Filled up for $1.78/gallon

[Brucelee]

CA is special, and to think, the nerds here want to INCREASE our gas tax each year.

Thanks loads!!!!!!!!!!

[jmabasa]

I don't get it! Why is gas so much more expensive here in CA?!

[jeffsquire]

Originally Posted by jmabasa

I don't get it! Why is gas so much more expensive here in CA?!

_______________________
Simply put: because you guys are crazy out there.

PS. great picture.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by jmabasa

I don't get it! Why is gas so much more expensive here in CA?!

Don't you guys get paid twice as much as the rest of us????

[Perfectlap]

^ disturbing sig

anyhoo...doesn't matter you'll be paying $3+ a gallon by this time next year.
$4-5 a gallon in two years.

The cost of a gallon of gas is rising quicker than the cost of living and rising quicker than the average worker gets in wage increases.

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

Well, everything is relative. It's just that Gasoline prices impact the psyche more than many other things because it represents a loss of freedom - the freedom to go where and when one wants.

Many other everyday items cost waay more than gasoline, some ridiculously, and inexplicably so, but don't spark the reaction fuel prices do. Some examples:

• Mobil1 - $24/gal
  
  Whole Milk - $3.80/gal.
  
  Listerene - $9/gal.
  
  Bottled Water - $8.72/gal.
  
  Starbuck's - $64/gal.
  
  Orange Juice - $4.89/gal. (and rising)
  
  Diet Snapple - $10.32/gal.
  
  Soft Drinks - $7.04/gal.
  
  Pepto Bismol - $123.20/gal.

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[Perfectlap]

I can do without nearly all of those things...but the engine oil which I only need once a year.

gas is something that you really don't have a choice about. You may save a few bucks by going to different gas stations but if the lowest price to fill your tank is nearly twice what it was two years ago. You are a paying. Or you are a staying home, or taking public transportation (if it shows up, waited 2 hours today).
Everbody else can switch from Starbucks to cheapo instant brand, from listerine to generic supermarket brand, from bottled water to tap water, and make tremendous savings yet still be able to go one with their lives without skipping a beat. Can't do that with unleaded.

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

I can do without nearly all of those things...but the engine oil which I only need once a year.

gas is something that you really don't have a choice about. You may save a few bucks by going to different gas stations but if the lowest price to fill your tank is nearly twice what it was two years ago. You are a paying. Or you are a staying home, or taking public transportation (if it shows up, waited 2 hours today).
Everbody else can switch from Starbucks to cheapo instant brand, from listerine to generic supermarket brand, from bottled water to tap water, and make tremendous savings yet still be able to go one with their lives without skipping a beat. Can't do that with unleaded.

I just changed cars and improved my mileage per gallon by 50%. Also switched from premium to regular gas, save another .20 per gallon.

In the long run, everyone has alternatives. It is the use of these alternative that has resulted in the drop in demand for oil and the drop in oil prices to under $50 per barrel. Simple economic behavior.

BTW-I will take any bet you want on that gas price you pointed to. Lastly of course, the historic price increases on gas has actually been moderate on a percentage basis. Adjusted for inflation, it has NOT been a large issue for many many years. It appears that the last year was a blip. Of course, you do have to strip out the taxes on gas to see the REAL cost, which in some states is nearly .40 per gallon. So, in the example above, the real cost of gas is likley about $1.40 per gallon. Not bad I think!

We shall see.

Next time, read the article and respond with facts, not hype!

[Perfectlap]

question, when crude was last $50 a drum two years ago, how much was a gallon of unleaded? Now that its back to $50 why is unleaded still a dollar more per gallon than it was two years ago?
Are we going to see a a dollar drop in the price of a gallon of 93?

[Brucelee]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

question, when crude was last $50 a drum two years ago, how much was a gallon of unleaded? Now that its back to $50 why is unleaded still a dollar more per gallon than it was two years ago?
Are we going to see a a dollar drop in the price of a gallon of 93?

As the article pointed out, crude prices have plunged quickly and gas prices are following, with some lag.

Regarding the specific price per gallon in your area, look to your state and fed gas tax as a source of discrep. In CA case, we also have our own "special fuel" mandated by state law. Costs more!

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

...In the long run, everyone has alternatives. It is the use of these alternative that has resulted in the drop in demand for oil and the drop in oil prices to under $50 per barrel. Simple economic behavior... in the example above, the real cost of gas is likley about $1.40 per gallon. Not bad I think!...Next time, read the article and respond with facts, not hype!

Hi,

I agree with what you say and found the article to be very credible and informative.

Gasoline, even at it's recent high was still a very good bargain given cost/mi. or Therms/gal. compared to many other possible fuels. We're just so used to paying a historically low price for it, that the new realities are stinging a lot of people.

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

[RandallNeighbour]

When I have a sour stomach, I'd pay $200 a gallon for Pepto Bismol! I gotta have my pink stomach stuff when I feel like

[jeffsquire]

Originally Posted by MNBoxster

Hi,

Well, everything is relative. It's just that Gasoline prices impact the psyche more than many other things because it represents a loss of freedom - the freedom to go where and when one wants.

Many other everyday items cost waay more than gasoline, some ridiculously, and inexplicably so, but don't spark the reaction fuel prices do. Some examples:

• Mobil1 - $24/gal
  
  Whole Milk - $3.80/gal.
  
  Listerene - $9/gal.
  
  Bottled Water - $8.72/gal.
  
  Starbuck's - $64/gal.
  
  Orange Juice - $4.89/gal. (and rising)
  
  Diet Snapple - $10.32/gal.
  
  Soft Drinks - $7.04/gal.
  
  Pepto Bismol - $123.20/gal.

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

_______________________

Alas don't forget Perrier or other high end water bottles. $10 a gallon. Much more depending on when and where you buy it. Even at Walmart bottled water runs about $3.00 for a 12 pack of half liter bottles. WATER, mind you. Water!! The planet's most plentify resource.

[Allen K. Littlefield]

Ah yes Bruce, the Global Warming (caused by American capitalisim of course) story. A computor model shows that greenhouse gasses caused by US mainly, have made the planet warm up and will soon kill us all. I will bet I could make a computer model that would prove a pig is a steam engine but that wouldn't make it so. G.W. is a THEORY. A cursory course in geology will reveal that the plant has cooled and warmed over the centuries, plates have shifted, mountains have risen and fallen, well you get the picture. The ice was one mile thick over here in the Hudson Valley and the debris it deposited created Long Island. All this without evil characters like Wallmart, Exxon, Wall Street and Enron. How could this be? Maybe the activety of the sun had something to do with it? Nah, doesn't fit the political agenda of the Progressive marxists who hunger for control. This anti american trash is pushed in our high schools and colleges but not everybody is buying it.

Enough of my soapbox, just might be able to get my gas guzzleing taxed 986 out for a spin as the sun is shining and I may need to pick up a few cigars (OH NO not Cigars!!). I may even start installing my nice new center caps. We will see.

986geezer

[Brucelee]

As usual, the science of "global warming" is more complex and less dramatic than the popular press or politicials can handle.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

[Brucelee]

An except:



What are the take-home messages:


The temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic, not exponential.

The potential planetary warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide from pre-Industrial Revolution levels of ~280ppmv to 560ppmv (possible some time later this century - perhaps) is generally estimated at less than 1 °C.

The guesses of significantly larger warming are dependent on "feedback" (supplementary) mechanisms programmed into climate models. The existence of these "feedback" mechanisms is uncertain and the cumulative sign of which is unknown (they may add to warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or, equally likely, might suppress it).

The total warming since measurements have been attempted is thought to be about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At least half of the estimated temperature increment occurred before 1950, prior to significant change in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Assuming the unlikely case that all the natural drivers of planetary temperature change ceased to operate at the time of measured atmospheric change then a 30% increment in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused about one-third of one degree temperature increment since and thus provides empirical support for less than one degree increment due to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

There is no linear relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature or global mean temperature trend -- global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising.
The natural world has tolerated greater than one-degree fluctuations in mean temperature during the relatively recent past and thus current changes are within the range of natural variation. (See, for example, ice core and sea surface temperature reconstructions.)

Other anthropogenic effects are vastly more important, at least on local and regional scales.
Fixation on atmospheric carbon dioxide is a distraction from these more important anthropogenic effects.
Despite attempts to label atmospheric carbon dioxide a "pollutant" it is, in fact, an essential trace gas, the increasing abundance of which is a bonus for the bulk of the biosphere.
There is no reason to believe that slightly lower temperatures are somehow preferable to slightly higher temperatures - there is no known "optimal" nor any known means of knowingly and predictably adjusting some sort of planetary thermostat.

Fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide are of little relevance in the short to medium term (although should levels fall too low it could prove problematic in the longer-term).

Activists and zealots constantly shrilling over atmospheric carbon dioxide are misdirecting attention and effort from real and potentially addressable local, regional and planetary problems.

Remember: Water vapor and carbon dioxide are major greenhouse gases. Water vapor accounts for about 70% of the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide somewhere between 4.2% and 8.4%. Much of the wavelength bands where carbon dioxide is active are either at or near saturation. Water vapor absorbs infrared over much the same range as carbon dioxide and more besides. Clouds are not composed of greenhouse gas -- they are mostly water droplets -- but absorb about one-fifth of the longwave radiation emitted by Earth. Clouds can briefly saturate the atmospheric radiation window (8-13µm) through which some Earth radiation passes directly to space (those hot and sticky overcast nights produce this effect - that is greenhouse but has nothing to do with carbon dioxide). Greenhouse gases can not obstruct this window although ozone absorbs in a narrow slice at 9.6µm. Adding more greenhouse gases which absorb in already saturated bandwidths has no net effect. Adding them in near-saturated bands has little additional effect