Gas Strike

[Tyche]

Demand has nothing to do with the gas prices, lol.

Is this a serious statement or are you really that ignorant?

Let me paint a picture and not just call you out. Let's imagine that we drop gas prices to $1.50 a gallon starting tomorrow. The demand will increase and increase and increase until we don't have the supply to meet the demand. That means we have to drive the demand down. How do we do that?

Gonna go out on a limb here with a basic economic assumption. I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone.

Let's say we abolish the ($.18) tax levied on gas. Wouldn't that drive the demand up enough that the market will push the price back toward equilibrium, essentially only lowering in the short run before it goes back to what it would have been. Then if they wanted to reapply the tax, the price would spike and demand would go down and be driven back down toward an equilibrium price.

[Olo401]

Demand has nothing to do with the gas prices, lol.

And neither does supply at this point. The prices are being overly driven by speculators, just like the prices of all commodities are at the current time. The only real supply and demand involved in the equation right now is pure greed.

Personally, I sold my car back in 2003 and I've used a combination of public transit and foot power since. I've only recently got a nice street bike. I didn't do it out of a environmental desire - I did it because I had a feeling during the months before the invasion of Iraq that it was motivated mostly by the same greed. At this point, it looks like a good choice, I've saved thousands of dollars and it's been great for me health-wise. Plus I get to laugh at all the morons driving those giant SUVs.

[SephYuyX]

Gas will go up atleast another 50 cents (probably a dollar even) by the end of the year. When the new president is in office, gas will shoot down 2$

Mark my words.

[TacoTaru]

Personally, I sold my car back in 2003 and I've used a combination of public transit and foot power since.

I envy you If I wasn't 30-40 minutes away from all my required places of visit, I'd do the same. I'd resort to public transit, but in my city a 20minute drive can take up to 3hours or more.

[Dmitry]

Just let the white people think they're making a difference. It's what they like.

I'll do my part as a poor college student and not fill up til monday, which'll be two weeks on $15 of gas somehow

[Senji]

Demand has nothing to do with the gas prices, lol.

Is this a serious statement or are you really that ignorant?

Let me paint a picture and not just call you out. Let's imagine that we drop gas prices to $1.50 a gallon starting tomorrow. The demand will increase and increase and increase until we don't have the supply to meet the demand. That means we have to drive the demand down. How do we do that?

Gonna go out on a limb here with a basic economic assumption. I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone.

Let's say we abolish the ($.18) tax levied on gas. Wouldn't that drive the demand up enough that the market will push the price back toward equilibrium, essentially only lowering in the short run before it goes back to what it would have been. Then if they wanted to reapply the tax, the price would spike and demand would go down and be driven back down toward an equilibrium price.

Demand by the average US citizen has nothing to do with the gas prices when taking into account the weak dollar, china, india, and greedy bastards, lol.

fixed

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Demand has nothing to do with the gas prices, lol.

And neither does supply at this point.

I think supply would matter if it was foreign supply. It doesn't matter though, Nancy Pelosi has a common sense plan that will lower gas prices for all Americans.

[shihei]

Some speculators are predicting gas to hit $8-10 a gallon by the end of the year.
I bet it will hit $5/gallon by mid-summer atleast. That's just $1 off from most places as is now.
Gas is one of those things we all know will run out one day and these oil tycoons want to squeeze out every penny they can.
(If you buy gas you are supporting terrosim)



It's a trap?

[Churchill]

Demand has nothing to do with the gas prices, lol.

Is this a serious statement or are you really that ignorant?

Let me paint a picture and not just call you out. Let's imagine that we drop gas prices to $1.50 a gallon starting tomorrow. The demand will increase and increase and increase until we don't have the supply to meet the demand. That means we have to drive the demand down. How do we do that?

Gonna go out on a limb here with a basic economic assumption. I'm sure I'll be corrected by someone.

Let's say we abolish the ($.18) tax levied on gas. Wouldn't that drive the demand up enough that the market will push the price back toward equilibrium, essentially only lowering in the short run before it goes back to what it would have been. Then if they wanted to reapply the tax, the price would spike and demand would go down and be driven back down toward an equilibrium price.

Are you really that ignorant? lol. Gas is a government invested and subsidized program, on top of our shitty foreign policy - that's what makes gas prices what they are. Do you think there's less gas or more demand in the US now than 4 years ago? 6 years ago? Do you think that the market can't keep up with the growth there has been? They pay people to predict this kind of shit, it's called business Hi, welcome to the world. I know you took a high school economics class and you think Bill Clinton saved the economy but there's more to what's going on than that.

Look at the price of the dollar and the inflation gas has taken vs. that over the last year. Then do some research about corn and wheat production in the US, and the government subsidizing corn for alt. fuel R&D. (For that matter, take a look at the cost of rice made in asia vs the cost of rice made in mexico) Then take a look at how much (now, finally goddammit) foreign imports are being marked up. (See: 30% and more in some cases) Then take a look at the price of food in relation to the current inflation from say, a year ago and factor in gas prices. Then take a look at how much diesel is rediculously overpriced than gas. (Killing an industry?)

Long story short, comrade beckwin aside (he's full of hope rite) the dollar is going to be worth nothing, say hi to the amero and many industries going to the people's republics of mexico and canada.

[Tyche]

Is there less gas than there was 4 and 6 years ago? Hmm....Maybe they're spending billions in trying to dig to the bottoms of the gulf for the fun of it. Is there less demand? No, Hybrid cars don't exist, people still drive V8's like they were going out of style just like they were back in the early 90's. Then again, you said they simply "print" money to pay out stimulus. You are brilliant.

[Koga]

I am on 'E' and going to fill up today.

[Ramor]

I am on 'E' and going to fill up today.

woo same, although i suppose i'll have to steal a car for it to work.

[Turambar]

I'm not buying gas today, but that's only because my tank is nearly full. I'm sorely tempted to top it off, just out of spite though, because this kind of Internet activism just doesn't work. So a few million people don't buy gas today -- so what? They need to buy it eventually, so the entire effort is wasted. If all these people were actually selling their cars, it might actually mean something.

[Beckwin]

hahahahah, the economic conservatives are turning on each other.

this is when the proletariat will rise!

but seriously, oil is a foreign commodity so the weak dollar is contributing to rising prices. Not to mention it is a highly speculative market as well (whenever OPEC sneezes the prices fluctuate, or any major foreign policy incident occurs, people talk about how it will definitely affect gas prices). On top of all that, the industry is excessively profit driven and simply knows it can get away with raising prices in the summer because people use more gas/need the gas more then (trips, nicer weather, etc) to where even though the overall demand doesn't increase that much and the supply is still there, they've manufactured an excuse to jack up prices.

Eliminating the gas tax for the summer is absolutely fucking retarded; prices will drop for a week and then they'll go back to normal, with the oil execs and speculators citing some bullshit "reason" for it; end result is they essentially pocket the money they would've normally had to pay the government, which is money that could be used for social programs/contract work that would stimulate the economy rather than sitting in off-shore accounts or buying caviar, wine, and fancy European threads for some exec asshole.

So what do we have in the end? Extremely wealthy capitalists taking more and more of your labor by exploiting a market that you currently have a need for (just to get to work to do your labor, more often than not).

[Demosthenes11]

i just want to know where our cheap gas is if we went to war for it

Fuck, at this point I'd say let's go to war if it drove gas prices down to around $2

[Katlan]

Only thing that I don't like is that we are sitting on a giant oil reserve that we/citizens can't touch...

[Demosthenes11]

THINK OF THE SQUIRRELS YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD

[Tyche]

hahahahah, the economic conservatives are turning on each other.

this is when the proletariat will rise!

but seriously, oil is a foreign commodity so the weak dollar is contributing to rising prices. Not to mention it is a highly speculative market as well (whenever OPEC sneezes the prices fluctuate, or any major foreign policy incident occurs, people talk about how it will definitely affect gas prices). On top of all that, the industry is excessively profit driven and simply knows it can get away with raising prices in the summer because people use more gas/need the gas more then (trips, nicer weather, etc) to where even though the overall demand doesn't increase that much and the supply is still there, they've manufactured an excuse to jack up prices.

Eliminating the gas tax for the summer is absolutely fucking retarded; prices will drop for a week and then they'll go back to normal, with the oil execs and speculators citing some bullshit "reason" for it; end result is they essentially pocket the money they would've normally had to pay the government, which is money that could be used for social programs/contract work that would stimulate the economy rather than sitting in off-shore accounts or buying caviar, wine, and fancy European threads for some exec asshole.

So what do we have in the end? Extremely wealthy capitalists taking more and more of your labor by exploiting a market that you currently have a need for (just to get to work to do your labor, more often than not).

Not dissmissing anything you say, as I agree with most of it, I was just pointing out the obvious flaw with saying that demand doesn't have any effect on prices, when it does, and vice versa. What I do ponder, and we've all heard it all our lives, is that gas consumption and demand increases in the summer. Why? It isn't because we drive more, because I'd be pretty god damned confident that the extra vehicle consumption is vastly overweighed in the winter months by heating for homes and business that have gas furnaces (which is still a whole lot).

[Beckwin]

I think it's the idea that people want to drive more during the summer. Family trips, outings in general, hell just drives for the hell of it. I mean in winter when your roads are iced over you don't say to yourself "I'd like to go for a drive today!"

Same reason why the summer is when most of the blockbusters come out. It's just kind of a psychological thing, maybe.

[Khamsin]

I rarely fill up anyway, I work 10 min from where I live.