Gas prices soar!

Yesterday morning when I stopped by the local convenience store for a coffee I went to the register to pay out and the lady said "Did you get gas?" and I told her no. She yells at the other clerk and asks her who had been getting gas. Some one had just drove off and not paid for $48 worth of gas!

Man o man.

ya better ask your boss for a raise if you drive because in the afternoon today on my radio station i heard them say exactly,

"is is very possible for gas prices to reach $5.90 even over $6.00 a gallon by this JUNE/2006. and there is no end of the rise in sight."

these prices are creeping me out...

Ugh… More zero-sum, Marxist nonsense.

Ok, admittedly this is a somewhat unintuitive notion, but try to use your brain. Any economist will tell you that all commodities have an infinite supply. Yes, that’s right, an infinite supply. How can this be?

Consider: What is the supply of Vermeer paintings? Strictly speaking it’s 36, but everyone who wants one AND can pay the price can have one. Therefore the supply precisely meets demand and the supply is effectively infinite.

As the supply for a given commodity falls behind its demand, the price rises. As the price rises demand decreases and consumers seek alternatives. If ME oil were $10,000 bbl what would the demand be? Not too much. And at $10,000 a bbl all kind of alternatives become practical and profitable.

That is not to say there won’t be some pain as the market supplies alternatives. However, any price control solutions would only lead to shortages and delay the transition to alternatives.

Why won’t price controls work? Consider the Vermeer example. Let’s say the Government decided that sellers of Vermeer paints were “gouging” the public and mandated that they could not be sold for more than $100. If you owned “The girl with a pearl earring” and you wanted to sell it, what would you do? You’d take it off the market or you’d sell your painting where you’d get the fair market value. So you wouldn’t get your money and people who want your painting wouldn’t get it.



[edit on 26-4-2006 by El Tiante]

A persistent and apparently widespread urban legend.

El Tiante,

I remember the days of .35 cents for a Gallon of Gasoline. Paying over $3.25 is simply insane.

While Peak Oil may seem like a fairy tale, try and explain to others that can no longer afford to buy Gasoline that we will never run out of it.

I think Mopeds would be a good investment. I live just 2 miles from my job and ride one to work. Lately someone stops me and ask to buy it, and where I got it almost every day. They are getting in such high demand I'm almost afraid to leave it in the parking lot for fear of someone stealing it.

A friend of mine recently purchased a 50cc scooter for his commutes. He looks ridiculous riding it, but he is saving a fortune on gas.

I have also noticed that local businesses are stocking scooters. Until this year, we have never seen scooters here, particularly at the hardware store where these are offered. Can any member here say that he/she has ever seen motorized scooters sold at his/her local hardware store?

One good thing has come of increased fuel prices - people are doing what they should have done 30 years ago. They are buying smaller cars, motorcycles or mopeds or scooters, and they are making more sincere attempts to conserve fuel.

It is a shame that it took higher gas prices for people to come to their senses.

El Tiante,

Not so much the urnban legend as we might think. Right now Hybrids are breaking the 100+. See:

www.redherring.com...

I am sourcing Valid infor on fuel injection cars in the UK and hope to find you info regarding 50 to 70 MPG. Have patience.

Sigh..

Can I really be the ONLY person on this site that understands global economics..?

[im] bigpicture.typepad.com...[/im]

No, you are not the only member here who understands global economics. But you are leading the field in condescending posts.

Ahhh, at last the great American dream is gonna go up in gas! Tch! Tch!
Why don't you guys learn to live more frugally? Too flashy by the mile! Wanna have everything BIG! Including your huge obscene energy requirements-200 times more than developing countries!!!
But just wait a little more. When hell xplodes at Hormuz. The price of oil is gonna touch $150 a barrel! And then?

Then lets see who goes out on weekend vacations in their flashy sports/multi utility vehicles-the great gas guzzlers and status symbols of the western civilisation.
BUT, the binge is gonna be over sooner than later.
Start enjoying the hikes!

AND who's to blame for this mess? Need I tell?
And this, guys, is turning out to be the biggest of conspiracies in recent times - the artificial hiking of world oil prices by western oil cartels, raking in the Billions!!
And those B@#$%^*S are laughing all the way to the bank.

Cheers!! Enjoy the screw till the cows come home.
Because without a doubt, we are all too impotent to do anything about it.
WE ARE THE BIGGEST SUCKERS.

Lets raise an oily toast to the cartel.

If prices rise much more (a dollar or two), there will be more people stealing gas than paying for it. Drive-offs are up across the country, it's especially bad in the northeast according to local retailers.

Even the big chains can't protect their pumps.

If gas is 5 bucks a gallon though, there will be real monetary incentive to hijack tanker trucks, and then it will be chaos. The national guard will have to protect shipments and probably stand watch at the pumps.

Maybe this seems ridiculous to some, but every time the price rises, more and more people decide to break the law, either out of necessity, or out of some false sense of entitlement. Then again, food prices are through the roof compared to fuel (the former rises much faster in terms of real cost), and I don't see any supermarket bandits in the news.

So I don't know what the deal is.

Good grief. Gass is only 2.71 here in Missouri.

I drive a big ol burb. I would love to drive one of those scooters around, but cant fit 3 kids, and a bunch of groceries on a scooter.

One of the things that concerns me is that if the gas goes over $3 the schools will stop all field trips. That will totaly suck for the kids. If it does go to $5 - which I just cant see it doing that - watch out for taxes going up. Someone has to pay for the gas for the school busses, road crews, and all those fancy govt. cars.

I know out on the west coast, most of the pumps where I live are all prepay. What is being noted is that all of the pawn shops are getting more and more business, as many people are having to pawn off items to fill their gas tanks. Myself, it looks like I will be bussing it. What I am afraid off, is that if the prices raise too much more, the tendancy for violence by people will increase. And most of the gas station employees have nothing to do with gas prices, but will have to take the brunt of the abuse.

West Caost. Bay Area, $3.09 to $ 3.35. I heard that in LA it hit 4$ I am hoping that's just BS.

Break out the 5 Speed Schwin StingRay and dust er off... Or find a cheap moped.

Drive offs are up accross the country? These gas stations don't have security cams to record license plate numbers?