price of gas would have to over double before the average person has to pay more for gas than the 1st year depreciation, but psychology is a wonderful thing.

FYI, unless something changes drastically, my next car will likely NOT be a 300hp fuel guzzling sports sedan. As sad as that is to say, my conscience is just getting to me since I'm well aware of the fact that I am making heavy use of non-renewable resources and that bothers me.

[steps off soapbox]

 

this is all true but... I will still buy my gas guzzling cars. I am all for renewables, like geo-thermal. that is cool stuff. But me not using as much gas will not affect the inevitable. Try talking to fast developing India and rural China. That is where a lot of the planets hydrocarbons are going and it will only get worse over time. Their population density is insane and they are all starting to jump on the automotive band wagon. Oil makes the world go round plain and simple.