$12-15-a-Gallon Gas

[nightflight]

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080521145247.aspx

 

[Sojourner1]

I can't even imagine.

 

[mrpiddly]

In Hamburg, I calculated it to be around $9. It is probably a large value since I assumed a Euro to be about $1.50 and that there are four liters in a gallon

 

[susanann]

Gasoline is too cheap now, as shown by Americans using more and more of it each year, as shown by vehilce-miles-traveled in the US increasing each year.

We need gas to go to at least $15 a gallon, to reduce our consumption. Even at today's prices, every year, year after year, people buy more gas, and our highways become more and more crowded.

I dont think even $15 a gallon is enough, we probably need $25 a gallon gasoline before America begins to use less gasoline instead of more gasoline.


If gas goes high enough, people will buy less of it, highways will become less crowded, there will be less pollution, etc. HIgh gas prices are a good thing, but only if gas goes high enough for people to use less gas.

 

[Robby]

Gasoline is too cheap now, as shown by Americans using more and more of it each year, as shown by vehilce-miles-traveled in the US increasing each year.

We need gas to go to at least $15 a gallon, to reduce our consumption. Even at today's prices, every year, year after year, people buy more gas, and our highways become more and more crowded.

I dont think even $15 a gallon is enough, we probably need $25 a gallon gasoline before America begins to use less gasoline instead of more gasoline.


If gas goes high enough, people will buy less of it, highways will become less crowded, there will be less pollution, etc. HIgh gas prices are a good thing, but only if gas goes high enough for people to use less gas.

You realize that food prices will skyrocket and there will likely be shortages..........

I know I won't be able to survive on $12 a gallon gas and I use my car for going to work and grocery store only.

 

[susanann]

You realize that food prices will skyrocket and there will likely be shortages..........

I know I won't be able to survive on $12 a gallon gas and I use my car for going to work and grocery store only.

We shall see about that, but so far, $4 gas has resulted in INCREASED usage, which means that gas is too CHEAP right now.


Only when gasoline consumtion, and only when vehicle-miles-driven, are declining should we even start to think that gas is not cheap.


People do not over-indulge in expensive things, esp gasoline. As long as people keep buying more and more, it means it is too cheap!


I hope some people will buy less gas when it reaches $15 a gallon, but I am not sure people will cut back then. We shall see.

 

[Billnew]

Food prices will be the failing of high oil prices.
Most people can afford gas, but food prices will drive people out of
being able to get food.

we are addicted to gas, everything we do involves gas. There is no fast way to wean off. We use more gas because we are thriving. When gas gets to high, we stop thriving, and we go into a recession. Our economy is tied directly to gas usage.

People just stop driving isn't possible. we rely on long haul trucking, gas to get to work, and entertainment. Walking to anything is rarely possible, and mass transit is
dangerous and not reliable.

So like it or not, we have built our nation on Oil. If we don't have oil, we will fail. So short term, we have to have oil. It will take a while to switch to anything other then oil, and we can't wait that long, nor survive oil prices continuing to rise.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

If gas goes high enough, people will buy less of it, highways will become less crowded, there will be less pollution, etc. HIgh gas prices are a good thing, but only if gas goes high enough for people to use less gas.

People will lose jobs,Won't be able to afford food,Won't be able to pay rent,or other bills.Unless maybe they go electric or solar.

I dont think even $15 a gallon is enough, we probably need $25 a gallon gasoline before America begins to use less gasoline instead of more gasoline.

That insane to raise the gas prices that high.

 

[Ave Maria]

Gas here just went up to $4.00 a gallon. It is becoming very hard for this unemployed (trying to get disability) person to afford gasoline. I only get $25 a week from my Grandparents to cover gasoline.

 

[jamesrwright3]

This is going to require a restructuring of our economy in a variety of ways including growing food locally and not having long commutes to work. Certain industries like the insurance industry will be affected-many people will not be able to afford automobiles and will have no need for insurance. They interviewed the oil expert that testified in front of Congress yesterday....our economy is going to be severely affected by energy issues..just think how many machines we rely on run on petroleum..how will our streets be cleaned..how will we ship food..how will we get to work..how will we fly..flight is the one area I don't see an easy solution for..people can use electric cars and maybe have ships powered by nuclear..flight is the only thing that requires petro..I don't think any alternative source can produce enough thrust to go at the speed we would need to travel at.

I feel as if we are going off a cliff and no one seems to care. We threw a large portion of our resources at building a nuclear bomb during WWII..I would say energy issues pose at least as great of a threat as the Axis did in terms of our long term national well being. I am not sure why we have no instituted a Manhattan project for energy

 

[nightflight]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/05/020571.php

"Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes."

"According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico."

"Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes."

 

[nightflight]

.....

 

[peanutbutter12]

Gasoline is too cheap now, as shown by Americans using more and more of it each year, as shown by vehilce-miles-traveled in the US increasing each year.

We need gas to go to at least $15 a gallon, to reduce our consumption. Even at today's prices, every year, year after year, people buy more gas, and our highways become more and more crowded.

I dont think even $15 a gallon is enough, we probably need $25 a gallon gasoline before America begins to use less gasoline instead of more gasoline.


If gas goes high enough, people will buy less of it, highways will become less crowded, there will be less pollution, etc. HIgh gas prices are a good thing, but only if gas goes high enough for people to use less gas.

By your insane idea of how to conserve gas, you would essentially be writing off any people who don't live in a metropolitan area.

Where I live, it takes most people at least an hour to get to work. My daily travel consists of 1 to 3 hours of travel one way. As it stands, it's getting harder for people in rural areas to pay their bills. At $15 a gallon, most would have to quit their jobs because they aren't making enough to pay house payments, car bills, food, and all the other bills we have to pay every month. That would be forcing a lot of people homeless essentially creating more debt as the government would have to figure out how to house these people.

Food costs would most definitely go up... how many farms do you see in the city center? None. They are all in the rural areas. Well, farmers need to use gas in their equipment, so guess where they will have to make up the produce costs? YOU! Which means everything you eat is also going to skyrocket.

We don't travel far distances in rural areas because we want to, we do it because we have to.

Back to the drawing board with you, susanann. Another one of your extremist ideas once again stamped in black ink with a huge "FAIL".

 

[FilM]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/05/020571.php

"Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes."

"According to the Department of the Interior, 62 percent of all on-shore federal lands are off limits to oil and gas developments, with restrictions applying to 92 percent of all federal lands. We have an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Atlantic Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the Pacific Ocean, an outer continental shelf moratorium on the eastern Gulf of Mexico, congressional bans on on-shore oil and gas activities in specific areas of the Rockies and Alaska, and even a congressional ban on doing an analysis of the resource potential for oil and gas in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico."

"Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes."

Our gas tax is nothing compared to the Europeans where I understand it can be up to 50%, yet we don't hear the angst from Europeans, or at least not to the extent as here. And it's fairly obvious why, they have much more fuel efficient economies, based on them implementing much higher mpg standards, even if it threatened their car manufacturers (or at least according to the German manufacturers; all it did was ensure that the likes of BMW and Mercedes pushed the envelope of efficiency versus power).

So if anything puts the USA behind Europe economically it's our failure to implement stricter energy conservation policies when it was clear years ago that eventually we would face energy shortages.

 

[nightflight]

edit: don't want to get all riled.

 

[peanutbutter12]

Our gas tax is nothing compared to the Europeans where I understand it can be up to 50%, yet we don't hear the angst from Europeans, or at least not to the extent as here. And it's fairly obvious why, they have much more fuel efficient economies, based on them implementing much higher mpg standards, even if it threatened their car manufacturers (or at least according to the German manufacturers; all it did was ensure that the likes of BMW and Mercedes pushed the envelope of efficiency versus power).

So if anything puts the USA behind Europe economically it's our failure to implement stricter energy conservation policies when it was clear years ago that eventually we would face energy shortages.

Correct, and what irks me even more is that we know there is an energy crisis and still we aren't putting enough steam into developing new technologies. Companies like Chevy and Ford should be pushing for this newer tech stuff and they are only slowly working into it. And the cars they are bringing out end up costing nearly $30,000 so how is that really helping?

Someone modded a 2001 Prius to get over 200mpg and posted all about it on the internet. Why has his mod not been made standard in cars? Heck, he just gave away the instructions how to do it and eventually companies took over and started doing installs. This is something that should come standard!

 

[susanann]

1. Where I live, it takes most people at least an hour to get to work. My daily travel consists of 1 to 3 hours of travel one way.



2. At $15 a gallon, most would have to quit their jobs because they aren't making enough to pay house payments, car bills, food, and all the other bills we have to pay every month. That would be forcing a lot of people homeless essentially creating more debt as the government would have to figure out how to house these people.

1. People should not live so far away from work, if they dont want to pay lots and lots to fill up their gas tank. Anyone who lives more than 5 or 10 minutes is wasting gas.



2. If people are going to quit because gas is $15 then they are going to quit anyways, because not only are Americans using more and more gas, the chinese are going to be using even more gas than Americans in a few years - putting tremendous pressure on world oil prices. All the factories and industrialization of America is moving to china, and all those new factories we are building over there, all the cars we are selling to the chinese, are going to take a flood of oil needing to be sent to china. Increased demand for gasoline by the US, combined with increased gas by china, means that gas is going WAY higher. Our goal, the goal of United States trade policy, is to industrialize china to where they use as much, or more, oil per capita as we do.



Anyways, the point is, that $4 gas is way too cheap, and most likely $15 gas is also way too cheap - because everyone is using much more gasoline at $4 than we did at 20cents a gallon. The UNited States is consuming nearly ten times as much gas today at $4 a gallon than we used at 20cents a gallon.


In order to reduce consumption, and emissions, and pollution, and traffic, I think we need gas at over $25 a gallon, maybe $50 a gallon - and the sooner the better.

 

[jamesrwright3]

1. People should not live so far away from work, if they dont want to pay lots and lots to fill up their gas tank. Anyone who lives more than 5 or 10 minutes is wasting gas.



2. If people are going to quit because gas is $15 then they are going to quit anyways, because not only are Americans using more and more gas, the chinese are going to be using even more gas than Americans in a few years - putting tremendous pressure on world oil prices. All the factories and industrialization of America is moving to china, and all those new factories we are building over there, all the cars we are selling to the chinese, are going to take a flood of oil needing to be sent to china. Increased demand for gasoline by the US, combined with increased gas by china, means that gas is going WAY higher. Our goal, the goal of United States trade policy, is to industrialize china to where they use as much, or more, oil per capita as we do.



Anyways, the point is, that $4 gas is way too cheap, and most likely $15 gas is also way too cheap - because everyone is using much more gasoline at $4 than we did at 20cents a gallon. The UNited States is consuming nearly ten times as much gas today at $4 a gallon than we used at 20cents a gallon.


In order to reduce consumption, and emissions, and pollution, and traffic, I think we need gas at over $25 a gallon, maybe $50 a gallon - and the sooner the better.

Wow I thought I have seen some ludicrous statements, but this takes the cake. 25-50 a gallon gas? Are you kidding me? The economies of the world would absolutely collapse at that point. I am not sure if we could even afford to eat. Could you grow food in your garden all year long? We would be living in the dark ages for all intents and purposes. Regardless it would never hit that high. Not anytime soon. Once it would reach anywhere near that cost higher priced methods of extracting oil from other reserves which are not practical right would become feasible thereby stablizing price until alternative energy sources can be distributed.

 

[Mr.Pious]

1. People should not live so far away from work, if they dont want to pay lots and lots to fill up their gas tank. Anyone who lives more than 5 or 10 minutes is wasting gas.

There are plenty of reasons to live more than 10 minutes from where you work, ignoring that issue completly however....
You do realize all the tools required to grow food and the vehicles required to transport said food require large amounts of gasoline, correct?
If you charge $15 a gallon food prices would probably multiply by at least 500%, can you afford $20 gallons of milk?

 

[peanutbutter12]

1. People should not live so far away from work, if they dont want to pay lots and lots to fill up their gas tank. Anyone who lives more than 5 or 10 minutes is wasting gas.



2. If people are going to quit because gas is $15 then they are going to quit anyways, because not only are Americans using more and more gas, the chinese are going to be using even more gas than Americans in a few years - putting tremendous pressure on world oil prices. All the factories and industrialization of America is moving to china, and all those new factories we are building over there, all the cars we are selling to the chinese, are going to take a flood of oil needing to be sent to china. Increased demand for gasoline by the US, combined with increased gas by china, means that gas is going WAY higher. Our goal, the goal of United States trade policy, is to industrialize china to where they use as much, or more, oil per capita as we do.



Anyways, the point is, that $4 gas is way too cheap, and most likely $15 gas is also way too cheap - because everyone is using much more gasoline at $4 than we did at 20cents a gallon. The UNited States is consuming nearly ten times as much gas today at $4 a gallon than we used at 20cents a gallon.


In order to reduce consumption, and emissions, and pollution, and traffic, I think we need gas at over $25 a gallon, maybe $50 a gallon - and the sooner the better.

1. People live here because they like it here. It provides a better quality of life than they would get in the city. Unfortunately, small areas means that we need to travel to work. Unfortunately for you, if work in these small areas stops, you will feel it pretty hard in your cities as we're the ones who provide most of what you eat, the coal you use for power plants, and other natural resources that are harvested are done so in areas that take longer than 10 minutes to drive to.

2. Which is why the US needs to start dumping money into alternate renewable energy. Pennsylvania just put up a bunch of wind turbines near Johnstown, which is a huge step in the right direction. We need to switch our focus to renewable energy in all areas and we need to make the change sooner than later. Especially for cars and home energy.

The point is very simply that $15 a gallon gas would not just cause less people to use it, but it would cause world wide disaster for the exact reasons I've stated in my last post. Instead, what would be better is for cities to start putting pressure on their local governments to come up with new and better methods of public transportation so that people use their own cars less.