$5 gas

[Tallulah]

Gas Outlook: ‘Most Painful Year At Pump Ever’

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/01/13/gas-outlook-most-painful-year-at-pump-ever/

I don't care about the comments. That does nothing for me. All I know is $4 - $5
gas will hurt.

Everyone is stretched to the breaking point financially. This will devastate families. I'm afraid.

How will these gas prices affect you should they come to fruition ?

[NYC_SKP]

1. I paid $5.69 in December in California.

Big Sur, Pacific Coast Highway.

Bullshit.

[hlthe2b]

2. Tallulah? Tallulah? What are you doing posting on DU--get off my laptop!

Sorry... but my doggy girl is Tallulah and that's the first thing I thought when I saw your screen name pop up. LOLOL

She's just about smart enough to do so--too!


Oh, and on edit... WELCOME to DU!

[Tallulah]

8. LOL

That's cute. And thank you for the welcome.

I see someone posted the same article earlier. I finally get the nerve to post an op then get embarrassed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Well we have caught cookie putting USB ports in and out

and talking on the Mike... ok screeching on the push to talk....

And Tallutah welcome to DU

[hlthe2b]

37. makes you wonder what they do when we aren't around...

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Oh I don't want to know

as hubby says, if we do not leave them in their rooms, aka cages, they will call for pizza.

[spanone]

3. i think it's called election year projecting....and bullshit

[totodeinhere]

4. I tend to agree with you. And here where I am gas prices are lower than thye've been in a while.

Of course international events out of President Obama's control could spike gas prices. If that happens I hope that the voters are intelligent enough not to blame Obama.

[orpupilofnature57]

6. No one will blame him for prices ,But

they will blame him for any facilitation of Oppurtunists that thrive, on events out of his control.

[Tallulah]

11. blaming doesn't help

it still won't make the price lower or affordable.

[orpupilofnature57]

14. Nor does bigotry ,religious fanaticism , or homophobia

but like Blame it happens ,and when your at the top management job ,culpability is what makes people believe in a Leader ,and making those he can, culpable.

[kenny blankenship]

29. Threatening war against Iran is driving oil up

That is well within his control, unless you're hawking the old line that "he's just powerless and has to do whatever the neocons tell him."

[Tallulah]

9. How I hope

it is bullshit because if it isn't, I'm up shit creek.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. To & fro thats where the money woes go

And anyone that doesn't take the number of the beast, $250,000 a year or your out ,Financial selection.

[liberal N proud]

7. That could be one way to kill an economic recovery

And in an election year?


Hmmmm!

[Tallulah]

10. thinking of the people

this could kill. No drama queen here, the choices are to eat or ride. Some
people won't be able to do both. Everything will go up.

[onenote]

12. $5 gas, invasion of Iran, Jeb Bush running for president, stock market collapse

All predictions that regularly appear on DU (and elsewhere). While eventually any and all may occur, the track record of these prognostications thus far is pretty dismal. (While some people may have paid $5 for a gallon of gas sometime in 2011, the peak average was around $4 and change.)

[bhikkhu]

13. No effect personally - I bicycle to work and most places

...except for one trip to the grocery store a week and some miscellaneous kid-related errands. Maybe an extra $10 a month.

Back in 2008 when prices got high the first time we went down to one car and I switched to bicycling. There's been no "trade-off" or downside to it - the rides in to work and back home are the best parts of the day still, I'm much healthier now, and the money saved has balanced our budget and made many other things possible.

[orpupilofnature57]

15. I have since july ,I only work 4 miles from home..

and can also see a difference in my health and wallet.

[Zalatix]

17. Your grocery costs will go up, big time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. What? It takes gas to move my potatoes from farm to shelf?

You willy wabbit....

[Zalatix]

22. Perhaps not where you live, IIRC. And honestly I think that may be a good thing for America.

IIRC you live in a place where food production is more decentralized and local, or was that another poster?

We need more of that in America, seriously.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Agreed, I decided not to use the sarcasm thingy

but yup.. when apples come from oh Chile...

[Zalatix]

25. BTW how is it down there for fair weather folks?

I'm a temperate fellow, anything under 30F or over 90F drives me to the heater/air conditioner.

I hear equatorial summers can get a little... hot.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. I got no idea,I am not from Chile

but it is not quite equatorial. Some sections are actually further "north" as in the same latitude but the other side of the world, as Canada

[bhikkhu]

23. Not at all really, but that's another story

Like I said, three years in now so its all good, but grocery costs didn't go up. If anything, I found that my appetites changed in that real food tastes better and I eat much less processed and preprepared stuff. I can't stand greasy and salty food anymore - no eating out - and I do all the cooking for our household from good basic ingredients.

As the simplest example, I used to get up in the morning and make a big pot of coffee, served with cream and sugar, and eat a bowl of some sort of "healthy" cereal. Now I don't care for coffee much anymore and cereal just tastes too sweet - instead I fix a bowl of plain oatmeal (which always seemed tasteless before) with milk, which tastes great and is sufficient until lunch.

I do have a fairly physical semi-outdoors job, so calorie requirements were high anyway, but the change in tastes was away from expensive packaged stuff and toward good basic (and affordable) cooking. Along the same lines - I used to have a glass or two of wine after dinner every night, but the last couple of years I quit that as it just didn't feel good anymore. A little "tipsy" might still be nice, but its quickly followed by a little weak and a little sickly, which I have no use for at all. I think my liver just decided it has no time for that sort of nonsense anymore...

[onehandle]

27. Higher gas prices drive up the prices of everything. Especially food.

So, yes. It will effect you personally.

[bhikkhu]

28. Yes, I forgot about that aspect

I suppose our food bill has gone up about $50 a month in the last year, just from things costing more. And I suppose it will only go higher...

[Zalatix]

31. It's exactly what I was saying. Grocery bills = food bills.

[jody]

16. What if the $5 gas was from US wells and refineries. That would be a Buy America policy and all

revenues would remain in the US.

We could then block all textile goods and automobiles from other countries forcing citizens to buy US clothes, US cars, and $5 US gas to drive down less-crowded interstates.

[Spider Jerusalem]

43. Problem with that: the US produces slightly more than 5.5 million barrels of crude oil per day.

Factor in natural gas liquids and corn ethanol and domestically-sourced US fuels come to something like 7.5 million barrels a day. The US uses 18 million barrels a day. There's no way to make up the 10 million barrel per day shortfall with domestic production.

[frazzled]

18. I live in Chicago: gas is currently around $3.79-$3.89 per gallon

http://www.chicagogasprices.com/Map_Gas_Prices.aspx

Chicago has consistently had the highest gas prices in the country. But what is this shit about: "Gasoline prices couldapproach $5 a gallon by Memorial Day and stay a record levels for much of the summer, according to a forecast by GasBuddy.com."

Excuse me: this is not news. They could; they could not. Pigs could fly. Monkeys could fly out of your butt.

Are we really going to have a discussion about what could happen (or not) five months from now, based on something called "gas buddy"? C'mon folks, this is not a rational basis for conversation at the moment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Oh if things go where they are pointing to in the ME

five bucks... that is cheap...

No, I am being serious here... and it will have a depressive effect on the economy.

[lunatica]

30. I started ride sharing to work because of the cost of gas and BART

It's much cheaper to help pay for another person's gas and it cuts down on so many cars on the freeways. We all seem to be happy doing it.

[ErikJ]

32. KEYSTONE PIPELINE;--to send gas to China

Big oil wants the pipeline to Houston to refine it to gasoline to ship to China. They are doing this because the demand is soft in the US and THEY WANT TO KEEP THE PRICES HIGHER so they are sending it to China.

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. Oil from...Canada

why shouldn't they sell it in China if there's a demand for it? Americans don't have a god-given right to cheap oil. Global demand is near ninety million barrels a day, even if it is down in the US.

[zbdent]

33. Notice that the "liberally-biased media" won't remember

that gas was under $3 a gallon under Obama just before the 2010 mid-terms ... and (at least locally), within two weeks of the mid-terms' results, gas jumped 30 cents a gallon ... and, under the control of Boner, has gone on to never look back at $3/gallon?

[DefenseLawyer]

34. I remember the good old days when the oil companies bothered to give a reason

for higher prices. You know a war or a refinery fire or hole in a pipeline or changing ""blends" or blah blah blah. Now they don't even bother. A couple of days ago gas went up here from about $3.25 to $3.65 in a day. No reason given, no news reports not even a go fuck yourselves, although I assume that is implied.

[SheilaT]

35. It will have minimal effect on me.

I only get gas about every other week.

There are almost always stories about how every time gas prices come down a bit, or the economy improves a trifle, Americans go back to buying large gas-guzzlers. These stories go back twenty years or so, if I recall correctly.

My city, Santa Fe, NM, does not have very good public transportation. Whenever I relocate somewhere else, it will definitely be somewhere with good transport. Depending on where I'd wind up, I might even give up a car altogether, which I'd actually like. In my early 20's I lived in Alexandria, VA and for seven years did not own a care. This was before the Metro subway system was opened, and the bus system was quite useful and usable.

[jwirr]

36. Several of my family drive to work. One could stay with family for her shift closer to work but the

other will have to make some other arrangements. One works in a hospital and the other is a in home RN. She works weekends. It would mean finding ways of staying closer to work during their shifts.

[SomethingFishy]

39. Other countries have been paying that much for a long time..

But yeah it's gonna hurt, and not just at the pump. At the airport, the grocery store, retail stores.

On the bright side the 1% won't feel it at all...

[taterguy]

40. Other countries have viable transportation options

After World War II we assumed that oil would always be cheap and plentiful and structured our society accordingly. (Oops)

We've subsidized automobile usage so much that other choices don't make economic sense for the consumer.

If I wanted to go to DC it would cost me $60 in gas. AMTRAK would cost $150 and take twice as long. This is why I-95 occasionally resembles a parking lot.

Even if we wanted to retrofit our society to something more rational I'm not sure we could.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. I just paid $6.39/gallon in Japan

I try to keep driving to a minimum and consolidate trips (by, for example, buying groceries on my way back from work). I also bicycle around town when the weather is agreeable.

[Mosaic]

42. Time to buy an electric car

Better for the pocketbook, better for the earth, better for our lungs, and easier. Quality of life, that is what the future is all about.