Merged: So...how 'bout them gas prices? / $3.09??!!

[dman]

On a related note and without going political, President Bush has ordered a probe into the gas prices, although this is likely going to be political lip service.

[LoganBuck]

On a related note and without going political, President Bush has ordered a probe into the gas prices, although this is likely going to be political lip service.

Yawn, so did Clinton back in 2000 when the price hit (insert gasp) $2.00.

I can warn this, diesel fuel is just as expensive as gasoline, and while farmers don't have to pay the highway taxes, they are starting to go to the fields. The price of their fuel is going to impact your wallets, or if it doesn't your stomachs next year when they have been run out of farming.

[Caveat Emperor]

On a related note and without going political, President Bush has ordered a probe into the gas prices, although this is likely going to be political lip service.

It's all political lip service until they get their tracking polls out in the field and find out that gas prices are high on most Americans "list 'o concerns" on a national level.

One party or the other will figure out a way to play this up and make an issue out of it. Then it'll move from political lip service to hot button, attack ads, election fodder...and then back to political lip service again.

Words like "investigation" , "proble" , "price fixing" and "gouging" are going to be in everyone's common vernacular this time 6 months from now.

[KronoRed]

Vote for me..I'll lower gas prices

Krono for Congress

[OldRightHander]

I can tell you about feeling the pinch. We have three vehicles, although one doesn't get driven that often. My wife commutes 30 miles one way to work. We put over 30k miles on our Sonata in the first year we owned it. We have a Corolla that neither one of us likes to drive much, so it sits there most of the time. In the evenings, I am a financial advisor, having to drive to clients' houses and what not, and during the day I drive our cargo van for an expediting company. Between my wife driving the Sonata to work and back during the day and me using it to meet clients in the evenings, we rack up some serious miles on that car. The real killer is the van. It costs over $70 to fill the tank in that thing and I go through half a tank a day. So on average we spend over $200 a week in gasoline. Last week we spent about $275 because I did a couple out of town runs and ran up some serious miles. It's nothing to log over 1000 miles a week on the van and probably 300 on the car. When the gas prices go up, something else has to be sacrificed, usually eating out, but we can't cut back on the gas consumption unless I quit the daytime driving job which supplements my other work rather nicely. If gas gets too expensive though, I might have to consider trading in the van for something with the same cargo capacity but with better mileage. I don't know if there is actually gouging going on, but it's rather frustrating nonetheless.

[RBA]

Deleted.

[RBA]

Deleted.

[registerthis]

Supply really isn't the problem. All the crude in the world does no good when you don't have the facilities to refine it. According to this week's US News, here in the US we are still 25% below normal refining capacity due to plants being shut down from the hurricanes last year.

That's very true, which is why I don't understand why companies that are raking in excessive profits hand over foot don't re-invest that money to develop additional refining capacity.

Oh, that's right, it's not in their economic interests to do so. Never mind, then.

[registerthis]

And if I were your Vice President, I would call in the leaders of energy industry to write our new energy policy.

Hey now, be fair RBA. How's a lil 'ol company like ExxonMobil supposed to fund their own exploratory drilling when they're only bringing in $40 billion in profits per year? It's not fair to place that burden on them. tax breaks for all!

[Puffy]

The real issue should be this - car manufacturers have the technology to make all cars, even SUV's, more gas-efficient. If they wanted to they could mandate all new cars sold must get 30 mpg minimum.

The reason they won't do that is because it would make car companies have to pay to develop this new technology and because oil company lobbyists fight on the car companies side because they don't want more fuel efficent cars cause it will cut into their profits.

So you have two large groups, both xtremely powerful, who won't let this go thru.

Make cars more fuel efficient and get working on other energy sources. Thats the solutions we need - but we won't get them til things get much worse then they are now.

[westofyou]

Look up in the sky.... it's a bird, it's a plane....

It's THE DECIDER!!!

[macro]

A talking head on TV last night said that prices would have to reach at least $4 per gallon before demand leveled out, and that we'd have to see $5 before people starting taking drastic steps to reduce their consumption.

[savafan]

I've seen it written where if every gas consumer would cut their usage by as little as 3%, it would be enough to raise supply and lower demand so that a decrease in price would be necessary.

Sad that it will never happen though.

[savafan]

On a related note and without going political, President Bush has ordered a probe into the gas prices, although this is likely going to be political lip service.

Put the heat on 'em

http://www.ksbitv.com/home/2689681.html

[OldRightHander]

What percentage of the price per gallon is made up of taxes? What is the government's "profit" on the gas sold. I would venture a guess that it's more than 40 billion.