Gas Prices

[Mellifluous]

This reminded me of the lecture I got from Kevin the other day. He was laughing at me for going out of my way to find a gas station that had cheaper gas - all to save $1.40 on my fill up. It did make me feel pretty silly. I started thinking more about it and then ran across this during my morning news check.

JUST STOP WHINING ABOUT GASOLINE PRICES

My goodness, people! Don't you realize that there are things in your life that you really need to be worrying about? What's all this weeping and moaning over gas prices?

With every single paycheck the Imperial Federal Government seizes about 14% of the money you have earned. This money is put into an income redistribution fund from which you may or may not draw a check when and if you reach a certain age. Die too soon and that money goes to someone else .. not to your heirs. Live long enough and you may .. just may ... get most of your money back, though there is no legal guarantee that you'll get a cent.

Yet here you sit ******* and moaning about gas prices.

We did the math here last week, but let's pull out the calculator again for those of you who don't come here every day.

First, the figures:

According to the AAA, one year ago the price of regular was $2.929. Today that price is $3.114. That's an 18.5 cents per gallon increase over the past year.

Now we go for the average gas mileage for cars in the U.S. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that as of 2004 the average mpg for new cars sold in the U.S. was 24.7. In 1980 it was 23.1. So, to make a point here, we're going to go even below the average price for 1980. We're going to use 20 mpg.

Now ... for those of you who went to government schools, I'll do the math for you. You're driving your family of four 1400 miles to get to Disney World and back. That means you'll be burning 70 gallons of gas at 20 mpg. The gas is now 18.5 cents more expensive than it was last year. Let's go ahead and round that UP to 20 cents. So, we burn 70 gallons and each gallon costs 20 cents more than it cost last year. That's going to cost you an amazing $14.00.

Oh My God! What an incredible tragedy! What a devastating blow to your finances! You're going to have to spend $14.00 more to drive your family to Florida this year than you did last year! That's $3.50 for each family member! How in the **** are you ever going to be able to afford this? Alert your local radio station news department! Call the newspaper! Sound the alarm! Americans are being crippled by these rising gas prices! Call your politician. Something has to be done about the evil oil companies! Get the government involved! We need more regulation!

Oh .. and you people driving to and from work need to be outraged too! Are you doing your share of the whining?

The average commute to and from work in this country is 16 miles. Now of course we know that cars don't get the mileage on a stop-and-go commute as they do on the road, so we're going to lower the gas mileage figure from 20 to 15. So, you're driving 32 miles (on the average) to get to work and back every day. That is gobbling up about 2.13 gallons of gas. Go back to that 18.5 cents per gallon increase over last year and you'll see that you're spending about 40 cents more for gas for your commute this year than you were last year. That would be about $2.00 a week. Less than the price of a decaf skinny latte at Starbucks. A lot less.

Oh, the humanity! You're spending less than the cost of three text messages on your cell phone every day to cover the increasing cost of gas! Tell your boss you're going to have to quit! You just can handle this any more! Get fired! Go on unemployment! Forty cents a day! That's it! Your back is broken!

Come on people, wake up! Your governments -- local, state and federal -- are stealing money from you every single day to fund vote-buying programs. Your local elected officials are ripping you off to study the mating habits of Polish zlotnika pigs. How do you think they feel when they see you griping about gas prices? They LOVE it! They steal you blind and there you sit complaining because you're going to have to spend $14.00 more to drive your family to Disney World and back. They take 14% of the money you earn every day -- money you may or may get back with virtually no interest -- and you're spinning around on your eyebrows because you're spending 40 cents a day more to get to that job and back home again!

[Linda Y]

Whoever wrote that is an idiot.
And probably works for a gas company.
Someone at the grocery store made the comment the other day about what a travesty it was that milk cost more than gas. Oooookay. When was the last time you had to buy 20 gallons of milk at one time? Or use 5 or 6 gallons a day to go to work?
No, my truck does not get 20 miles to the gallon. Prices are skyrocketing as direct result of gas prices. My paycheck is NEVER going up.

[tinomino]

very good point linda. and I know a lot of people who drive a lot farther to work than 16miles. my commute was about 50miles a day until I found out they are transfering me closer as of next week. :D Good thing too. Gas cost me about $70 a week and I have a small car. I can't imagine what you guys who drive trucks are paying.

[JennLM]

I was driving to work in my truck 80 miles each way at 12 mpg on a good day. Thankfully no more but Troy still drive about that each way to work. Gas prices go way up but not the paycheck. Cost of living increase does not help much when much more then gas prices have gone up. (Hay and regular human groceries)

Each year it seems a small backwards slide.

[Monty]

"BUT" - the gas prices are pushing everything else sky high! Been in a grocery store lately ? Or any store ? What did you pay for the same thing last year AND have you had at least a cost of living raise ? We haven't , so have to really tighten the belts !
What are the fuel prices going to do to the cost of feed - since everyone is converting fields to corn and not hay - it has spiked and will keep going up! Add to that - it will cost more to bale hay - more money out the window !
And since fields are corn not hay - supply and demand will add to the increase - Then add in natural disasters!
The corn is going into the gas - everything else will go up that uses corn in the ingredients! And it has all ready ! I had a hard time this winter finding corn oil for cooking - I was told it was in short supply due to being used for gas additive !
Feed is up so, meat is higher !
We are paying anywhere between $3.39 up to $3.49 a gallon !
Bought some plants yesterday - prices for those have doubled or more since last year ! So ,I didn't buy that many and I am putting in more perennial's to fill in certain area's -
It isn't about $14 to go to Disneyworld - it is the cost of everything affected by the cost of fuel! The food on the trip will cost more - and everything else.
With all the growth around here - more stop lights - so, what use to take me 15 minutes to get from points A to B - now takes 30 minutes - IF - I hit all the lights ! So , I am using more gas! It isn't just about the cost of gas - that is only the starting point of price increases!
And we all know - the prices will not come down if there is a drastic drop in the price of oil! That makes me madder than anything!

[CarolU]

I'm with Linda...if it were just SO simple!!

The price of gas affects the price of everything else, because everthing else must be processed and transported. Be prepared. You'll pay more for vets, farriers, hay, grain, tack, groceries, heating/cooling, electricity...everything. The price of the gas to get the goods to you will be tacked on to the price you pay. So it's not JUST the price of gas in your car or truck.

The only positive thing about any of this is that MAYBE some Amercians will start conserving energy...or at least think about doing so. How few people do you know that carpool or take mass transit to work? When I go to the Dr in Salt Lake and sit in the gridlock on the freeway, I look around me and 90% of the cars have one person in them. Apparently gas is not too expensive - yet.

[ASB.Immortality]

I wish that we had other choices around but living in a rural area (yet metro (WTH?!?!) area) we don't have any choices to cut back with. The closet grocery store that carries real food is almost 15 miles, the commute to work is 30 miles (one way), and we have no public transit or anything to that effect.

I can't say the $14 to Disney bothers me as I haven't been to Disney in about 20 years but that almost $100 a week I spend on gas just to get to and from work is killing me. My paycheck just never grows but it seems that everything else does. I believe that if the cost of everything has to be marked up then your paycheck should get a hike also.

[JennLM]

We have no public transportation out here either. Kinda odd when Vegas is only 45 min away, you figure they would have ab us that goes between us and them, but nope.

Driving is our only option out here.

They even got rid of the train that had a hub in Vegas.

[motorgypsy]

Agree the person is an idiot and very likely works for the gas companies. A net increase in my expenses of 18% overall is rather high and lot more than my fixed income gives me and this is what an 18% increase in gasoline prices can do because it impacts everything.

Yes we need to stop government waste but as Ben Franklin said - taxes are a sign of civilized society - a society that is willing to pool its resources so larger goals can be met. I can't pay for an army, build roads, airports, water and waste treatments plants, protect the air quality and environment, protect and inspect our food supply and so on but I'm very happy to put in my small portion of money to help get these things done. This is the reason taxes were implemented in the first place. Not to finances a bridge that goes nowhere or fancy furniture for some congressman.

AND if I find out about anyone wasting my money I will spread the word to the whole world and do my best to make sure this person NEVER gets elected again. An unrealistic goal to get rid of waste??? Perhaps -- but if we all work for it and blow the whistle on the wastrels we can at least help some.

[reuben T]

lets see..........last time i was at disney world was 36 years ago, I think they'd just started that year or the year before. i was somewhere around 5 YO, just barely remember it. anyway, the problem in discussion here is much worse than most people realize, it a case of a few horrendously rich men driving the country, and the world, strait into the worst crash it's ever seen. All for the almighty dollar, (or rather a few zillion of them) cuz if it wern't for their heavy handed control of technology, the whole system of oil corporations would have gone out of business long time ago. All the shipping tankers would be pumping a little bit of water out of the ocean, processing it, and running their engines on it. All the other engine powered vehicles would be either getting 10 times their current MPG running on synthetic 'trash gas', (made from all the landfill trash or almost any other waste matter) or they'd be running on water, or they'd be running on NOTHING, yep! that's been done too, but those money hungry fools are even harder on the nothing guys than they are on the high milage guys. Oh they do their utmost best to convince the world that it's imposible to arrange a bunch of permanant magnets to make a motor that runs forever on nothing, but it's been done. Only trouble is, those who do it are told to hush up right now or DIE. That's a HUGE threat to the sale of energy. They don't even dare tell anyone else how to do it or they would meet an assasins bullet.
I'm seriously considering converting my truck and a tractor to run on firewood for when fuel becomes totally unavailible. So at least I'll have em to haul stuff around the farm and get work done.

[motorgypsy]

Rueben when a person comes up with an invention that would make gasoline obsolete all the gas companies need to do is pay the inventor 20 or 30 million bucks for the patent rights. There's no need to kill anyone. Money talks.

The thing we all forget is that an internal combustion engine can run on anything that will burn or boil water. We really are NOT dependent on gasoline as fuel in that sense. Our cars just don't run well on coal or firelogs. Now just how easy it would be to convert them I really don't know but the pollution problems would be a problem. The hydrogen fuel cells are interesting. I do think the horse is out of the barn and kind of like the internet - if the car companies don't join those trying to get us off oil based fuel for autos they will be left out in the end because too many people are too annoyed about the entire oil thing. The first really good idea on the market is going to make someone lots and lots of money and the rest will join or bite the dust.

[Jane Hurl]

And ... the way cities are built does not help matters. I don't care WHO you are, unless you both live and work in the downtown core, you need a car! It is not feasible to do the grocery shopping for a family and take a bus home with your groceries! It is not feasible to do many things without a car.

If they'd start building citiies in such a manner that your grocery store, department store, dentist, doctor and job were all within walking distance, not only would we use less gasoline but we'd be healthier to boot!