Tag: Fuel prices

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

It’s another sign of the End of the World. The NY Times writes the obituary for summertime teenage cruising:

For car-loving American teenagers, this is turning out to be the summer the cruising died.

Kevin Ballschmiede, 16, pined for his 1999 Dodge Ram – “my pride and joy” – the other night as he hung out in a parking lot in this town outside Chicago. Given that filling the 26-gallon tank can now cost more than $100, he had left it at home and caught a ride.

From coast to coast, American teenagers appear to be driving less this summer. Police officers who keep watch on weekend cruising zones say fewer youths are spending their time driving around in circles, with more of them hanging out in parking lots, malls or movie theaters.

The price spike in gasoline, to an average of $4.07 a gallon for regular unleaded, is so recent that government statistics do not yet capture the teenage-driving trend. But the figures show that overall demand for gasoline is dropping. In dozens of interviews, teenagers and their parents said the price of gasoline was forcing hard choices on them.

Today, as I drove past a local intersection in upstate, Eastern New York with 2 gas stations, Mobil and Sunoco, and observed that the price of unleaded regular was now $4.169/gallon, I said aloud, making a terroristic hand gesture, “Basta ja!  Enough already!  Somebody needs to freeze the price right where it is before it gets even higher.”  Sometimes the truth is said in anger.

Maybe what’s needed in the short term is a price ceiling on gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil.  Admittedly this would not be a long term solution to America’s lack of an energy policy, but it might provide some short-term relief to consumers.  And it would provide far more relief than the bogus McSame proposal for a “gas tax holiday.”

This is an extremely brief sequel to this gasoline essay.

Here you go:

Oil prices veered wildly on Wednesday, as they swung back from a spike higher on a sharp fall in crude oil stocks shown in weekly data. Crude oil in New York trading jumped $6.79, to $138.10 a barrel immediately after the release of the inventory data. It retreated to $134.66 but was trading up $4.25, to $135.56 at midday.

The government’s Energy Information Administration showed that American crude oil stocks fell 4.6 million barrels to 302 million barrels last week, four times the drop that analysts’ expected.

The price fluctuations came as the Energy secretary, Samuel W. Bodman III, representing the world’s top energy user [that would be the US], said on Wednesday that he would attend a meeting later this month in Saudi Arabia where global energy producers and consumers will grapple with record-high oil prices.

As oil prices have surged 40 percent since January, Washington has differed with Saudi Arabia – the world’s top exporter – on the reason behind the price increase.

Did you get that?  Again:

where global energy producers and consumers will grapple with record-high oil prices

Producers and consumers will “grapple” in Saudi Arabia.  This will be bigger than the Thriller in Manilla.  Not.  This “grapple” is being promoted by the alleged “free market,” supply side, tax cutting Ayn Rand fans in DC.  I wouldn’t expect a caged, no rules, death match.  I’d expect more kissy face and tea with “our Saudi friends.”  And, of course, no short term solution, and no longer term energy policy changes.  Crickets.

Folks, everything is breaking down. Since we don’t have a short term solution for gas prices, I have nothing new to offer, except maybe hiding your wallet.

As aviation fuel prices continue to rise several air carriers have launched crash programs to search for alternatives and cut costs.

There were high hopes for one experimental program in which Jumbos were allowed to graze for their sustenance.

The experiment started out extremely well and a sense of near euphoria set in as Wall Street began to smell green.