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The idiots in our state legislature have instituted a gasoline price "cap" that ties our gas prices to the US mainland prices, despite the fact that most of our gasoline comes from Alaska and Asia. It went into effect the week after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
Yesterday, when I was driving home from work, regular gas was $2.92 a gallon. This morning coming in, it was $3.06. That's higher than it was in the aftermath of the hurricanes this fall.
I recently moved and cancelled my cable subscription, and my DSL isn't turned on in my new place yet, so I'm rather out of the loop newswise. What the heck is happening on the US mainland to affect gas prices so much?
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I read about those gas caps in Hawaii a while back and the caps are on the wholesale price. The retailer will tack on from 10 to 12 cents usually, but since the market factors on the wholsale side have been tampered with there may be unintended consequences on the retail side of the market. On the wholesale side the price is now being set by the government according to some equation using wholesale prices from major markets in the Continental United States regardless of what it actually costs to import and refine the product in Hawaii. If the wholesale price of gas is lower than the cost to produce it the refiners will respond by cutting production and distribution to cut their losses and if the cost to produce is less than the price point they will respond by increasing production and distribution to increase profits. This can cause a rollercoaster effect on supplies. The retailers can only buy what the wholesaler has to distribute from the refiners. If the demand for gas is higher than the supply the retailers might respond by raising the cost at the pump and if the supply of gas is greater than the demand they will respond by cutting the cost at the pump in order to lure customers from other retailers. Also, it wasn't clear to me which markets were used in the equation and how they might be weighted in the equation. If they chose expensive markets this could result in a higher average wholesale price resulting in less instability but higher average prices for gas, while if they chose less expensive markets you would likely get more instability in gas prices with prices at the pump jumping all over the place.
We pay $2.39/gallon here in central Illinois right now, which is up from before Christmass. I have no idea what they pay in places like New York or Los Angeles, and I am sure that taxes will factor into the differences seen at the pump in different places as well.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Hawaii's cap on wholesale gasoline prices is based on a five-day average of prices in New York, Los Angeles and the Gulf Coast. It does not cap the profits that stations can make.
I had some misgivings when they passed this law a couple of years ago. I'm not an economist, and most financial matters are Greek to me. But it's been a big mess since the law took effect in September. Gas prices are higher than they've ever been, and while they went down slightly once the "hurricane" prices on the mainland settled down, they're still outrageously high.
It's frustrating that Maui prices are consistently $0.40-0.50 higher than all the other islands, too, but I've recently learned that's due to a county gas tax the other islands don't have. <sigh>
I guess at least I don't have any heating bills here... and I save a lot of money by not buying socks. Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I dunno, but L.A. gas prices have skyrocketed in the last week or so, so that might be part of it...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Its the taxes that annoy me the most. I remember about 6 or 7 years ago gas got down to .89 where I was going to college. The state decided it would be a great time to earn more revenue and up the taxes on gas. God forbid they take them away once it goes up again.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Gas has gone up in price here steadily -- the stock market is up and I hear basically it is tied to the futures. So blame the strong market from driving up the price.
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Gas tax = good. Why should citizens who drive little or not at all pay for roads and infrastructure for those who choose to drive a whole lot? Instead let those driving the most pay the most.
At the very at least we can provide a little incentive to cut down on the traffic out there. If gas someday costs $10 a gallon, maybe Americans would start walking or using transit rather than clogging up the roads for me! Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I wouldn't mind the taxes so much if the roads were maintained better. And I would prefer to take public transit to work, but Maui doesn't have any.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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Yeah, Kell has to drive 45 minutes to get to her job... might be a bit twitchy if I asked her to walk that.
Posts: 880 | Registered: Nov 2005
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So IanO is being sarcastic? It is generally vanity that causes people to live in areas that can't be accessed by publich transit. Not that I walk to work when I fairly easily could. :sigh:
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Why do you say "It is generally vanity that causes people to live in areas that can't be accessed by publich transit"? I know people who choose to live in such areas, but as far as I can tell it is not vanity that drives their choice in the matter. As often as not it is either lower property taxes or lifestyle choice that drives the decision. Sometimes a couple will have jobs in two different cities and choose to live in a small town between the two in order to make each ones daily commute manageable. Some people actually work in places where public transit does not go so they have to live nearby or commute by other means. Some people grew up living in a particular area and have no need or desire to relocate to the big city where buses taxi's and sometimes subways make for alternatives to a personal automobile. I know one coworker of mine who had to move out to a small town so that he could afford to live in a house large enough for his family and still pay the property taxes. I have no doubt that there are those that choose to have a large place in the country that don't have a real need for it, and I suppose that the vanity drive might be present in those cases, but I don't actually know anybody like that personally.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
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But then pooka hasn't decided to work in a city in which she couldn't afford housing. No, I'm not suggesting that everybody could or should live near where they work under the current social conditions. But that they can't is purely politics and law. There ain't a reason in the world that eg BeverlyHills shouldn't have affordable housing for all of the servants/waiters/clerks/etc who work there. Except politicians caving in to demands of constituents who don't want to live near "those kind of people".
And that folks can't reasonably be expected to use mass transit is cuz politicians would rather spend tax money earmarked for transportation catering to energy wasters / polluters / political contributors.
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someone suggested to me that the hike in gas prices might be due to the fact that more people are using gas to heat their homes in these upcoming cold months so gas at the pumps has increased because there is more of a demand. I don't know how true this is though
Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Funny. Gas prices around me went up just a little, but it's still better than what I was paying over in CA, so I don't complain.
The option of living close to work.....screw that. My rent is CHEAP where I am at. I am not going to live in a dang trailer park for a couple hundred more a month, just so I can walk the 2 miles into work. Especially with the weather I have right now (I'm in upstate NY now). Yes 2 miles is as close as it gets. When you take into account where I work (nuke power plant) you can see why there isn't a whole lot of facilities around it. Oh and busses can't get through the DOE security.
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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The main reason is that while US gasoline prices were high, refining companies were exporting large amounts of gasoline into the US to take advantage of those prices. Basicly they were filling US storage capacity to the brim by effectively drawing down other nations' storage capacity. Now that prices have come down somewhat, the refiners are exporting less to the US and more to nearer markets to refill their drawn-down storage capacity. Since US stores of gasoline were bought at high prices, that gasoline has a bottom value at which it must be sold. ie At a certain lower price, the companies which own that gasoline would lose less money by sitting on their gasoline than by selling it. And by watching the oil futures market, they can make reasonable predictions about what their gasoline is worth in the long run; ie minimize loss potential and maximize profit potential by choosing the prices at which they are willing to let their stores flow into the consumer market.
Add the deteriorating conditions inregard to future reliablity of Iranian oil exports due to the possibility of an embargo because of the nuclear imbroglio, and of MidEast oil exports in general due to Sharon's illness affecting the MidEast PeaceProcess. So energy-usage-intense companies are hedging their future energy costs by locking in on oil futures now. Which causes a rise in the oil futures market. Speculators seeing that market uncertainty are bidding up the oil futures in hopes of being able to profit through resales of their futures contracts to energy-intensive industries which haven't already hedged. Add the Russian natural gas / Ukranian pipeline disagreement increasing price uncertainty in European energy purchases*... Etc...
* There is a correlation between natural gas and petroleum prices to the degree that one can act as an energy and raw material substitute in some measure for the other.
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jenna, we haven't seen prices that low in over a year. It gets to the point that I'm hesitant to go anywhere but work, and that's definitely NOT why I live on Maui.
My daughter is trying to get her driver's license, too, and has to have 50 hours driving practice. So sometimes we go driving just for "practice". It's pretty outrageous.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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I heard something on the radio that it was a problem in Nigeria? that was causing trouble - some escalating tensions, and now some workers that have been kidnapped?
I'm having trouble describing "living in the buckbrush of Indiana" as vanity. Are people aware there are places called "rural", and that we don't have mass transit, mainly because there are no masses?
Posts: 880 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Whoa. I agree with Tresopax on something. Sort of.
I've kind of wondered, and not wondered at the same time, why environmentalists aren't jumping for joy over the increase in gas costs. I mean, high gas prices does more for getting alternative fuel solutions found and greater conservation than legislation ever will. People *want* hybrids because it saves them money. That will only remain true as long as gas prices remain high. There was a small part of me that was surprised that environmentalists haven't pushed for gas to go higher. The part that doesn't wonder and isn't surprised is the part that knows that displaying such insensitivity toward those who can't afford high gas costs is tantamount to political suicide. So the rest of me wonders how much covert lobbying there has been to keep government gas taxes high and growing. Preferably tying the proceeds to the forestry budget.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I've been thinking of converting my engines to run corn alcohol... a lot of the dirt track race cars around here do it. Only problem is with filling stations... and those pesky laws against transporting liquor across state lines...
Posts: 880 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:It is generally vanity that causes people to live in areas that can't be accessed by publich transit.
That's an outrageous claim. If I lived in an area with access to mass transit, which means living in the Bham city limits, my kids would need to wear bullet proof vests to school. We can start another thread about how poor inner city schools are but the fact remains that a lot of people move away from urban areas so their kids can go to a good school and be safe.
No other area around here has mass transit, and the bus system in Bham is very poor. Are you suggesting we should all move to areas that have good transit systems? Where the cost of living is much higher for us? Where any savings we might make on gas would be eaten up by higher prices?
What about farmers? Are they vain? Should they give up their farms and move to the city? That would be a great idea for America, let's just abandon farming altogether, live in cities with nice mass transit and start importing all our food instead.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Don't forget the time involved. It takes me about 25 minutes to drive to work. If I took the bus, it would be closer to an hour. Since my son goes to bed at about 7:30, I only get to see him for a few minutes in the morning and about an hour or so at night. How vain of me to want to spend time with my family.
Posts: 221 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Zan, I owe you a big apology. I'm so sorry! I accidentally deleted your email and just now remembered that I owed you a reply. Could you send me your address? I've been digging out my books (they're all in boxes in the garage) and haven't yet found the preschooler L&L stuff I want to send you and K, but I'm getting close. I found some of my other materials, so the ones I am looking for must be close.
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I'll email you my address again. That actually makes me feel better. I kept thinking "Did I email my address to jeni? I think I did. Maybe I didn't." I kept forgetting to check though.
I'll only forgive you if send that picture of me and Rain. Posts: 221 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I really feal sympathetic to both sides of this argument. We are certainly overeliant on oil, while other countries' citizens pay two or three times what we do per gallon. But on the other hand, to provide for ourselves and our families, it's often a necessity to own a car (or two). Let's face it, our society is car-driven. the cars require bigger, which space things out more, which leads to a need for more cars, which leads to a need for freeways, which allows for suburbs, which put good housing further and further from jobs, which requires more cars. a vicious cycle.
Edit: When I left Big Isald about a week ago, gas was 2.69 there. Man, 3 dollar gas, $500k homes, glad i don't live on Maui. Just kidding. A good friend of mine is from there. We tell him the island pasttime is hitting dogs with sticks.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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