Re: Welcome to the world of gas at $5.16 / gallon

From: msnbcnnbcbs@hotmail.com
Date: Fri Sep 12 2008 - 11:12:22 EDT


In article <48CA8435.4010006@bleazard.net>, dml@bleazard.net (Jason Bleazard)
writes:
>
>
> (Because I'm lazy, I've just copied and pasted my latest blog rant here.
> Enjoy.)
>
> So, yesterday the price of fuel in our area was $1.237 / L (that's
> $4.675 / US gallon). Today, it's $1.366 / L ($5.163 / gal). It spiked by
> 12.9 cents / L at midnight (48.8 cents / gal). No, the price of oil
> hasn't gone up that I know of, but the gas stations are using the excuse
> that it *might*, because there's a hurricane moving towards Texas.
>
> We were among the fortunate who learned about this before it happened,
> but just barely. We happened to hit the evening news by accident while
> changing channels around 11:30 last night. We were all ready for bed,
> and just wanted to watch a few minutes of TV before turning in. The
> news, in their standard fear-mongering Chicken Little way, made sure
> that we all knew that this price spike was coming at midnight.
>
> So, on went some clothes and away we went to the nearest station. The
> tank in the truck was over half full, and it only took 37.797 L (10
> gal). We really only saved $4.88 by making a midnight run to the
> station. Minus however much fuel we burned by driving over there, of
> course, but it's not too far away. It's the principle of the thing.
>
> I think I was the last one at that station who managed to get the
> Thursday price. After I finished pumping I looked up and saw the numbers
> on the sign spinning like the wheels on a slot machine. The price spike
> wasn't supposed to happen until midnight, but they did it at 11:49 PM. I
> could see the pimply-faced jerks, er, employees of the station through
> the window. They were getting huge laughs from watching the reactions of
> people on the security monitors who just drove up expecting to get
> gouged at one price only to discover the new price now included 10% more
> gouging than it had just a few seconds ago. I checked some of the online
> news sites, and apparently some other stations got so caught up in their
> gleeful gouging spree that they just couldn't wait any later than 11:30
> to apply the "after midnight" price.
>
> Five years ago, if you had told me that I would be thinking of $1.237 /
> L ($4.675 / gal) as the *cheap* price, I would have said you were
> insane. Now I'm quite convinced that it's the entire world that's insane.
>

And Yet oil is approaching 100$/barrel. Some are predicting 80-90$ barrel in a
few months. It will be some time (if ever) before we see sub-3.00/gal again.

There are a lot more "unpleasant" realities that we as Americans are going to
have to get used to. I won't get into them, but if you see how the world is
changing (hint: Russia, failing banks, etc.) they are pretty easy to figure
out.

I wish us all luck for the future...



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