| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 6:29:42 AM | $7-a-gallon gas, 10-million fewer cars: Rubin
MATTHEW TREVISAN
Globe and Mail Update
June 26, 2008 at 1:47 PM EDT
A new forecast calls for gasoline prices to hit $7 (U.S.) a gallon in the next two years and oil to soar to $200 a barrel by 2010.
The report by CIBC World Markets also predicts there will be 10 million fewer cars on the road in the United States by 2012.
“Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America's highways in history,” Jeffrey Rubin, the lead author, wrote in Thursday's report.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080626.wrubin0626/BNStory/Front
At what point do high oil prices trigger a deep recession? | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 7:20:52 AM | As with everything there are positives and negatives.
Frankly, we would be better off with 10 million fewer cars on the road, at least gasoline powered cars.
This sort of price shock will serve to bring us out of our oil addiction.
On the other hand, we will also suffer with higher prices for everything and it will worsen the recession we have already been in for a long time.
By the way, if you like Nuclear Power, you'll love John McCain. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 7:48:39 AM | Here's the funny part. In '92 Ross Perot wanted a tax on gas when it was what, $1 gallon back then. Clinton did too and he got a small increase which helped balance the budget and didn't affect much of anything adversely.
But we were told it would ruin the country which we've been told at every turn by the Right; taxes are evil just like the people who say they're needed. If we had imposed a hefty gas tax after 911 to go toward getting off of oil, we'd have that much more money in our treasury and there would be that much less money in the pockets of countries who subsidize terrorism.
Republicans know if they cut taxes whenever they can, they'll always be able to blame everyone else for being 'tax and spenders' even though their wrecklessness has all but bankrupted the country.
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:01:10 AM | http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080627/oil_prices.html?.v=7
AP
Oil reaches $142 on view dollar will keep falling
Friday June 27, 9:58 am ET
By John Wilen, AP Business Writer
Oil prices set new record above $142 a barrel as investors flock to commodities
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil futures climbed briefly to a new record above $142 a barrel Friday on expectations that the weakening dollar, a major factor in crude's stratospheric rise, will extend its decline and add to oil's appeal.
Retail gas prices inched lower overnight, but are likely to resume their own trek into record territory now that oil futures have broken out of the trading range where they had been for nearly 3 weeks.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose as high as $142.26 a barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before pulling back to trade up $1.46 at $141.10. On Thursday, the contract shot past $140 and rose more than $5 to a new settlement record.
Oil rose Thursday in part on comments by OPEC officials; the organization's president predicted prices will rise further, and a top Libyan oil official suggested his nation may cut production.
Meanwhile, traders were coming around to the belief that the dollar, whose long decline has contributed greatly to oil's dramatic advance this year, will continue to weaken. The market now expects that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to raise interest rates until much later than many analysts have forecast; since higher rates tend to strengthen the dollar, traders are anticipating that it will continue to fall and, consequently, that investors will turn to commodities including oil as a hedge against inflation.
The stock market's recent swoon is also sending investors in search of higher-yielding investments. On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 360 points to its lowest level since September 2006 on a combination of worries about oil prices and the financial, automotive and technology sectors.
"The renewed attraction of commodities as an investment vehicle is contrasting with the unattractiveness of the stock market," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Ill., in a research note.
"When money has nowhere to go, it is parked in commodities as it is one of the few investment instruments that actually rises the more money you pour into it," said Oliver Jakob, an analyst at Petromatrix Gmbh, in Switzerland in a note.
On Friday, the dollar was slightly higher against the euro, with a euro buying $1.5744.
At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices slipped 0.1 cent overnight to a national average of $4.066 a gallon, according to a survey of stations by AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Gas prices have fallen slightly from their June 16 record of $4.08 a gallon, but will likely resume their record breaking rise if oil futures keep trending higher.
In other Nymex trading Friday, July gasoline futures rose 1.64 cents to $3.5277 a gallon, and July heating oil futures rose 3.53 cents to $3.9187 a gallon. August natural gas futures rose 10.2 cents to $13.35 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent crude futures rose $1.14 to $140.97 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:06:23 AM | .... and the new mantra from the right is off shore drilling and nuclear facilities....
can you imagine a nuke plant somewhere in the midwest getting hit by a tornado? what happens when you start taking out oil and gas along fault lines?
better start becoming really good gardeners folks.... | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:25:14 AM | Everything seems to be going up. I fear we're in an inflation spiral where the only thing not going up is your salary.
People are scaling down their vacations which affects people in the hotel and travel industry. They're probably cutting back on eating out and on entertainment. Waiters cut their spending to make ends meet.
They're not buying new cars except for those that have deep discounts or better mileage. The salesman at the local GM dealership cuts his spending to the bone.
People with mortgages have less disposable income. They postpone home improvements. Home Depot lays off workers.
At what point will this create a serious recession that dampens demand for oil? Yes, there's growth in certain economies, but these nations are poorer than we are and their people should be affected more so than we are. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:35:00 AM | OP, I think the depth of the recession (which we're clearly already in) is subjective. For some it's already quite deep. For others, it's minor to hardly noticeable; like the yuppies and baby boomers joining 100K / year country clubs right now and advertising McCain '08 on their manicured front lawns.
If you've got enough money and you're in the right kind of business (swooping down and buying up properties on the cheap for instance, for future development) then you're probably doing quite well right now .... albeit based upon other peoples' financial demises, but, thus is capitalism , after all.
And it's the same with the gas prices and so on. The upper middle and upper classes will essentially continue to live as they are now, even at 7/gal. Sure they may curtail excess driving a bit, but there's always credit cards to continue financing one's driving habits. Put it on a piece of plastic and worry about it all at some point in the future. It's the American way; even the American gov't essentially continues running this way.
Where I live, a near western suburb of Chicago, there are some fabulously wealthy areas (with new fabulously wealthy developments and homes going up) and we are only about 30 minutes west of the border of the city (Chicago's notorious "west side") which is basically a rundown slum.
The area where I live, I have always felt, more or less demonstrates American capitalism perfectly. One can drive 30, or 35 minutes, from the heart of the ghetto basically, with prostitutes milling around outside, burned out boarded up houses, closed-down graffitied-over industrial areas, kids gunning each other down in front of public high schools at record numbers, etc, into a practically Beverly Hills'esque lap of luxury where 17 yr old girls are driving brand-new Beemers and Benzes and Hummers. So, I don't see 7/gal stopping the people much , in the latter mentioned area(s). In fact, I see no shortage of Hummers, Corvettes and Vipers and other muscle cars, 12 cylinder Benzes, and so forth driving around here every weekend.
This kind of crisis will likely hit the true "middle" class (which used to be called the lower class by former standards) , and the actual lower / working-poor classes the hardest, and they will be the ones who will take the brunt of it, use more public transportation (by necessity), and so forth. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:36:23 AM | and the new mantra from the right is off shore drilling and nuclear facilities
The left on the other hand is to promise pie in the sky...years from now. Raise taxes....make sure supply is limited and expensive to cut use. Suffering is the best way to make the world a better place. Greatly reducing the standard of living to get to the promised land of third world America. But quess who doesn't have to do the suffering? and quess who does? | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:49:45 AM | We're going to suffer regardless of whether politicians raise gas taxes or not. This is not an aberration. This is a glimpse of life on the other side of the oil peak.
While no one wants to suffer, there is an upside to the relative scarcity of oil. Conservation and alternative energy will be taken more seriously. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 8:55:11 AM | | Then we should use every available resourse to solve the problem...winfall profit taxes is one. We can't tax out way out of this...makes as much sense as, we can't drill our way out of this. There's a difference between conservation and strangulation. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 9:55:23 AM | | I would like to see a factual list of all the vehicles that every member of Congress drives.. including Leased vehicles.. if someone has time to dig that up it would be quite interesting. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 10:08:25 AM | | Greenpeace or some similar organization might have such a list, glam. Those groups are always trying to shame politicians into action. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 10:20:59 AM | | Speculation like this is what is driving prices higher. The bubble will burst before too long. The truckers I know that haul oil are having trouble finding work because all the reservoirs are full. There is plenty of supply, which is what the Saudis are trying to get across to us and the legislators are beginning to listen. Fuel prices will be dropping before long. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 10:22:53 AM | | i guess the staement, if we invade iraq. gas will be 20 dollars a barrel. that has work out real well. dont you think. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 10:40:53 AM |
Speculation like this is what is driving prices higher. The bubble will burst before too long. The truckers I know that haul oil are having trouble finding work because all the reservoirs are full. There is plenty of supply, which is what the Saudis are trying to get across to us and the legislators are beginning to listen. Fuel prices will be dropping before long.
^5
Unregulated trading is forcing prices higher on pure speculation. Not many politicians seem to be speaking up about this. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 11:19:33 AM | http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN2635419220080627?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&rpc=22&sp=true
By Matthew Bigg
PENSACOLA BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - For decades opposition to oil drilling off Florida's coast was one of the few issues uniting the state's Democrats and Republicans, who agreed that shielding the environment and the huge tourism industry came first.
Not now, as oil prices rise and U.S. motorists are paying serious prices at gasoline pumps.
Last week Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican who often sounds like a Democrat, shattered the consensus by calling for an end to a federal moratorium on oil and gas drilling along the country's outer continental shelf.
His decision follows the stance of Republican presidential candidate John McCain on an emotional issue before November's election. Two Republican Florida congressmen also backed Crist.
What some see as a crack in the protective shield for Florida's $57 billion tourism industry has drawn howls of protest from Democrats and environmental groups.
They worry that the long battle against oil drilling in the Sunshine State has entered a new phase as spiraling gas prices threaten the status quo.
"There have been some cracks in that wall of opposition (to offshore drilling). There's no doubt about that," said Mark Ferrulo, director of Progress Florida, a nonprofit organization that supports environmental and liberal causes.
"It's primarily because the oil industry has been extremely strategic about their efforts to change public opinion," Ferrulo said, citing the effectiveness of oil companies' advertising campaign to promote energy independence.
For coastal oil drilling to resume, the U.S. Congress would have to lift a national moratorium and then Florida's legislature would have to approve drilling in state waters.
Opposition to such a plan likely would be fierce.
Environment Florida, an anti-drilling advocacy group, said it got an unprecedented response from supporters to a write-in campaign after Crist changed his position.
"This is an issue that folks care about, it seems to strike a chord more deeply than any other environmental issue in Florida," said Holly Binns, the group's director.
BLUE-GREEN SEA
Pensacola Beach barrier island, just a few hundred yards (meters) wide but 47 miles long, depends on tourism and stands to lose as much as anywhere if oil rigs spoil the view or oil slicks ruin the beach, according to business owners.
Sandy Johnston, executive director of the island's Chamber of Commerce, said she was unconvinced by arguments that high gasoline prices will hurt tourism and so efforts to lower prices down should be welcomed.
"We can't find anything positive about it," she said.
Johnston cited an informal survey the chamber conducted two years ago among similar associations along the Texas Gulf coast on how drilling had affected their shorelines.
They reported problems with water clarity, tar on beaches, garbage and the need for extra maintenance, quite apart from the possibility, however remote, of a major spill on the scale of California's Santa Barbara spill of 1969, Johnston said.
The oil industry dismisses such concerns. Technology used to extract oil has improved dramatically in recent decades, said David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, a lobbying group.
Public opinion started to move in favor of oil drilling off Florida after Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 forced many Floridians to wait in long lines for gas, Mica said.
Jeanne and other powerful hurricanes that battered Florida in 2004 and 2005 left millions of Floridians struggling to fill their gas tanks because of a lack of electricity to pump the fuel and difficulties getting fresh supplies into Florida.
Mica also said Hurricane Katrina in 2005 did not cause the disastrous damage to Gulf oil platforms some predicted before it smashed into the U.S. Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans.
Katrina destroyed 123 oil and gas platforms in the Gulf, damaged dozens more, cut underwater pipelines and left a large swath of New Orleans covered in crude-tainted mud after swamping and damaging refineries onshore.
"Public opinion is supportive .... There is a considerable amount of people who are saying: 'It's time to give it a try (drilling) and watch it very closely,'" Mica said.
A business group that supports oil drilling release a survey
on Thursday saying 61 percent of Florida respondents support increased exploration and production of oil and natural gas off the Florida coasts.
When asked in what underwater locations Florida should allow increased exploration 22 percent of respondents said "anywhere" while 24 percent said at least 125 miles from shore, in an apparent indication of environmental concerns, the survey by the Associated Industries of Florida said.
Seventeen percent said they wanted drilling at least 25 miles from shore, 18 percent said out of sight of shore while nine percent said at least 50 miles from shore and 10 percent had no opinion on the subject.
The survey of 685 registered Florida voters, conducted on Tuesday, had a margin of error of 3.6 percent.
The last well drilled off Florida's coast was at Pensacola in 1970. If drilling resumed it could be in waters farther east at Destin Dome, though efforts would be complicated by the proximity of offshore naval training facilities, Mica said.
The area may contain around 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 12 leased areas about 25 miles off the coast. The government bought back nine of the leases in 2000, while Murphy Oil Corp. owns three others, he said. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 11:33:32 AM | ....just wait for hurricane season to hit.... prices will go up further....
just finished listening to Dr. Ravi Batra (sp?) economist from SMU. nothing is getting cheaper anytime soon.
regardless - alternatives must be invested in. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 7:58:28 PM |
....just wait for hurricane season to hit.... prices will go up further....
just wait until a "terrorist" attacks a US refinery and then see gas prices skyrocket. All so convenient for somebody's agenda to advance | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 9:09:17 PM | | Yep.. a terrorist attack at a refinery would not be good.. at least we'll have counter-terrorism tools in place until the election.. after that we're on our own I suppose depending on who is elected of course. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/27/2008 10:14:48 PM | It might help if we had a preident who can read. . . that way another 9/11 wouldn't be as likely. Too bad a moron was in charge back then!
Exxon must be chomping at the bit to drill off the coast of florida. Since the penalty for their economic catastrophy in Alaska was just reduced by 80% by the SCOTUS (God I can't stand them even more than Dubya), they can expect to cut corners, to save more money, for more record profits, knowing they won't have to pay for their sins, so to speak. Not like Florida depends on their beaches or sealife for anything. We need cheaper gas, so screw the ocean. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/28/2008 11:49:59 AM | Crash1967, this new mantra about offshore drilling and nukes.... every single Republican on these threads is pushing that, you notice, too? Its like Borg-speak, isnt it?
Too funny.
At best these things are ten years out..... what planet are these people on? What about the NEXT ten years????????????????? | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/28/2008 1:16:10 PM | | Oil addiction my ass, we have to have oil . Let oil go to $7 or even $10 dollars a gallon. Alot of people won't be about to work, then they won't be able to eat. Alot of people will die and then all of the stupid envirmentalist can have thier trees and animals. Maybe they all can live in trees and marry animals then. I am so sick of hearing about ele. cars, water cars, ride a bike, walk when there is still enough of oil in our own country to last for years. | |
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| $7 Per Gallon For Gas?!$!
Posted: 6/28/2008 2:08:27 PM | i just came from japan and they're paying about the same for gas as we are, except about half of the inflated amount we pay is due to depreciation of the dollar. if it weren't for the weak dollar, we'd still have a better deal than most people in the world.
so, quit whining and start thinking about alternative fuels. and if you were dumb enough to buy a monster SUV, giant pickup, or something with a giant engine and a hemi I don't have an ounce of sympathy for you. enjoy it. | |
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