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If you worked a 40-hour week for the full 52 weeks in a year at the $1.60 rate, that would come out to $3,328 ($64 per week). At $1.80, it works out to $72 per week.
The average income in 1972 was $5,409. The average cost of a home in California was $28,000. The cost of gas was $.35 per gallon.
The 2005 estimate for income is $42,000. The average cost of a home in the USA in 2005 is $264,540 (in California it was $445,000). The average cost of gas is around $3.00 per gallon.
Well that's what the far right keeps telling us.
Rocky
Lots of this kind of stuff to be found here
It looks like gas is indeed more expensive relative to income now...not that anyone should be surprised.
:confuse:
Rocky
$120-$300 a square foot is sickening and needs to be corrected. All these owners are doing is renting a house that they shouldn't be in.
Rocky
P.S. Gas is $2.79 at most places in town, but Walley world is selling it at $2.75 a gallon minus gift card which will get down to $2.73
Yeah, the oil companies would never do anything wrong. And they deserve $2BN in American style socialism while at the same time recording astounding profits.
The speculative real estate market will collapse, in time. Besides, those real estate profits are turned into SUVs which use lots of gas. Win-win...well, for some.
Any bets for Memorial Day weekend? $3.50?
Rocky
Working as a telephone technician in 1972 I made $8.55 per hour. I could not qualify for a house in a good neighborhood. I rented for years until I had enough saved to put the required 20% down payment.
If they rose gradually, $3/gallon wouldn't be so hard to swallow.
Movie tickets didn't rise to 10 dollars overnight.
LONDON -- David Graham pulled up to the gas pump in his shiny black Jeep with a "for sale" sign taped in the window.
Graham, 48, a London building contractor, pointed at the price on the pump -- the equivalent of $6.62 a gallon, which means it costs him $125 to fill his tank. "That's why this is for sale," Graham said. "I can't afford it anymore. I have to walk everywhere. Things have gone mad."
As Americans contemplate the misery of a summer of $3-per-gallon gas, drivers in Britain and much of Europe look on with a resigned jealousy. Taxes and rising crude oil prices have created some of the world's most expensive gasoline on this side of the Atlantic, where a family car is deemed more of a luxury than a necessity and many people rely instead on extensive public transportation networks.
But even in Europe, where consumers have long been paying pump prices double -- or more -- those paid by Americans, there is alarm over climbing fuel costs.
Many motorists are driving less and altering their daily habits for shopping, vacations and other routines, according to interviews and opinion polls. Many airlines, delivery services and other fuel-dependent businesses are passing increases on to consumers through higher prices or taking deep profit cuts.
Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's energy commissioner, warned last weekend that high oil prices were "destroying economic growth" in Europe.
Drivers in 11 European countries pay an average of more than $6 a gallon, according to Britain's AA Motoring Trust. "We have always looked upon you Americans with a lot of envy" about gas prices, said David Williams of the trust.
Williams said taxes account for about 66 percent of the pump price in Britain -- so of this month's average price per gallon of $6.40, about $4.22 goes to the government.
U.S. drivers pay an average of about 46 cents per gallon in combined state, federal and local taxes, according to the Tax Foundation in Washington.
http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/AUTO01/604300399/- 1148
That can't possibly come out cheaper, can it?
i dunno if the bedford-fill was 91 or 93 octane, and don't know if it really makes any difference between 91 & 93.
- maybe nothing
- maybe a 15% mpg loss
- maybe a noticeable power loss
- maybe some pinging & increased engine temp.
none of these things should damage the engine at all if it is operating properly. the hotter the weather, the more likely you would be to notice symptoms of low-octane. feel free to give it a try and do the math yourself to see if it is worth it for your particular vehicle. even if there is pinging, it shouldn't hurt anything. but imho if you do hear pinging with hot-weather-acceleration, bump the octane back up to whatever is necessary for no pinging.
we've run our turbo volvos on 87 octane. i think the volvo engines are so weak that i don't notice any power loss. thousands of miles of mpg-testing indicate zero mpg difference between 87 & 91 in volvo v70 2.4T & xc90 2.5T .
in my experience, GM LT1/LS1/LS2 V8s apparently do suffer 15% loss with 87 octane, but they are so absurdly powerful that the power loss is barely noticeable if at all.
give it a try with your particular vehicle and let us know what you observe!
In older cars, you can still get the pinging and clattering, and that's definitely a sign that you need to run a higher octane (or maybe try something to clean the carbon out of your combustion chamber and valves).
I've only owned one car that absolutely demanded 93 octane. That was a 1989 Gran Fury that was an ex-police car and had a (relatively) high performance engine. It ran fine on 93, but would get a bit clattery on 89. On 87 it sounded like a Diesel. :surprise:
I've had other old cars that, due to their age and mileage, would get a bit clattery on 87, but just bumping up to 89 was enough to do the trick.
On late model cars designed for premium unleaded, you get better performance with premium because the computer can advance the ignition timing more until ping is registered, than it can with regular unleaded. The engine should not ping at all with 87 or 89 either - the timing will be retarded and performance and mileage will suffer. Running any turbo car on regular unleaded is not the best idea. Not only you lose performance, but also mileage, so you save nothing at all.
State College pretty much at $2.95, although this morning one place dropped to $2.91
Northern NJ prices I saw were pretty much $2,87 - $2.89
1) There was no fear that in the forseeable future, all new movie releases would be cut-off due to some incidents
2) There weren't 1000 people queing up outside every 100 seater movie hall kicking and screaming to get inside
3) The comparison is ludicrous
Once again, ECON 101 might help if you really want to understand things instead of talk about pitchforks and revolution (incidentally countries which went after such 'lofty' ideals of money to all and communism are in suffering in trash and surviving at the support of 'capitalist' nations).
Lets say you are at a country fair and there are 4 lemonade carts (and thats all). Its a hot day and everyone is very thirsty. Suddenly there is news that there will be no more lemonade supplies (because the supply truck broke down, lets say). So all the very thirsty people are trying to get the lemonade and they are ready to pay more. The more the thirst grows and the less the lemonade left, the more the people will be ready to pay!
So the lemonade dude will make a 'massive' profit margin. Why? Because people will pay!
Now lets say the place was overflowing with lemonade and it was a cool day. Would people be ready to pay anything? No! Could the lemonade people charge $20 for a glass? No coz no one would pay!
Now blow this whole thing up a million times, throw in 100 countries , thousand of traders and make lemonade oil. That is exactly what is happening. I have seen some TV personalities and talk show hosts say 'how come are oil companies raking in record profits?' They are because people are ready to pay them more! If people buy less gas, they will not be able to. If they controlled the market, why wouldn't they have kept the price above $3 constantly for the last 3/4 years? Why would they not make it $10?
Apologies for the really low level example but some people here seem to have a weaker idea about supply-demand than sixth graders!
Ohm btw gassed up my rental at the Dulles airport Exxon yesterday, $3.03 regular. The Altima 2.5S was horrible, it returned 21mpg on the highway :mad:
90% of the U.S. economy is stuck with no choice BUT to put fuel in our cars to get to work(and keep our jobs), to move stuff around(like food and stuff you buy), and protect ourselves(police on bicycles and a tank you have to push hardly qualify as effective).
So the cycle of supply and demand breaks down. Even if the oil companies raised the prices to $100 a gallon, 50% of the U.S. economy would have no choice but to pay. There is no alternative available to our heavy infrastructure unless you want to start growing yoour own food and start paying $60 for a T-Shirt after every major department store chain goes under.
Every single person in the U.S. could stop driving and it wouldn't make a dent in what we use for commercial uses.
I'm just amazed that the oil companies didn't figure this out decades ago. They could charge anything they want and like Europe, we'd still have to pay it.
Premium in northern california is only 91 octane. it is about $3.39 now....
For practical matters...it is slightly above 92 octane.
But no 93 octane . If a batch of gas is 93 octane...the refineries mix it in with 87 octane to make it 91 octane... there is a formula that they use....so that they can maximize profits.
People need to go to work. But each individual does not need a 5L 350hp V8 engine to go to work. People need carpool kids once a week but that does not mean maintaining a gigantic vehicle (the size of buses in some countries) and drive it around. You need to haul stuff from home depo once in 2 months. That doesnt mean maintaining a monster truck. You need to be safe on the road but you dont need to drive an armoured tank for that.
Of course, if gas is cheap and demand is low, you can do all of the above. Also, if you are rich you can do the above and more. But when gas prices go up, these wasteful activities will go on a gradual decline. When gas prices start pinching, people will realize that there isnt much loss in not maintaining a truck but renting it out. They will realize that if they need to haul a boat 10 times a year, they can rent a perfect truck/SUV and get done with it.
That is the beauty of demand/supply. And it is currently in play all around. The very fact that there are forum like this alive with discussion and people ARE actually cutting down on wasteful activities shows that demand/supply is in full play. Many people at work have started carpooling. Remove taxes/give rebate checks and what will you achieve? The prpices will go down, people will go back to their wasteful/wishful/indulgent activities and prices will go up again and we will be in the same situation all over again.
And you contradict yourself. If demand were inelastic to price (that is the ECON 101 term) as you argue, why is oil NOT alreafy at $5? Whay was it languishing at $1.3 for such a long time?
And ya, no one charges anything they want. They dont drive V8s and monster 10 ton vehicles in europe. 120hp cars do regular duty at lower accident fatality rates and higher speeds than here. So people DID change behaviour and clearly gas companies are not making extra money. Once again I highly recommend ECON 101.
May be interest only loans or even worse, negative ammortization loans are scams. But who is forcing anyone to take them? No one is required under law to agree to an interest only loan. Its a choice. You can buy a 2 bed simple apartment at a reasonable mortgage payment or buy the expansive 5 bed mansion and use an interest only loan (because the reality is that you cannot afford the mortgage on it). Who is at fault here? Who is living beyond his/her means? Where is the scam.'
Blaming others is so easy. I see furniture stores selling stufff at ridiculous prices with a low monthly payment tag. But what surprised me is that people actually buy that stuff at those ridiculous prices even when they dont need it. Who would you blame here? The furniture company would be nowhere is someone didnt but that stuff. They didnt force anyone to buy it! :confuse:
If all buyers thought $300 a square foot is sickening, it wouldnt be $300 per sq foot
Once again, the price a buyer agrees to pay is personal. And an aggregate of thousands of such buyers creates a market price. Thats the free-est economic system in the world proudly at work right here.
Of course, you could go the communist way. The government would set fixed rates for property. But when too many people would want to buy the same property (greater demand) but price couldnt go up (which would eliminate demand) the government would have a lottery. You would either 1) win the lottery 2) bribe the officials to win the lottery 3) use your contacts and influences or bribes to get the house alloted to yourself 4) threaten the other interest buyers out if you had political power
How wonderful that would be compared to the evil capitalist demand supply, rite
Regular gas 2.94 at CITGO here is Richmond, VA
me: I beg to differ. People can do all sorts of things. PEople in many countries where I visited or lived go without a car , period. OR they peddle a tricycle that can also carry lots of cargo. You make your choice and pays your own way. While it is great to downsize....one must be cognizant of the fact that people will buy a vehicle to maximize the fulfillment of their needs. That may include driving a V8 engined car...or a tank that gives them maximum protection. THere is nothing wrong with that.
you Of course, if gas is cheap and demand is low, you can do all of the above. Also, if you are rich you can do the above and more.
HEre I disagree also. Many people have a need for a larger vehicle...even if gas was $10 a gal. I do not think it is up to anyone person to dictate other people's needs . Vice versa, just because one is rich, one cannot do anything they want.
But when gas prices go up, these wasteful activities will go on a gradual decline. When gas prices start pinching, people will realize that there isnt much loss in not maintaining a truck but renting it out. They will realize that if they need to haul a boat 10 times a year, they can rent a perfect truck/SUV and get done with it.
here I am neutral . I do not know if renting a truck every 2 months makes sense dollar wise. IT may make cents, cents gas has gone up. However, there are many other wasteful activities that you did not mention...like idling the car...cruising around,,,not using public transportation, driving when walking is just as good, etc...
Demonizing a SUV is counter productive, IMO. There are lots of vehicles that waste more gas than some SUVs. There are tons of behavioural ways to waste gas. Scapegoating one type of vehicle is dodging the issue, imo.
We all need to down size and conserve. ALL...and using the many ways that the hypermilers suggest.
That's just not true. About 75% of the gasoline consumed in this country is being burned in passenger cars and SUVs/light trucks.
I feel that I must point out that SUv and light trucks usage is not any more wasteful than the single commuters in their toyota camry, accord, or sports cars....
they are all wasteful...if there are alternatives.
The kneejerk reaction to blame the gas shortage on trucks and SUVs is narrow minded and does not take into account the real reason for increase in gas prices.
1- ALaska North Slope crude production maxed out way back in 1987 - 1988.....so our own supply sources have been decreasing...while usage by all consumers has increased.
2- Many countries that used to export cheap gasoline to us... like China , Mexico, etc....has seen their own increase in demand...and cannot even satisfy their own needs, so they are driving the prices up
3- Venezuela's Socialist president Hugo Chavez has taken over/ nationalized the oil fields that were legally being drilled by the many oil companies...and they are demanding a greater portion of the oil revenue...and thus driving prices higher.
Their own gasoline at the pump can be had for 12 cents per gallon..... So blaming the oil companies is short sighted...look at all the governments who are in on it.
Presdient Bush really has nothing to gain from the rise in oil prices. All his holdings are in a blind trust...so who knows if there are any oil holdings. Plus the rise in oil prices will put a dent on the economy and consumer' wallets, so they(americans) may show their displeasure at the election box...this is something that really benefits the democrats...
Rocky
I use the no name gas stations,.
dose anyone know whos Luk oil is,they seem to have taken over mobile?
Besides that fact what makes me laugh is when I see a sign on small neighborhood communities that says No Vehicles Over 5000 lbs and then you see people driving SUV's up and down the block. SUV's cause far more road damage than cars which way half or less than half the wieght of an SUV.
The Fuel Economy of the SUV is not the major issue, it is the safety. They are by far the most unsafe car on the road for the passengers and the other people on the road. They should not even be allowed to be driven in snow because an SUV is far more likely to get in an accident in wintry condition than a car.
Back to the point, to get the economy back to normal there needs to be a $1-3 tax per gallon of gasoline added. This money would be used for road mainenence and mass transit. Secondly there needs to increases in CAFE standards to increase the effiency of future vehicles.
The tax will lower consumption immediately, CAFE standard will lower future consumption.
ARCO station unleaded regular $3.29, made from Alaska oil.
Sorry to say they shut down the appropriate forum for this discussion after 60k posts. You are wrong in your assumptions. That is your right to have an opinion. I think you need to research the IIHS site to find out the truth on which vehicles are the safest.
gagrice, "Minivans vs SUVs (Vans & SUVs Board)" #1306, 1 May 2006 7:47 pm
Lukoil is the US subsidiary of the Russian oil conglomerate.
They haven't taken over ExxonMobil, but they do tend to move into retail locations recently vacated by a big chain -- Exxon/Mobil, BP/Amoco, Shell, etc. -- because it wasn't pulling its weight. Usually lower-traffic and off the beaten path sorts of places. And for some reason, most of the Lukoils I've seen are all full-serve (even outside Jersey).
Most diesels on the market don't have any sort fo emissions equipment on them, as they are semis, trains, heavy construction equipment, ships, busses, emergency vehicles, and so on. Most of them are old enough that they have little if any smog equipment. They use and pollute far more than all of the passenger cars in the U.S. combined.
That portion of the equation won't change, so the system of supply and demand breaks wide open. Unless you can turn all semis into electric vehicles overnight, we're stuck with what we have. The same goes for freight trains, cargo ships, and so on.
We could all drive a Prius - every last one of us - and not make a dent in commercial use or pollution levels. Even then, with diesels not for sale in most of the U.S., there's just no option for most of us. Not in time. The oil companies got smart and decided that the demand will take at least 5-10 years to equalize, so they are gouging us until that happens.
gagrice, Ya gotta know the story before you jump all over me big fella. :surprise: Whoa ! :P
I rarely shop at Walmart, unless I can't find what I need anywhere else in town, and if both stores are selling a Red China product that no american company makes I will then be left with no alternative. I actually buy 90% of my gas at Valero which is about $0.06 cents higher than Walley World because they are open 24/7 and the owner of the gas station is good church friends of my wife. He gouges you not only on gas, but also on Soada's Peanuts, etc. He's lucky I like him alot to pay his absurd prices which he puts back into our church I suppose. :surprise:
I imagine the gas is the only thing they sell that is not "made in China".
Agree. Well 90% is perhaps made in China. OTOH so is about everthing else nowdays. (Referring to goods in stores) I wished we had a Meijers pal.
You should only buy gas from TX Oilfields. Sold by stations that only carry made in USA products.
I do pal. I buy gas from Valero, Conoco Phillips, and once in a while at Shell. Hell it's all rocks, bugs, sticks, gravel, half-cans of beer, kerosene, lighter fluid, charcoal, 30K used sludge oil, well you know what I mean
My work partner will not go into a Wal-mart because they are not a Union store
Texas, is a anti-union state by nature and union stores aren't in the area unfortunately. :sick:
He only shops in Union grocery stores and businesses. He practices what he preaches.
I try to do the same pal. Wished I had that choice to shop at unionized stores. I try my best to buy unionized made goods, and at the very least american made w/ USA content goods.
I'm glad ya have a sharp eye.
Rocky
Actually, personally I would avoid Citgo more so than Lukoil. Does anyone know if Lukoil is either partially or entirely owned by the Russian government or if they are a private entity?
Now I know the "Rest of the Story".
On our most pleasant trip through your state I did not see many Valero stations. What are H.E.B. gas stations? They were the lowest priced in the areas we drove. You had the lowest diesel prices on our whole 3000 mile trip. We got back to San Diego yesterday and the cheapest ARCO gas is $3.29.
PS
I shop at Wally World from time to time, as they usually have what I am looking for at a reasonable price. Mostly shop Costco as our local Costco is Union. Not all Costco stores are Union.
They're a public corporation listed on the London exchange. I'm sure there are vestiges of old Soviet government in their physical and human infrastructure, but there's no official connection.