Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Price gouging and greed definitely.

I filled up yesterday for $3.089 per gallon here in Michigan. That's the lowest I've seen in here in a while.

Prices for oil are going up because the demand grows faster than supply, with China's and India's extremely fast growing economies.
The US rely more than probably any other country on oil, due to ignoring something that environmental organizations have warned the world for dozens of years: Oil isn't available indefinitely.

Beside that, the easy-to-reach oil more and more finished, it requires new, expensive technology to still reach the oil.

I filled up yesterday for $3.089 per gallon here in Michigan. That's the lowest I've seen in here in a while.

Take a look at these two websites

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

and follow the RSS feed of

http://www.theoildrum.com

for a few months. Then you'll be able to draw some hopefully more educated conclusions on what's happening.

Cheers (for us all)

Dollar is going down as well, which raises gas prices in the US.

I filled up yesterday for $3.089 per gallon here in Michigan. That's the lowest I've seen in here in a while.

The most obvious reason is that crude oil is at it's highest price ever, currently over $98/barrel. But then the question becomes, why is oil so expensive? Some, like Sebastian, will say that it's pure supply/demand. I think that's part of it, but I also think there's some price gouging involved. Year after year, Exxon posts a new record profit, which also happens to be the highest profit EVER, for any company in the history of the country. If that's not a sign of what's going on, I don't know what is...

Er sorry for the duplicate posts, MZ's proxy server burped while I was trying to post.

I'm not saying the oil companies aren't evil, but allegations of price gouging are invariably shown to be false (search especially for analyses of reports for post-9/11 and post-Katrina).

I don't begrudge the oil companies their profits. They deal in an increasingly limited resource that we demand in larger and larger quantities. It's up to consumers to figure out that we should buy less when prices rise, and the fact that demand is increasing shows how little right we have to complain.

Considering that a LOT of gas delivered to the states comes from your friends to the north (Canada)... and our dollar is doing so well compared to the greenback at the moment, this might actually be a case of "what it really costs" rather than gouging.

our prices here haven't changed much in the last 12 months... still about $1/litre.

Guess I shouldn't brag that in my car, the most a fill has ever cost me is $46CDN ;-)

And I almost cried that day!

Steve

just a quick math check... Google says that my gas costs $3.79 / US Gallon. So a little less than that, after you do the currency conversion. ;-)

The price of a barrel of oil is hitting record highs. Flirting with $100 a barrel. And the dollar keeps on dropping. They're related.

lol, in Italy a gallon of diesel, according to my calculation (1 gl = 3,78 lt and 1,48 dollars = 1 euro), is about 6,72 dollars and a gallon of normal fuel (gasoline) is about 7,84, so you really can't bother us with this :)
A fill for my car i think is now about 80/90 euros.

BTW your car performance is poor... my bmw320diesel is about 38/39 miles/gallon (hope not to have some stupid error in the calculation ;) )

Although supply/demand has some effect, Asa, you're basically seeing the effect of a plummeting US dollar. Although oil is $99 per US dollar, its price in (say) Euros or Canadian dollars is not rising nearly as much.

Although supply/demand has some effect, Asa, you're basically seeing the effect of a plummeting US dollar. Although oil is $99 per US dollar, its price in (say) Euros or Canadian dollars is not rising nearly as much.

And some more European comparison, cheapest prices in my home area in Germany:

Normal gas: 1.409€/l = $7.89/gal
Premium gas: 1.419€/l = $7.94/gal
Diesel: 1.339€/l = $7.50/gal

On the other hand, this brings some competition, and our average modern diesel cars need around 5-7l/100km = 35-50 miles/gal.
And there's currently a lightweight low fuel car in development that will even need just 1.5-2l/100km = 120-160miles/gal. Surely a car I'll keep an eye on. See www.loremo.com for details.

You still have it cheap. In Croatia cheapest 95 octane petrol is $6.1/gal and diesel is just under $6/gal. I think similar prices are in Austria also...
Doesn't Germany have the Autobahn fees calculated into the price of the petrol?

Japan is hovering around 150 yen per liter:

http://japancorp.net/article.asp?Art_ID=15922
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.asp?Art_ID=15945

At 3.785 litres per US gallon that's about 567.75 yen per gallon or about $5.15/gallon.

hi asa

wondering if my previous comment did not go through at all?

check http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net and http://www.theoildrum.com, follow the rss feeds for a while and you'll know a bit more about the energy dilemmas we're facing.

In Estonia the 95 octane is $1.3379 USD (€0.9074) per litre ($5.0646 USD per gallon)
Diesel is $1.3945 USD (€0.9457) per litre ($5.2786 USD per gallon).

In 2008 the due to increased taxes price gets jacked up at least $0.2 USD.

Big thanks goes to your warmongering overlords...

Oh and fix your blogs character encoding discrepancies (switches between iso-8859-1 and UTF-8)

� == "€"

Indeed. The web server says "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" and the page has a META of "text/html; charset=utf-8".

But if you want to know more about oil, go to "www.theoildrum.com". Hour of amazing reading there, and every day they collect an demented number of new oil information. Argh !

Well, it could be worse (or better, depending of your way to see things): we're at 1.69 EUR a *LITER* in Paris. (that's approximately $9.40 a gallon).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nitot/1968830631/

Of course, this sounds a lot, but I can tell you it's a strong incentive to use less gas, become more environment-friendly and reduce dependency on countries that finance terrorists.

Well, it could be worse (or better, depending of your way to see things): we're at 1.69 EUR a *LITER* in Paris. (that's approximately $9.40 a gallon).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nitot/1968830631/

Of course, this sounds a lot, but I can tell you it's a strong incentive to use less gas, become more environment-friendly and reduce dependency on countries that finance terrorists.

Simone, I agree about the economy/performance of his Honda. I have two accords right now, a 2000 that get about 25MPG, and a 1993 that gets about 30MPG. Some time ago I had a 1983 model that got 40+MPG.

Accords used to be a small economy car, but over time they have become almost a midsize car. The '83 accord could hold 4 people, but it was a snug fit, and if you were to sit in the back seat, you had better not have legs that were too long or you would be providing the person in front of you with a back rub they may not have wanted. The 2000 can seat 4 large people comfortably, and has nearly twice the trunk capacity of my '83. My '93 is somewhere between.

What I would like to see is a Diesel Accord. My guess is that if they did that, Honda could maintain their size and return to a 40+MPG economy.

0,72 €/liter ????
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=4+us%24%2Fgallon+in+%E2%82%AC%2Fliter+&btnG=Suche&meta=
Please send me some fuel ;-)

Like the Germans mentioned: It's expensive in Germany. Two weeks ago we payed more then 1,45 €/liter. It's the double of your prise :-(
It's (by google) 8,09330506 US$ / US gallon:
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=1%2C45+%E2%82%AC%2Fliter+in+us%24%2Fgallon&btnG=Suche&meta=

Bye

0,72 €/liter ????
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=4+us%24%2Fgallon+in+%E2%82%AC%2Fliter+&btnG=Suche&meta=
Please send me some fuel ;-)

Like the Germans mentioned: It's expensive in Germany. Two weeks ago we payed more then 1,45 €/liter. It's the double of your prise :-(
It's (by google) 8,09330506 US$ / US gallon:
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=1%2C45+%E2%82%AC%2Fliter+in+us%24%2Fgallon&btnG=Suche&meta=

Bye

PS: Your Webserver has some problems. I'm getting Squid-Errors.

Please define gourging. You have concluded that someone is "gourging," which is demonstrated by the question "Is this gouging because they can" where you do not ask if they are "gourging" but why they are "gourging."

As for the price disparity, perhaps you should be asking why there is such a large tax disparity between where you live and the rest of the country, which in your case, I believe is California.

Asa, have you ever heard about peak oil?

Crude oil is expensive, because it is paid in dollar and the dollar is devaluating fast. The guys who sell oil want some value for it and the dollar does not provide that value anymore.

ckd, do not listen to the media. The dollar is devaluing remarkably slowly, given what it should be worth, which is roughly nothing, as it is a fiat currency that has no backing, just like the Euro. It is said that it is backed by the gold in the US reserve, but there is not enough gold to back its entire value and if it was backed by the gold in the US reserve, we would be able to exchange our dollars for gold, but FDR took away our constitutional right to do that a long time ago.

USD not backed by gold since about 1970-s (I've read that somewhere recently)

The reason fuel is more expensive in CA in part is shipping distance from the oil ports in the Gulf. And likely CA taxes.

By the way our currency is backed by nothing! it has been that way for years!

The dollar is getting worth less everyday because of the numb skulls who control it. Not many people are aware of just how vulnerable we are, and it is probably a good thing.

1) Demand is much, much higher than in the past due to developing nations such as China using more automobiles.
2) Gasoline prices are slightly decoupled from petroleum prices because after all, the petroleum isn't refined at the gas station.
3) When irrational hoarders and speculators bid up the price of oil out of fear that they won't be able to buy it (partially justified fear, perhaps), they are increasing the price that Exxon gets. Exxon gets to profit from this irrational behavior whether Exxon egged on the hoarders and speculators or not. The oil companies could be gouging but to do that they'd have to collude in what price they accepted, and honestly in the current environment I don't think they would need to. Every time someone sneezes on an oil transport pipeline the oil markets go crazy.
4) I respect the theory that the price of oil may appear to be more stable in Euro terms, but I don't see the quotes in euro so I will take the commenters' word on that one.

1) Demand is much, much higher than in the past due to developing nations such as China using more automobiles.
2) Gasoline prices are slightly decoupled from petroleum prices because after all, the petroleum isn't refined at the gas station.
3) When irrational hoarders and speculators bid up the price of oil out of fear that they won't be able to buy it (partially justified fear, perhaps), they are increasing the price that Exxon gets. Exxon gets to profit from this irrational behavior whether Exxon egged on the hoarders and speculators or not. The oil companies could be gouging but to do that they'd have to collude in what price they accepted, and honestly in the current environment I don't think they would need to. Every time someone sneezes on an oil transport pipeline the oil markets go crazy.
4) I respect the theory that the price of oil may appear to be more stable in Euro terms, but I don't see the quotes in euro so I will take the commenters' word on that one.