Are you ready for $4 gas? We are, we live in NYC. You, however, might have a problem. Analysts are saying that $4 is a very real possibility this summer. From CNNMoney:
“I think it’s going to happen,” said Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago. “Unless things change dramatically, I think we’re going to see $4 a gallon.”
“More and more communities are going to see gasoline that approaches or exceeds $4 a gallon,” John Kilduff, an energy analyst at Man Financial in New York, said recently. “Where we’re currently at with prices, that’s a given.”
Naturally, CNN also went out and found a guy who doesn’t think $4 gas will happen, so we can’t be sure what they’re saying is accurate or not….We’re simply left with an uneasy feeling that makes us want to buy things. —MEGHANN MARCO
Get ready for $4 gasoline [CNN]
(Photo:The BH)
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This is a yearly trend, lets scare people and drive up the price of oil for no good reason.
I’m ready for $4 gas, but I’m not ready for the barrage of OMG$4GASWTF stories.
Psst..
This happens every year.
media scare story: OMGWTFBBQ GAS COULD BE $1000 a gallon!!11one!
I could take it. I live in the UK. We pay the equivalent of around $9.00 for petrol.
I think this is a positive step in convincing the government that their energy policy is not in the best interest of the country.
Over the past two years, the weekly cost of my commute to work has more than doubled; from $15 to $32. Is it going to kill me? No. I knew this was going to happen someday.
I wouldn’t have a problem with $3, $4, $6 gallon gas…if the oil co’s were posting record profits. When gas prices are through the roof and ExxonMobile posts the highest earnings out of any company out there, including Mal-Wart, that’s flat-out theft. Overall, unless you want to live in a cave and live by candle light (and even some candles have petrol products in them), you’re a slave to the oil cos.
@radleyas: But everyone knows that petrol is cheaper than gas, since it’s made from recycled tea bags and leftover scones.
@Pelagius:
You know it! I live in hobbiton!
How does one “prepare” for $4 gas? Save up? Buy futures?
I’ve been holding off on these types of stories because most analysts say the spike will happen this month and everything will go down from there. So we’re in the final phases and like others said, this happens every year.
I also agree with FLConsumer.
Historical retail gas prices since ’92:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications…
I’m a huge free market guy but this gas price stuff is really getting on my nerves.
The only thing worse than these stores is the “I had to cancel my family vacation this year because gas is so much!”
Let’s say gas went up $2 a gallon from “normal”. On a 1000 mile trek, assuming 25 MPG, the total “added on” amount would be $80 each way. And if you can’t honestly save up an extra $160 dollars, should you be going on vacation?
The 2nd worse, is the “Don’t buy gas on this day, and the oil companies will become so hurt, that the heads will all commit suicide after they lower the prices for wronging you.”
@radleyas:
While you folks pay $9 for petrol, how much do you drive, on average for the year? I’ve always been curious of that. While the US may get relatively cheaper gas prices, it’s a wash if we drive relatively more.
Any of our UK friends care to fill me in on your driving habits?
JLP: It’s not exactly a free market.. OPEC regulates the supply doesn’t it?
I gotta admit, I’m not particularly moved by this issue.. seemed like a lot at first, then I realized your gallon is what most of the world calls 3.8 Litres. Doing the math, this works out to $1.05 Canadian dollars per Litre. Which is exactly what I paid this morning. And these prices have been here for well over a year if not two.
Why does the price in Canada matter? Well, turns out that the U.S. imports more oil from Canada than any other country in the world. Gas is more expensive in just about every other country in the world than the U.S., and the U.S. imports about half its oil. That, and if you adjust for inflation, prices really aren’t that much different than they were 20 years ago.
Sorry guys, I don’t mean to sound cynical, but you just gotta deal with the fact that it costs money to drive your *ss around town!
Gas can get more and more expensive; I won’t care until it starts changing people’s habits. My husband and I have started carpooling, and will soon add a third friend to our carpool, but it’s more to save wear-and-tear on the cars and be environmentally responsible. We could pay twice as much for gas before we needed to change our budget.
@AnitraSmith: agreed
I would have to put that before your first one. I don’t normally get stories about cutting family vacations because of gas prices in my e-mail. I do take some personal enjoyment in making the sender feel like an idiot by sending them and everybody else a link to the Snopes website about the “gas out” days.
It’s getting to the point that I can’t afford to do anything in my free time outside of my house.
I’ve even had to stop volunteering as much. I can’t afford to drive down that far so often.
The biggest problem I have is its fake, there is NO REASON for the prices to go up, the oil companies shut down their facilities for “routine maintenance” which in turn raises the price, but they have been doing this for years with no proof they are actually doing anything but manipulating their production capability to allow them to raise the prices. Spitzer in NY is the only person in our government who is actually calling to question this practice, after seeing refineries that just came off maintenance shut down again for the exact same reason, a week before the big surge in prices again.
By all accounts from people studying the issue, we should be paying 1.50 at most, even once you lump in taxes and everything else. We are not because the oil companies are manipulating prices to gain record profits, and the government is so in with them that they would never bring legitimate investigations and charges up.
And it doesn’t matter who is in charge. Republican or Democrat we will NEVER have the oil companies held accountable with how paid off government officials are by the oil companies.
Another reason why I enjoy living in New York. If I didn’t read these article meant to scare the American public with threats of high gas prices, I’d never even know how much gas costs. Yay mass transit!
@foghat81:
I must admit that I don’t drive. I don’t even have a car. But most people I know drive a 2 hour commute a day. We’re talking about 60 miles a day.
While I’m lucky enough to live in London, most people don’t.
Oops … I mean 60 miles each way!
It always comes down to supply and demand. The major companies know this. Which is why they bought up all the independent oil companies and shut down refineries, which they claim was because of environmental regulation. Artificially this gives us two choices, pay higher prices for gas, or relax the regulations (unnecessarily). It’s win-win for the oil co’s, lose-lose for us.
Sickening, isn’t it?
@radleyas: Rolled into what you pay for gas is the price of universal health care and other programs that we pay separately for. All the people who say “you can’t make comparisons” aren’t taking that into account.
Sure, gas costs more — on the gas station sign. But when you look at where your money goes every month, you’ll see it in a different light.
I have money taken out of my paycheck every month to pay for my health care. Europeans don’t — they pay for it every time they fill up instead.
Wish people would think before posting about the price differential.
@mopar_man: I listen to a lot of talk radio, and they always seem to find two idiots who say that whenever they interview people for these stories. And I always yell at the radio.
@Buran:
That’s BS. I pay money out of my paycheck each month to national insurance.
The price of petrol and the NHS are not one in the same.
Maybe you should have thought before you posted??
The current Price for a gallon of gas in the US is on average $3.05.
A jump to $4 is 30% increase…that’s enormous.
It’s so large in fact, that nobody has the foresight or quality of information neccesary to predict such a spike. This is purely specualation by the media “analysts” to get quality sound bytes out and to convince local papers to pick up wire stories.
There are so many forces at work in the oil market that it is unreasonable to assume that one can predict such large swings.
It goes to show that TV and news marke analysts don’t have to be the smartest or most informed, just the most communicative… or best looking.
Bring it on. I drive a fuel-efficient vehicle that I’m replacing soon with another fuel-efficient vehicle that can carry five people or easily be converted within five minutes to a cargo hauler by folding down the rear seat and removing the rear cargo cover.
I still cannot figure out why the five-door hatchback seems so hated here. I love mine. The VW GTI coming up this summer will be my third (replacing the second of two Golfs). 25 city/32 mpg highway? BRING IT ON.
Maybe people who didn’t think ahead and who bought gas guzzlers will finally see the error of their ways. Sadly, it’ll have to stay high for a while for anyone to realize they need to change and that yes, really, you’ll have to keep paying this and it won’t get cheap again any time soon.
I also live close to where I work, minimize non-essential driving, have a transit pass courtesy of my employer, and schedule my work hours to avoid rush hour both ways when I drive in.
@Buran: I would really like to see what the break down is in America for a gallon of gas. What goes to local taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, etc.
Cigarettes cost like 7 dollars a pack in NJ, but most of that goes to places OTHER than the cigarette companies due to assorted taxes and levies.
@radleyas: YOU may have a different situation. Just because it doesn’t apply to you doesn’t mean it’s BS.
That’s how it works in all of the UK. I’m sorry if you don’t like the answer.
@GitEmSteveDave: That’d be interesting to see. I believe that where I live cig taxes (“sin taxes”) partly go to fund health care, but I’d have to check. Where I live we have some of the lowest gas taxes in the country, too, which leads to people from the next state over who work here filling up while here, not while there.
I’m sure there’s a site somewhere with this info…
@radleyas: I didn’t specifically mention the UK, either.
Sorry if you don’t like THAT answer.
@Buran:
And for the sake of saying it, that is how it works through out Europe. You did mention Europe, didn’t you?
@radleyas: Tell that to people I’ve heard from who say otherwise.
But I don’t really feel like getting in a stupid argument about this. SITUATIONS VARY, that’s obvious. My point is still valid. So is yours. Enough already. There are better things to do than argue online about stupid things, and I’m going to go do them.
@Buran:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=53654…
This story is about a year out of date, but it’s probably still true for the most part. Explains a lot about how prices are set, why companies are showing profits, etc. And it’s NPR, so it shouldn’t be that biased.
$4 per gallon of petrol? That is nothing.
I have been living in Austria for last several weeks now. The petrol price here is 1.10 Euro per liter. That equal to $5.63 per gallon.
http://www.tian.cc
@foghat81: I drive around 4-500 miles per week.
@buran: I don’t know about the rest of Europe, and I am guessing that you are in the US.
We pay separately for our health care (around 4% of income), plus our maximum income tax rate is 40% which comes into effect around £30k (~$60).
According to the IRS, the maximum US tax band is 35% and comes into effect at $336k. At $60k, a US citizen would be paying just 25%.
Add on to that, the fact that goods from the US are charged at almost a £ per $ (ie. a $200 iPod costs us £200 or almost $400), and the tax burden in the UK is far, far higher than in the US.
The actual value we get for this increased burden is subject to interpretation, but I think most folks who work for a living probably feel that they are getting the short end of the stick.
And in further news look for more record breaking profits at oil companies this year.
It’s already $4 a gallon here for midgrade at some stations(3.97) and a dime cheaper for regular.
Gas prices are justifibily high. The US has an oil embargo on Iran and Iraq’s oilfileds are running at 1/3 tilt. China now makes most of the US pruchaced products and needs oil to do so as well as ship it to us.
$4 isn’t that bad except when you think it WILL be $5 next year.
I’m already trying to convince my father to live out his retirement dream of driving to all the North American stellar obserivitories now. Gas will not get cheaper in the near future until Iran and Iraq stabalize and the US economy stops demanding so many foreign goods.
$4 is a reality in California. I think we’ll get pretty close to $5 this summer.
Meh, maybe it will encourage some people to get out of their cars and try some alternatives.
I personally use my Xtracycle for grocery shopping and hauling kids, and my Crosscheck for commuting.
That average commuter in the US commutes about 5-6 miles one way. This is easily doable by bike.
Hills: I live in Seattle.
Distance: 10 miles each way.
Time: 10 minutes longer than driving. Easily worth it for the cost savings and the exercise benefits.
Weight: I started commuting at 280 lb, in fact I was obese my whole previous life. I’m a reasonable 205 lbs now.
And before any of you post “But I live a bajillion miles away from work!” Well, maybe it’s not an option for you, but please don’t discourage other people from trying it.
@andyj76:
Thank you for that.
Dang – I paid $1 for a pint of bottled water this morning – that’s $8 a gallon!!
Where’s the outrage?
$3, $4, the market will bear it, it’ll complain – politicians will bloviate – but not one of them will talk about reducing the taxes on gasoline.
If biking is unrealistic, electric vehicles may be a good option for you. They get about 110MPG if you convert gas to electricity by price (even better if you convert it by $4, this is by $3 gas). They get about 120 miles of range per charge; the average American only needs 29 miles of range per day. The only problem is that it takes a while to charge, but at the same time you never need to go to the gas station, so it has pros and cons. If you can find a place to plug in while at work, that helps out.
Unfortunately, there are few manufactured electric vehicles on the market. Toyota is planning to release a plug-in hybrid someday, but for now, you can use an EV conversion of a gasoline car or you can let car companies know you would by an EV via mail/etc.
If you need more than 120 miles per day, or you can’t always have an electric source at night, go ahead and buy a gas or hybrid car. It works for most other people, but you are the exception. Don’t bring others down.
@KenyG: Reduce gas taxes? You realize that gas taxes are only a small part of the cost of gasoline, yes? Generally about 25-50 cents a gallon, varying by state.
And that money goes to pay for roads generally, and doesn’t even cover that fully. Should we raise income tax so that we can lower the taxes on gas?
Does anyone else find it appalling that the price of gasoline has more than DOUBLED in less than 5 YEARS?? Where’s the outrage?
@GitEmSteveDave: Thanks for that article. I keep hearing people say “omg gas companies record profits” and I’m pretty sure that the gas market isn’t a gigantic oligopoly.
@GitEmSteveDave: “The 2nd worse, is the “Don’t buy gas on this day, and the oil companies will become so hurt, that the heads will all commit suicide after they lower the prices for wronging you.”"
Laugh!