Gasoline/diesel prices hit record highs

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With gas hitting record highs, drivers feeling squeezed

By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer2 hours, 13 minutes ago

Cabbies here complain their take-home pay is thinner than it used to be. Trucking companies across the country are making drivers slow down to conserve fuel. Filling station owners plead that really, really, the skyrocketing prices aren't their fault.

And the rest of us? With gas prices now averaging $3.50 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service, more and more Americans who have to drive are weighing the need for each and every trip.

"To get to the doctors and all that, it's an awful lot of money," said Carol Licata, a 75-year-old retiree from Arnold, Pa., who said a larger portion of her fixed income is now going toward gas. "I don't drive that often, but have to take necessary trips ... and (gas) takes a big chunk out of our budget."

Some would-be drivers are considering less energy-dependent alternatives simply for money's sake.

In Los Angeles, for example, fiction writer Brian Edwards sold his gas-guzzling Ford truck and now relies on his skateboard or the bus to get around. Sharon Cooper of Chicago, meanwhile, said she is planning to buy a bicycle to use on her 2 1/2-mile commute to work.

And everyone, it seems, is more than willing to join in the griping.

"It's hell," said legal aide Zebib Yemane, who spent $5 on gas for her Chevy compact at a 76 station in downtown Los Angeles just so she could make it to a cheaper gas station east of the area.

"When going downhill, I used to step on the gas. Now I don't," said Yemane, who said she normally spends $80 a week on fuel and asks people for rides and takes the bus to save money.

"Bottom line, we can't afford it no more, man. It's too much," Bak Zoumane said as he filled up his yellow cab at a BP station in midtown New York. The West African immigrant said his next car will likely be a hybrid so he won't have to pay so much at the pump.

Gasoline prices typically rise in the spring as stations switch over to pricier summer-grade fuel and demand picks up as more travelers take to the road.

But this year prices are rising even faster than normal, experts say, because of the massive jump in benchmark crude prices, which spiked to a record $117.76 a barrel Monday before settling a record settlement price of $117.48 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 79 cents from the previous close. It was the sixth day in a row prices set new records.

Those soaring prices are putting added strain on refiners and filling-station operators, which are struggling to pass the higher feedstock costs onto consumers. So even as drivers pay more, retailers — the most public face of the oil business — are getting increasingly squeezed.

"The farther you get from the wellhead, the greater the misery," said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. "There's a lot of stations across the country that are literally on the brink of bankruptcy."

Samer Katib, the manager of a Marathon station in Chicago, said business has fallen at least 30 percent this year because customers are cutting back on driving and only using their cars when absolutely necessary.

"It's just go to your work and go home," he said of people's driving habits these days, adding that customers no longer stop in for profit-fattening drinks like they used to. "They need all their money for gas," he said.

"I wish I could make gas prices cheaper," Katib added. "But if we do that, we cannot survive."

Other businesses are getting pinched as well.

Mitch Goldstone, who owns a photo-scanning shop in Irvine, Calif., said he began giving out gas cards Monday to encourage people to shop after noticing a sharp decline in customer traffic — something he attributed to soaring gas prices.

AAA figures show California has higher prices than anywhere in the country, with regular now selling for an average of $3.86 a gallon.

"It's a mess here," Goldstone said. "People just are not shopping and everyone's trying to figure out a way to get people back in their cars."

Diesel prices are rising even higher than gasoline, putting pressure on trucking and other shipping companies that use the fuel to transport goods around the country.

The American Trucking Associations on Monday said it will host a "fuel strategies workshop" in June to help fleet operators cope with soaring prices.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said fuel has now surpassed labor as the trucking industry's biggest cost, prompting some companies to install devices that prevent drivers from speeding. Companies are also shelling out for auxiliary power units and offering bonuses to drivers who cut down on idling and operate their trucks more efficiently.

"Every little bit helps," he said.

Print Story: With gas hitting record highs, drivers feeling squeezed on Yahoo! News.

After going to visit my shorty in L.A. a few weeks back, I see that Californians get WTFPWNed as far as gas prices go. Here in my native Texas, the station down the street I put in my '98 Expedition is $3.37/gal, which is up 20 cents from Sunday when I last filled up. Out there, where my shorty makes a 120-mile round-trip between work and school, gasoline ranges anywhere from 3.72 to 4.05/gal!

Don't care what your political affiliation is - that shit is fucking debilitating. At 2.50 a gallon, I paid about 50 bucks to fill up; now I'm paying anywhere from 68-75 bucks to top off my tanks.

But this isn't a thread to necessarily bitch about gas prices, the question is: What do we do.

You got Clinton (perhaps Obama, though I remember him saying it explicitly) screeching that she's going to levy a windfall profit tax against the oil companies, but I don't think that's gonna help a bitch ass thing, since that tax will merely be passed onto the consumer like all other taxes.

Then of course, you have your greens who say we should partake in cleaner, more renewable sources of energy, which is all fine and dandy but nothing on the table is cost-effective for the mass population.

Then you have (at least in my view) more practical people who believe we should drill in places like ANWR, off the coast of California and Florida, and other places where we have domestic sources of oil.

Ultimately - I think we should do a combination of my second and third options. I see no problem in funding research into renewable energy but I just think it's silly as fuck for us not to tap our own sources.

What do you think? Toss our your ideas, debate, attack, defend, get to buckin' on niggas.

Get at me.

People complain about $3.50 a gallon? Over here prices have risen to about £1.07 a litre, that's approximately $9.70 a gallon.

As a result, people are doing the obvious thing and using their cars less. Kids have started walking to school again, the trains and buses are busy and the petrol stations much quieter. Admittedly ours is a much smaller country so things are closer together (120 mile round trip from work to school? That's ridiculous, don't they have any jobs nearer?) which makes public transport or walking a more viable option.

A lot of people are downsizing their cars too. The government is encouraging this by putting up road taxes on big engined cars and dropping them on hybrids and smaller cars. I guess what will eventually happen is a wholesale opinion change. People will stop seeing big cars as a right and see them as a luxury item you only buy if you can afford to run it. I imagine that'd take a while longer to sink into the American mindset though, you guys love your trucks after all.

For the future, most car companies are already looking at alternative fuel sources. There's already been a couple of fully functioning hydrogen fuel cell concept cars produced but the cost of the cells makes them completely prohibitive. I'm sure that sooner or later someone will produce an affordable one and we'll all forget we ever used petrol. I don't really think that digging up more oil is the answer. Unless governments start forcing the oil companies to drop their prices, no extra supply is ever going to have a significant effect on prices at the pumps. To believe that lower costs to the oil companies leads to reduced prices is naive. There are far too few oil companies and it's far too hard for new companies to enter the market so oligopoly pricing is in full effect. They simply don't need to undercut each other, it's a total seller's market.

I'd suggest that windfall taxes and the like will only serve to move the companies out of America. After all, the demand for oil in China and India is massive and if the companies can get a better price there, they'll sell to the Chinese.

As a short term measure, most diesel vehicles will run on used cooking oil with a minimum of modification and that's a damn sight cheaper than buying petrol.

I'm with Franz - 3.50 is nothing.

Fuck the whiners, make a new variable tax that solidifies the price of gas at a constant $7/gallon. Clearly, the only way to convince Americans to change their habits is to hit them where it counts.

Originally Posted by Arainach

Fuck the whiners, make a new variable tax that solidifies the price of gas at a constant $7/gallon. Clearly, the only way to convince Americans to change their habits is to hit them where it counts.

I'm not sure where you'll find enough legislators who are unhappy enough with their jobs to enact this tax, since doing so would be nothing short of political suicide.

Then make it a closed session or a voice vote or something. The US is approaching the situation Michigan's in:

1. People are stupid and can only see short-term
2. Hence any politician that does anything good in the long term but painful in the short-term doesn't get re-elected
3. Hence no problem is ever fixed

Michigan, for example, has cut taxes to the point where we can't fund any services, but we still can't get anyone to admit we need to raise taxes to get the state in a good enough shape to attract any sort of business.

It's a rather destructive cycle.

You really haven't thought this through, have you?

If this tax you're proposing were enacted, you wouldn't be able to sneak it through like that; somebody would bring in their own parliamentary tricks to force those responsible to acknowledge it somehow, and then punish them for it. And even if individual legislators couldn't be singled out (except for the sponsors), the party in control of Congress would suffer, since repealing the tax would be an instant national campaign issue that would gain traction with liberals and conservatives alike. It would lead to defeat of legislators from the majority party, who would have acquiesed to passing the tax, the defeat of the President (or his party, if he's on his way out) who signed it into law, and would be the gift that keeps on giving for the minority party, since they can retain control by raising the spectre of the tax coming back to retain control.

Nobody likes being screwed at the pump, and they can easier and more directly hit back if it's elected officials doing the screwing than if it's a corporation.

Speaking of corporations, "Big Oil" gets a break here, since when people complain vocally about how much more they're paying for gas, the government would be the ones responsible for the even higher prices, not the oil companies. They could use their political capital to work to repeal the tax (since they care about their customers) and trade on the public goodwill that it would generate to reap more profit in the future with small, unnoticable price hikes.

So again, this idea is political suicide, and no legislator with half a brain or who cares about keeping his or her job is going to touch it.

I don't know why this is a political topic, really. Like NP said, no matter your political affiliation, it's going to to affect you. Why NP drives a giant SUV is beyond me at this point.

Like Shin said, people should start relying on their car less and on alternative modes of transportation more. If you live in a city, use public transportation to get around.

Use your bike. Hell, use your feet if it's an option. No one will think less of you for it.

There are alternatives out there for the local persons.

But we're not even looking at personal vehicles anymore. The cost of diesel is SKY high. That means our trucking system needs to be revamped as well. I was just looking at a train hauling ass through the woods the other and was wondering why we don't aspire to use trains more. I mean hell, there are so many possibilities there.

Anyways, on a personal level, it's about more walking and biking than before. Unfortunately, I can't do that in winter here. I'll have to suck it up then, but for now, the weather is nice and I have no real excuse.

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So again, this idea is political suicide, and no legislator with half a brain or who cares about keeping his or her job is going to touch it.

Which is indicative that the SYSTEM rather than the idea is retarded.

I don't really like to think about how high the price of everything we use in our everyday lives will go up if the cost of diesel suddenly shot to $7 a gallon. I mean, I know I can handle $7 a gallon with my car that gets over 30MPG and I drive, maybe, 300 miles a month, but there's really not a whole lot I can do to curtail my consumption of food or other necessities which have to be shipped.

Originally Posted by Arainach

Which is indicative that the SYSTEM rather than the idea is retarded.

Yeah, I want a system where bureaucrats can implement sweeping changes to the economy with zero accountability. You are a credit to your race.

What good is it going to drill more? Don't get me wrong I'm all for drilling offshore nice Florida real estate that is quickly becoming worth less, but even if we did it'd take something like 3-5 years for that oil to hit the market. Just take it up the ass for a couple more years with an ever rising prices caused by a weak dollar and speculative inflation that's slowly strangling the economy? No thanks.

I say we kick Helicopter Ben out of the Fed, and drag Paul Volker's ass out of retirement to make things right. If he can kill stagflation once and ruin a promising presidency (Carter) I bet he can do it again. If doesn't come quietly he can kick and scream all he wants whilst inflicting pain on the American people to the tune of 16-18% interest rates again. It'll encourage savings, which will -hopefully- cause the dollar to stop it's free fall and stabilize. While it quickly kills the housing market and chokes off cheap credit that is feeding the commodities (food, oil, gold) bubble. It's not a coincidence that all-time dollar lows are followed by all-time oil highs. Speaking of ruining a promising presidency, I hear Volker is one of Obama's main economic advisers.

I'm kidding of course (kinda). The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think there's any practical political solutions to this problem. Not very likely ones in any case. I think we're just gonna drag our economic woes out for as long as possible. By doing what will cause the minimal pain in the short-term while causing the maximum damage in the long term. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened.

Hoping against Windfall Tax bullshit, personally. Oil companies are making tons of money, but the vast, vast majority of it goes right back in to the system (exploration, upstream/downstream development, etc). If you implement heavy taxation, oil companies will need to cut costs in order to stay in the black. This involves laying off employees, typically, as well as oil platform development. With a lack of manpower, the industry has trouble keeping up with supply-demand eventually and you have the flow of things slowing tremendously.

Windfall Taxation was one of the failures that led to lines at the gas pump a few decades back, but I guess people don't care...

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Fuck the whiners, make a new variable tax that solidifies the price of gas at a constant $7/gallon. Clearly, the only way to convince Americans to change their habits is to hit them where it counts.

This won't help a bitch ass thing and you know it. The political suicide argument aside, you will effectively create a massive amount of price hikes across the board. You liberals whine about helping the poor and middle class so much, but yet you propose shit like this that will literally create third world-like conditions. Good job.

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Why NP drives a giant SUV is beyond me at this point.

Because it's the only vehicle I have, obviously.

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Which is indicative that the SYSTEM rather than the idea is retarded.

Wait, I thought Democrats were all about.....y'know, democracy! It seems like you're advocating a system where Congress isn't actually acountable to the people who elect them to office, because how else would you change the system from it's retarded state to one you think makes sense?

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

Because it's the only vehicle I have, obviously.

You'd think a trade-in would be considered here, NP. I mean, if it's really killing your wallet, get rid of it. Makes sense to me. Not that it's my business, but you're bitching about it. So imagine there's a solution to the problem, if you really want it.

Vanity can only go so far.

We don't need more fucking oil. We need to get off the addiction to oil - not seek out more food for the fatties. The solution lies in both the psyche of the world and other forms of alternative transportation (which includes different types of vehicles which are fueled by something more renewable and less expensive than fossil fuel.)

Yay for a hippie attitude~

I'm not bitching about gasoline prices - it is what it is and if I want to move around, I'm gonna pay the cost.

Besides - I actually need a SUV. When I DJ parties or perform at shows, it helps to have the extra cargo space for equipment - plus my logo is on the vehicle, which in the rap game helps me out by making people think I'm a lot more famous than I actually am.

And you can say we don't need more oil, but you know that's not the case.

I'm all for alternative fuels, but that shit is not going to change overnight. In the meantime, let us use the resources we do have to alleviate the pressure while we research and try to make a transition gradually over time. I'm not against change, but I'm not all for trying to force change and fucking everything up in the process.

Originally Posted by Night Phoenix

I'm not bitching about gasoline prices - it is what it is and if I want to move around, I'm gonna pay the cost.

Besides - I actually need a SUV. When I DJ parties or perform at shows, it helps to have the extra cargo space for equipment - plus my logo is on the vehicle, which in the rap game helps me out by making people think I'm a lot more famous than I actually am.

I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee - I'm no better. But I also need it for all the trekking I do, so I guess we're both idiots. =D

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And you can say we don't need more oil, but you know that's not the case.

I'm all for alternative fuels, but that shit is not going to change overnight. In the meantime, let us use the resources we do have to alleviate the pressure while we research and try to make a transition gradually over time. I'm not against change, but I'm not all for trying to force change and fucking everything up in the process.

No, I agree with you. The problem won't resolve itself overnight, by far. But the change starts here and now.

The industry has got to change as well. There are different kinds of vehicles that use different technologies which should be made available to the public. If there's a demand (and there seems to be) for different kinds of vehicles, it'd be worth the research and production. While I'm not an expert in any of these fields, I see a lot of potential out there to make the transition in the auto industry from fossil fuel to alternative fuels.

Petroleum in your every day products and trucking costs with diesel of course will take longer to resolve. But for immediate purposes (since we're talking about the cost of gasoline to the average retail consumer), the vehicle issue could be resolved if there wasn't so much goddamn red tape.

I figure you're all for drilling in Alaska?