The national oil reserves are there for one purpose and one purpose ONLY. Its purpose is for national emergencies. We are not having a national emergency and even if gas prices went to $5 a gallon it is still NOT a national emergency.

Clinton did it as a “feel good” measure, it had very little to NO affect on actual fuel prices. If Clinton wanted to be a real man and lesson the pain he simply could have repelled all federal taxes collected on fuel purchases and that would have dropped the price of a gallon of gas much more then any release from the national reserve ever could…

 

Rocky, the point many of you miss is gas prices have been incrementing up for years now. I don't know where you live, but here everytime they mention oil on the news, the gas goes up. Just a little over 2 years ago, I was paying $0.99, $1.09 and $1.19 for gas. Slowly it started incrementing upwards, it went down in 2004, but only back to 1.59, 1.69 and 1.79 repectively.

Now it's $1.89, $199, $2.09 up from $1.71, $1.81, $1.91 on Friday.

So, you guys can "pretend" to be unaffected all you'd like- but unless you are a millionaire- or have no other bills, you notice changes. I have two full-sized trucks and I spend $60 and $47 a week on gas ($107.00 a week for gas on both trucks.) That comes to $428.00 a month. That's at $1.71 a gallon. If it goes to $2.50 a gallon, my monthly cost for gas will surge over $500.00~ so, you're damn right- I noticed... When I got these trucks, it was only costing me about $200.00 a month to keep them gassed up.

Hey, everyone has an opinion- but the truth is- a slow f*ck is still a f*ck, no matter what we want to name it... Meanwhile, Exxon/Mobil boast of two straight years of record profits... Well, no sh*t!!!

 

True, it had little effect on the price of gas (We saw a 10 - 15 cent drop here) but it sent a message to OPEC, and all of a sudden production increased and the price of gas decreased. Journey back with me, if you will to early 2000 when gas went to the prices they are now and higher. After Clinton's "gesture" all of a sudden prices dropped by half.

Real man? Bush "ain't" doing nothing to prevent OPEC's rape of the American citizens. Is that being a man?

 

You know what? I can afford to pay higher gas prices, if the price can be justified. The cost of crude oil is only a small part of the cost of a gallon of gas. Gas prices should not double just because crude prices have doubled. If the oil companies are making record profits, the price cannot be justified. Period! My truck gets about 11 mpg. I drive it every day. I'm not breaking open the piggy-bank for change to get me to the next payday. I just don't like being taken advantage of. If some of you guys don't undertstand that, too bad.


I'm all for Capitalism; but, given free reign, corporate interests and the bottom line always come first. That's why the government has to step in, on occasion, to pull them back in line. If not, then we would all be working in sweat shops and owe our souls to the company store.

 

Odin, some people get it, some don't- and some simply can't or won't. I'm not giving up my truck anytime soon- but damn!

These are the people that I'd like for cellmates if we were to ever go to prison. People that simply accept being raped and lives with it- without fighting or having anything to even say.

 

The truth is, OPEC is just the little guy that gets to go first. The big hitters are further back in the gang-bang line.

 

Whether he is from Texas or Arkansas, the President of the United States has very little to do with the supply and demand of oil and gas in the US.

Several things do have a HUGE impact on what you pay at the pump:

1) Air quality regulations have resulted in various fuel compositions being required for different regions. The gas I buy in my region is illegal to sell in yours, and vice versa. This prevents the makers from efficiently supplying the demand for fuel and results in absurd prices in some areas.

Eliminate specialty fuel requirements and prices will drop within a matter of months. Would it harm air quality? Probably not - lots of junk science was use to force the requirements down our throats at the expense of the economy.

2) Lack of refining capacity. It is virtually impossible to open a new refinery in this country. The old refineries are wearing out and demand is increasing. Looks like a recipe for rising prices to me.

3) Growing demand in other markets (China & others).


Get ready for $3.00/gallon being the norm in CA this summer. The writing is on the wall.

 

For the first time in my life, I'm considering packing up and moving to Peru...

Average per gallon price: 17 cents.


RP

 

National cost of living has averaged an increase over the last 20 years of about 4% a year!

Average cost of gas has increase over the past 2 years has been 50% per year...

Average wages earned increase over the past 20 years is little over 5% per year.

Average wage increase over the past 2 years "NOT 50%" per year!



But I agreee with the taxes too...Since I dont get an actuall pay check I pay my taxes every quarter. You don't want to get me started here.... I don't know who the HeII this Fica dude is but he takes a lot of money from me every quarter! The little SOB....

 

it's not all OPEC, it's an overall trend in the global market. Not ever country that exports oil is an OPEC member. We get more oil from non-OPEC countries than we do from OPEC members, but the difference is very small, about half and half basically.
A little tiny bit more than half from our OPEC sources comes from the middle east. The rest comes from Nigeria and Venezuela.

We import more oil from canada or mexico than we do from anybody else, including Saudi Arabia.

My data is a few months old (from december '04) from the Department of Energy. Here's a link for some interesting reading:


oil imports by country

Gas is going up. Thing to do is bend over, suck it up, and at least pay your $3.xx per gallon to Sunoco. At least it's going to friendly people...

 

P.S. Some act like they only buy gas for thier vehicles, thats great! But some of us have to buy gas to mow our lawns = 5-7 gallons a week. Weed Eaters = 1/2 gallon week. Chainsaws to cut wood = 1 Gal. +/- per Cord. Last year price of gas on the lake got to $4 a gal. it would cost $80 to fill up my boat on the lake. So I would fill it up on the way. Then if needed more I would load it back on the trailer and pull it to a land station. Since it burns 30 gallons per day just to play on the water...I didn't go play as often due to the price... I have even seen times when I would consider if it was worth getting on the tractor to do some misc. work to the property. "I like to play on my tractor" Taking my play times away reduces my moral and does not make me happy! Almost all of my toy are gas powered...Then some people buy gas to heat thier homes, water, and/or cook. There is even more money out of thier pockets.

Just out of cureosity it's really non of my business... But how long does anyone think they will beable to afford gas if it continues to raise 45% greater than thier wages are increasing?

Plus there are other ramifications to the economy that the gas prices affect... Better start saving some money because if this is a clue to what is going to happen this summer when gas prices historically tend to soar. Then we are in for a wild down hill ride!

Edited to add....
I'm not rich...BUT I have not gotten where I am by throughing money away nor letting people take advatage of me!

 

Well, I respectfully disagree that it sent any message to OPEC. OPEC knows if we open up our national oil reserve here it means we buy a little less oil from then in the short run. However OPEC also knows that when our national reserves are low or empty we have to come back to them to buy more oil to fill up our depleted reserves.

Basically, our national oil reserves are nothing more then a very small safety net in case OPEC or any other nation that sells oil to us decides to stop selling it to us. It gives us a little time to decide what we have to do, either begin drilling again here in America or look else where for an oil supplier.

Your statement about sending OPEC a message is like saying if you stop buying gas from your normal supplier (gas station you always go to) is sending a message to them to lower their prices or else.

Well, your local gas station knows you only have a few 5 gallon jugs full of gas and when you use that up you will have to visit them again to buy more. So in other words you really have sent no message at all because your local gas station, like OPEC knows there is not much you can do about it and in the end they will still have sold that same amount of gas (oil) to you so you have saved nothing and didn’t hurt them in the least.

Again, all Clinton did was for show and to make people feel good for a short time. Other then that he did nothing. What the tax payers don’t realize is that Clinton’s little stunt of “feel good” actually cost us all more money because when they had to fill up the national oil reserve, from the oil he took for “feel good” it cost more for the oil…

 

In the words of Johnny Horton....

 

I really do not understand that above quote. Are you saying you favor America going to war with Middle Eastern countries and then occupying them so we can take and have as much oil as we please?

I could be wrong, so please correct me, but are you not one of the people who does NOT support Americas political interest in the Middle East as per the war in Iraq?

See, in order for President Bush or any other President to be a real man in your eyes would mean occupying a few Middle Eastern countries so we can supply ourselves with endless supplies of oil.

Other then that there is NOTHING a President can do other then government intervention of our fuel companies here in America. They can take a socialist approach and regulated all fuel companies with price controls. We know what happens with price controls they pave the way for less quality and less supplies. I can feel confident in predicting that if we ever set price controls on our fuel supplies, oil, natural gas etc that there will either be lines and/or cost us much more money then it now does.

That is how it always works out. Regulation cost us big money and not just in the price we pay but the reduced and/or eliminated atmosphere of competition.

You want to substantially lower fuel prices then lets start building nuclear power plants like there is no tomorrow. This would curb the use of natural supplies to heat our homes and power our lights. If everything in our homes is electric and it is all powered by nuclear power stations then we are not using up oil and natural gas.

Why not get someone to invent a way to make big rigs run off electric motors powered by some type of nuclear device? Navy ships and subs are powered by nuclear, so why not big rigs and busses?

There are a lot of options but none, I repeat NONE that the environmentalist wackos will ever accept…

 

Well we know PSS-Mag is not an environmentalist. Damn!!! He is one of the main reason we have global warming and high gas prices. Stop sucking up all our gas!!!!