Another Weekend, Another Record Gas Price

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Reuters   |   April 20, 2008 08:07 PM


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U.S. drivers are paying record prices to fill their gas tanks and they could see prices surge as much as 30 cents more per gallon over the next few weeks, according to an industry analyst.

U.S. average retail gasoline prices hit a record $3.4737 per gallon on April 18, up 15.66 cents from the April 4 average, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

Higher driving costs come at a tough time for U.S. consumers, who are already struggling with higher food prices, a slowing economy, job losses and sinking home prices. In addition, surges in gasoline demand during the peak driving months of June, July and August and higher costs could force motorists to cut back on their vacation travel plans, or reduce spending in other areas.

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June 28, 2000

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

''I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply,'' Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. ''Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.''

Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.

''Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies,'' he said.

Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: ''The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' ''...

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:46 AM on 04/21/2008

Gasoline = Freedom, Freedom = Gasoline, Go out and pump some freedom into your cars.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:18 AM on 04/21/2008

Something has to be done. NOW! This is what you put a man whose family made their fortune in the war profiteering and oil business in the White House. Plenty of war (based on lies) and gas prices up the ass. Even though Exxon made an $11 BILLION dollar profit last QUARTER. Plus, Exxon, Chevron and the boys are poised to get a lion's share of the Iraqi oil. Why do you think the U.S. is building super bases in Iraq? Why do you think Bu$h & Cheney want a fight with Iran? To keep us over there for a long time, to protect the oil for their buddies and to keep the cash registers ringing for Blackwater, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, Raytheon, Lockheed, Bechtel and others. Gas was $1.41 a gallon when Dumbya became President. Now it's $3.50 where I live, and it's worse out west. In private business, Dumbya's "leadership" put his oil company Arbusto out of business, and he is doing the same to our country. By the way, one of the investors for his oil company, was the bin Ladens. Small world huh? The Bu$h family and the bin Ladens have been doing business for decades. But the sheeple have no idea. In the debate, ABC was talking flag pins, instead of gas prices. The MSM needs to be all over this stuff. So does Congress. But nobody is doing a thing. Just like the past 7 and half years.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 05:15 AM on 04/21/2008

Newsflash: its the EPA, your state EPA for starters. Next its supply and demand.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:37 AM on 04/21/2008

And another chance for more record oil company profits.

They could make a new movie... "If we charge it, they will pay."

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:00 AM on 04/21/2008

The headline sounds like the title of the theme song for the Bush Presidency.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:36 AM on 04/21/2008

This is the inflation Ron Paul was warning about...but stupid people prefer to vote for wedge issues than someone honest who knows what he is doing. Its too bad people still believe the media when they tell you who is good to vote for, its all a sham,

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:28 AM on 04/21/2008

Pretty soon you won't be able to buy gas for any number of US dollars. The suppliers will want Euros or Yen, or (gasp) gold and silver. Iran and Venzuella are already taking the lead on this. Once Saudi Arabia overthrows the puppet regime they won't sell their oil for US dollars either.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:20 AM on 04/21/2008

Gold and silver is REAL money....people better be buying it while the paper dollar is worth anything.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:26 AM on 04/21/2008

Yes. I was being sarcastic which is not a good idea when typing.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 03:43 AM on 04/21/2008

Oh sorry, I was tired. You are right.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:45 PM on 04/23/2008

I believe that the weak dollar is inflating a short-term oil bubble that will burst, but there's no question that the price of oil will increase exponentially in the long-run, doubling every 6 years or so, until its distillates are no longer viable as combustion fuels.

It's a good thing our energy bill hardly includes any investment in developing thermal, kinetic, and optical renewable energy sources; modernizing the electric grid; and advancing electrochemical/electrostatic energy storage. Because fossil fuels will last forever, GHG emissions don't threaten humanity, we can distill the world's entire agricultural production to satisfy a fraction of energy demand, and the 10% efficiency of the water/hydrogen/water cycle makes my leg tingle like Chris Matthews. Or not...

Meanwhile, the global economy is more likely to crash because of food or water shortages in the developing world rather than energy shortages in the developed world, and the central ideological question is about whether market capitalist economies can control population levels without fomenting revolutions or whether governments should either control population or redistribute wealth to maintain social order.

Welcome to the Saturation Age, where there's simply not enough natural resources to match the supply of labor or the demand for commodities at these high and exploding levels of population and production efficiency, where return on investment takes a back seat to return on consumption, and where the central bankers lose control of a macroeconomic climate constrained by resources rather than capital.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:18 AM on 04/21/2008

google ' water power vs gas Fox News" interesting stuff......

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:41 AM on 04/21/2008

This government needs to set a CAP on gas prices NOW!!!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:30 AM on 04/21/2008

Can't happen, you import:) Time to use less or save up.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:27 AM on 04/21/2008

Fucking hedge funds! This is a cash grab, a parting shot of the last gasps of the Bush regime. Take the money and run! Anyone who vote Repug this year should be institutionalized and stuck with a much higher tax bill to off set cost to the people who never voted for these assholes..

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:16 AM on 04/21/2008

A guy I see occasionally at work told me that Bush/Cheney are the only reason gas is going so high.

I asked him what happens when Obama becomes President.

With a strait face he earnestly told me that gas will go back down to about $1.85 per gallon. When I asked him why that would happen he told me that he had heard that Bush and Cheney are personally taking a profit off the top of every gallon of gas.

When I asked him how he came by this info he said he read it on Kos and heard something about it on Air America.

I shit you not!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:50 PM on 04/20/2008

I remember being told back in 2000 that we needed to elect an oil man to the White House so that he could keep the price of gas down. How's that working out so far?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:25 PM on 04/20/2008

I remember back in the fall Hillary made a prediction the gas prices would drop in half if she was elected (When it was about $90 per barrel).

BTW, did you slap this guy? The only way gas touches $1.85 is if we nuke China & India so they don't have any people to use the fuel.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:56 PM on 04/20/2008

In last week's debate, both Clinton and Obama said that when they became President that they'd investigate the oil price gauging. Why isn't that being done now???

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:30 PM on 04/20/2008

$4.00 per gallon?

BRING ...IT ...ON!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:41 PM on 04/20/2008

In Australia we are now paying AUS $1.50 per liter, still more then you guys.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 02:04 AM on 04/21/2008

This is a good thing. The higher gas prices go, the more people will car pool, use public transportation, drive less, and switch to more efficient vehicles. I ride a motorcycle and get over 40 MPG on regular gas. People will add solar/thermal/wind power to their homes. In the short run, people will conserve by using their heat and air conditioning less.

The economy will solve the Global Climate Change issue. And, by converting more and more corn and soy beans to bio fuels and driving up food prices, people will eat less meat and other foods that consume extreme amounts of energy. People will eat less in general, lose weight, and be more healthy.

I'm looking forward to the day when gas is $9.00 a gallon, like in Europe!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:23 PM on 04/20/2008

BeachBummer wrote:

"I'm looking forward to the day when gas is $9.00 a gallon, like in Europe!"

You must be rich, elitist, and completely insensitive. Seniors who are living on fixed incomes, especially in rural areas are really being hurt by high gas prices and high food prices. It's always the poor who suffer the most.

Bio fuels are the idea of the lame and stupid. Using foodstuffs as an alternate energy source is immoral and unethical. As long as there are humans who are undernourished on the planet conversion of food to energy should be closely regulated.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:27 AM on 04/21/2008

The high price of food is squeezing the poorest nations who have to import food to feed themselves. Americans have no shortage of food whatsoever at the moment. When food prices go up poor people go hungry, rich people don't lose weight.
Less effective sources of energy (like solar/thermal/etc) will be used more though since they will be less uncompetative.
High prices can only be seen as a good thing if what you want is to have less, and pay more for everything. If you think about it, every one of us could choose to use less and pay more even if prices were low. But no one does, because no one really wants that. Not much choice in the matter now though.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:12 AM on 04/21/2008

Amen brother,

Pain is weakness leaving the body! The sooner it becomes unpleasant for most people to pay for fuel, the sooner real solutions will begin to come out of the woodwork. We shall soon be living in interesting times ...

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:58 PM on 04/20/2008

What will be coming out of the woodwork is a bunch of broke ass leeches asking for government handouts.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:02 PM on 04/20/2008

That too, of course but some enterprising people will use their talents to find a way to make a profit by solving the fossil fuel riddle.

So far every time OPEC saw that there was too much pressure being injected into the US economy by fuel costs they backed them off so that oil would always be the cheapest and easiest form of fuel to use.

This time they may not be able to control it as easily because of true global demand combined with a really weak dollar.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:13 PM on 04/20/2008

If you thought poverty was a problem now, $9.00 gas would end this entire country . . . but that is probably what you are looking for anyways right?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:07 PM on 04/20/2008

It will end this country as we know it but it won't end this country. There are plenty of ways to have a decent life without everyong having a 2 ton vehicle.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 12:14 AM on 04/21/2008

You're ignoring the $30,000 in national debt per person here. Who pays that off?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:16 PM on 04/20/2008

We do, with hyper inflated dollars. It only costs about 4 cents to print a $100 bill, virtually nothing to type dollar amounts into a bank's computer. All that debt is easily paid off once the federal reserve destroys the value of US dollars.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 01:15 AM on 04/21/2008

No one when were all broke, is there an international Chapter 11 :)

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:20 PM on 04/20/2008

Get ah rope!.....................

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 09:11 PM on 04/20/2008

W says: I hadn't heard that. I hadn't seen that. I hadn't said that.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:59 PM on 04/20/2008

Agree with you 100%.........and it will be China who we will be fighting

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:56 PM on 04/20/2008

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:27 PM on 04/20/2008

The sooner gas goes to ten dollars a gallon the better. It's the only way to get people to invest in, develop and use alternative renewable energy. The sad fact is, they won't do it until they are forced to. Cause them's too dang dumb.

"Renewable energy is national security."

**

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:17 PM on 04/20/2008

Hilarious, please tell me anything good that would come out of $10 gasoline? Food prices through the roof, massive inflation, economy may just sink into a depression and that is what you think is good?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:06 PM on 04/20/2008

Good things about $10/gal gasoline:

1. No more SUVs - they are too inefficient and their time is past.

2. We get a decent mass transit system - wouldn't it be great if you didn't even need a car? I suppose you will whine about how hard this will be to do, like going to the moon or defeating Japan and Germany at the same time.

3. From 1 and 2 above, we get not to fight oil wars any more. Tell the Saudis where to go!

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:34 PM on 04/20/2008

We HAD decent mass transit systems in most cities up until the 1950s when they tore up the trolley tracks. It's not like we'd be trying to do something that has never been done before.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 11:59 PM on 04/20/2008

Mass transit system? LOL. A 12 mile light rail in Minnesota costs over $1 billion dollars and loses money every year.

I want a car, I like being able to come and go as I please. I live in the suburbs and would never think about living in the city because I like having a yard and don't feel like getting shot.

BTW, why are SUVs so evil?

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:44 PM on 04/20/2008