March 7, 201214 yr I thought I read somewhere recently that overall U.S. oil consumption is down to near post WWII numbers? Also, worldwide consumption has leveled of over the past decade. Someone smarter than me can figure this up, after adjusting for inflation, what is the price of a gallon of gas from1950 compared to now? US consumption is down partly due to the economy being down. Worldwide demand is not down due to the rapid increases in China and other countries that previously were not big users. As far as adjusted for inflation it's about 6x to 7x 1945 prices.
March 8, 201214 yr Gas prices are nothing but a scam. OPEC is a very crooked and deceitful organization.
March 8, 201214 yr Correct. It helps but it isn't the chief culprit.If what you are saying is true then how do you explain what happened in 2008 when oil dropped to close to $40/barrell? Did we use up all the cheap oil in 2 years after? I'm not saying speculators are the all to blame but when gas jumps $.35/gallon over night that has nothing to do with the economy, the lack of cheap oil, or supply / demand.
March 8, 201214 yr If what you are saying is true then how do you explain what happened in 2008 when oil dropped to close to $40/barrell? Did we use up all the cheap oil in 2 years after? I'm not saying speculators are the all to blame but when gas jumps $.35/gallon over night that has nothing to do with the economy, the lack of cheap oil, or supply / demand. You are talking short-term and 10% of the price. I'm saying that while speculators have an impact they're not the reason gas is so expensive.
March 8, 201214 yr The economy will not die from oil dependency, but it could and has suffered from it. The price of goods, because of shipping will increase but it doesn't mean that our economy can't handle it. We just need to make smart decisions moving forward and acknowledge that we've made a lot of bad decisions over the past 20 years and it's not just one area. It's happened across the board but been exploited mostly in our finance/loan area with homes that people couldn't afford and credit that people should've never had. For a long time those practices could get by because when you had a company making billions and losing millions it was okay. But when the economy slows, and their income stops but they keep losing the same amount, well this is what happens. In my mind it's another reminder that we can't put all of our eggs in one basket..... or even a lot of them.
March 8, 201214 yr American's wouldn't have to worry about the soaring gas prices anyway if we drilled and refined our own oil like back in the old days. I realize the master plan of sucking the middle east totally dry of oil so we can sit back on our vast reserves and laugh while everyone else scrambles for oil is the main reason we do not do this. BUT, we have our own oil, we have our means of producing it, so why do we depend mostly on oil that comes half a world away? I guess it could be worst, we could be paying $7.00 + like in Europe, but when I started driving in 04' gas was still just around $1 or so a gallon, a lot has changed since then. I know a couple major refineries got hit during Katrina and you can see a correlation in gas prices in the US from before that incident until now, but that was almost 7 years ago.
March 8, 201214 yr Gas prices aren't going to determine how the economy does. When the economy gets going there will be more worldwide demand for oil to use for manufacturing and transportation. That's what will drive up the oil prices and ultimately gas prices to even higher than today. The problem is that at some point the oil price will be so high it causes us to back into a recession. From where I'm sitting, it looks like this summer is going to see some pretty hefty price increases at super markets. Truckload rates are higher now than they have ever been. Manufacturing is up, available drivers are down. That alone will make the price per truck go up. Now you throw in oil prices and the market rates are going to go through the roof. This will cause the price of perishable items to go up, as retailers and such try to recoup the loss. It's gonna be pretty significant.
March 8, 201214 yr US consumption is down partly due to the economy being down. Worldwide demand is not down due to the rapid increases in China and other countries that previously were not big users. As far as adjusted for inflation it's about 6x to 7x 1945 prices. Fuel efficiency is a huge component of that as well. After the last spike, I'd assume that people went to much more fuel efficient vehicles and/or rediscovered public transportation.
March 8, 201214 yr Whats it really matter, filling up at $100 a pop every 3 days is no big deal, whats another 20-30 bucks a tank, lol.........sigh.....:isurrender:
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