Let me get this right...oil prices have jumped 30 cents or more (for a gallon of gas) in about 2-3 days because of a hurricane. But the prices of plastic, rayon and polyester have stayed the same since, well, forever...plastic, rayon and polyester are all made from oil, from the same ground our precious gasoline comes from. Also, aren't the oil rigs in the Gulf Coast insured? What's insurance for...just to raise the premium on an insurance policy? A person or company pays an insurance company money yet is penalized when one makes a claim? Also, we get a lot of oil from the middle east (we did "win" a conflict over there, right?), and oil from south America and Canada...but still, our gasoline prices skyrocket?

Something does not sit well with this picture. I do not know if it's just me, but something fishy is coming from those Gulf Coast waters - and it's not something which has a fin.

In my own opinion - for whatever it is worth - I think it's simply another excuse to keep raising the price of oil (gasoline), another way to bring us up to par with Britain (who pay about $6.00 a gallon). I mean, Britain has no middle class and no Constitution...we hardly have a middle class and this Constitution that we do have is slowly being dismantled...and gasoline - soon we'll just be called: United States of Europe.

Take my opinion with whatever grain of salt (or a drop of crude oil) you like, but in my humble opinion, something is not adding up here.

Another thing...we have had how many hurricanes from the south in the last 30 years, and oil goes up? I realize New Orleans and parts of Mississippi have taken a serious punch in the gut to the point of seriously disrupting their way of life; but, oil goes up and up?

And what about the oil reserves Bush said he will use...or are these oil reserves only being used for airplanes and Air Force One?

Next, they'll tell you that garbage bags will be going up to $1.00 a bag...or you'll have to (literally) give your shirt off your back (if made from oil) so you can drive your car to work.

Just something is not adding up...but I can tell you one thing for certain, the price of gas is adding up...and up...and up...and up.


Thanks for your time, Edward

1. N.O. is a large import hub, as is Houston for oil that is refined in the gulf states. The hurricane which closed off shipping traffic through much of the gulf caused supply issues in the oil, causing the price of crude to go up due to speculation by investors, which in turn raised the price of gas.

2. The price of other goods that have a base in petrolium will rise, we are not seeing this hike yet as much of the goods on teh market were made well before the oild prices soared.

3. Look into the history of gas prices, they always spike after a hurricane in the gulf region, and through the major part of huricane season due to interuptions in shipping.

4. the oil reserves are being used to send oil to the refineries to help make up for the loss of oil shipments during the disruption, just like Saudi Arabia has offered to up production temporarily to offset the rising price due to disruptions.

try about 50 cents per gallon in pittsburgh PA, between seven p.m. and midnight e.st. last night!!!!! damn!!!!

but... plastics and the others you mentioned, can be made from biomass

the contrived "shortage" was well underway before Hurricane Katrina,but this disaster has given the oil copmanies free license to get even more greedy. I'm betting that even when prices stabilize again in a few months, that we will never see gas for under $2.00 a gallon again. $2.15-$2.35 will probably be the standard price range for the next couple of years after all this subsides.
As a side note, did anyone else see the story on CNN last week sometime that gasoline in Iraq costs a nickel a gallon?
---Ryan

Originally posted by RyanC
the contrived "shortage" was well underway before Hurricane Katrina,but this disaster has given the oil copmanies free license to get even more greedy. I'm betting that even when prices stabilize again in a few months, that we will never see gas for under $2.00 a gallon again. $2.15-$2.35 will probably be the standard price range for the next couple of years after all this subsides.
As a side note, did anyone else see the story on CNN last week sometime that gasoline in Iraq costs a nickel a gallon?
---Ryan

And in Saudi Arabia, a gallon of gas is only 13 cents.

I bet, the prices will remain hovering a bit over $3.00 a gallon, how long, well...try forever. I had predicted that the price for a gallon of gas would be $3.00 by the end of 2005 (in the personal prediction section on ATS). Now I predict, by mid-summer, a price of gas per gallon will be $4.00.

Little by little, nickel by dime, America will reach $4.00 a gallon...for those who have pick-up trucks holding 20-25 gallon tanks, that means, for a fill- up, it will average around $100.00. For those who are poor, who must travel to work, more than 10-15 miles each way, at approximately $5.65 an hour, for a 30 hour work week (as an average), after deducting state and federal taxes, medicare, social security taxes, will leave the worker/consumer somewhere around $25.00 to $40.00 a week. That means, those who are single, whether male or female, will need to work 2 jobs just to pay for the gasoline to travel the distance to one job.

Instead of Bush hovering around in Air Force One above New Orleans, steadily wasting gasoline...he should have been let down into the waters, and walk through the sludge, the disease, the filth of the streets, waist high in crud. But not our Bush, he probably was having shrimp cocktail with Laura Bush while the New Orleaners were only dreaming about one single solitary french fry, salted or unsalted.

You want help, first go to Iraq, then you'll receive all the help you like...but if you're a hard working American in the middle of a New Orleans crisis, consider yourself Mad Max (Maxine) in nothing more than a wasteland.

America the beautiful...yeah right.

Originally posted by 39 drops of solderNext, they'll tell you that garbage bags will be going up to $1.00 a bag

in my home town of worcester, ma the trash bags are $1.00 a piece...and have been for some time!

this is a bit ridiculous though....never has this happened before with any hurricane...but put the product of wealthy oil tycoons in the white house and YEE HAW! enjoy the ride folks....it oughta be a bit bumpy

Originally posted by 39 drops of solder

In my own opinion - for whatever it is worth - I think it's simply another excuse to keep raising the price of oil (gasoline), another way to bring us up to par with Britain (who pay about $6.00 a gallon). I mean, Britain has no middle class and no Constitution...we hardly have a middle class and this Constitution that we do have is slowly being dismantled...and gasoline - soon we'll just be called: United States of Europe.

Edward good post, but I feel I must correct you. Britain has a middle class. A very large one. Huge. Most of England IS middle class. What it doesn't have is such a large abject poor base like America. In the US there is a wide disparity of poor and rich. Not as vast as say South America, but large enough to be disturbing for such a rich superpower.

Britain has its poor like all the rest of the developed world, but the poverty is not the sort that you find in America. Remember, even the poor have social cover - medical, hospitals, etc... it may not be top notch but it exists so that ppl don't starve to death or freeze in the winter.