oldsmobiledave

When I was in Medicine Hat AB on the weekend racing I saw 87 Octane for $1.10 Can per liter. With 3.8L / US gallon & a 91 cent dollar that makes it $4.59 US / US gallon.


You US guys need to stop whining about your gas price as they are way way way below world prices.

redoldsman

Here is a link you can go to for ethanol free gasoline. Unfortunately none are really close to me. It is about 35 miles to the closest one. So with a 70 mile round trip I have probably burned about 5 gallons. It is not a lot more than the 10% ethanol crap.

http://pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=TX

orange442

The lowest price around here is right at $2.98-$2.99 for 87 but has been dropping every day. When I bought my 02 Dmax in Dec. 01, diesel fuel was less than a dollar a gallon. I paid $4.79, $4.89, $4.99 a gallon for it during my 08 trip to Norwalk, now that one hurt! I know all about the emissions changes and ultra low sulfur diesel and the cost for all the new equipment and processes to do the extra steps to refine the sulfur out. Now all this has paid for itself many times over by now but diesel is still too high. Diesel also does not fluctuate prices like gas does yet it is still, and has always been, a byproduct of gasoline production. If diesel prices were not so inflated, the prices of the everyday products we buy would have jumped in price so quickly over the last few years. The only reason a given product has possibly stayed even close to the same price over the last few years is when the company making the product considerably lowers the amount or quantity of product they previously provided. Many have lowered quantity and raised prices. With cost of living going up almost exponentially and wages staying low with little if any cost of living adjustments, something has to change for the better or the weak US economy will tank once again.

68RocketAction

Around here gas prices are ususally on the lower side compared to the national averages. I put gas in the Jeep earlier and was down to $2.87 per gallon for 87 w/ 10% Ethanol. Did pay much attention to the other grades. However, Monday I went and filled up the Toronado. According to the receipt it was $3.42 per gallon for 91 Ethanol Free.

Really not sure what to think about the big mark up on Ethanol free gasoline vs gasoline w/ 10% Ethanol... :/

Seff

Hehehe, yeah, we're tiny. Driving three and a half hours gets you from east to west.

nsnarsk65cutlass

This is true but the cost of living increases much fast than my pay increases by far .One pay raise in 7 years.

Fun71

I can tell you why the prices are lower in Louisiana and East Texas - that area has lots of refineries and provides a large portion of the gasoline in the US.

jaunty75

My point wasn't that rates of pay have kept up with inflation or with the rate of increases in gasoline prices. Few people's have. My point was that the rate of inflation in gas prices is no different than the rate for anything else you buy on a regular basis. All of it has gone up relative to our pay, but gasoline no more so than anything else.

jaunty75

Same has happened to me. A couple of years ago there were two or three stations in town selling ethanol-free gas, and they actually advertised it. Now, no one does.

jaunty75

True. Also, those two states' fuel taxes are among the lower in the country (tied for 38th).

coldwar

That depends on your definition of what inflation is. It is NOT the cost of purchases increasing relative to wages. I accept Greenspans' definition of the term, meaning it is defined by the cost of items against borrowing costs of the same money. Remember the Carter years, radical increase of cost of about everything, AND 20% APR on lending. That is the demonstration of the worst of it. Interest rates today across two two-term federal administrations have remained at essentially zero, also meaning savers earn essentially zero return on cash savings. Today lending is much tighter with the very low % terms, and other related costs much higher, and more of them. Lastly, we today all want luxury items which COST MORE relative to what money we have to spend, better phones, TV's cars, etc etc. That too is not in the inflation calculation.

The increased demand for costly items and purchasers willing to sacrifice heavily to obtain them against costs of living demonstrates to me the entrance to the middle class is alive and well, neither party seems to have any handle on what high technology means to the U.S. economy on the consumer side.

jaunty75

Back then the "misery index" came into use. It's the sum of the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. There's a chart of it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misery_...28economics%29

It was a big deal in the late '70s, when it peaked under Carter, and it has since dropped back down.

orange442

There are 3 or 4 stations in just my small town(35k-ish) that have exclusively ethanol-free gasoline in all grades and several other stations carry all grades of E-10 and just 87 octane ethanol-free. It is more expensive but worth it for the older vehicle fuel systems. Gas dropped below $3 all over town today, $2.94-$2.95 lowest.

Allan R

Actually they are part of the overall compilation of world prices, but I agree the USA national avg price of 96¢/Litre puts them closer to the bottom of the chart. Based strictly on averaging on a bell curve the world average is 1.25 US / Litre. Denmark and Norway are within .10 of each other for the world's top prices for fuel. (source: GlobalPetrolPrices.com)

Fun71

Most of the European high prices are due to government taxes:

http://www.economist.com/node/17101124




Can you imagine if we had a 60% tax rate on gas?





You can see from this chart the base fuel prices are similar in all the countries; it's the tax that makes the huge difference in the price at the pump:

pogo69

The USA prices should be near the bottom after all we spent billions to oust Saddam so that we would have plenty of gas in the future to cut our lawns

Allan R

True enough, but it's not just Europe. Much like the War Reparation Tax that started after WW1, this is a honey hole something that no gubment is going to just give away, because if they do, that will be the start of higher personal and corporate taxes to compensate for the 'loss' of income.

When do you think the gubment will actually lift any taxes on a commodity they can legally rip people off with? No matter what the tax structure is, that's not going to stop people from buying the product. It will however do just what this thread is doing - give peeps something to rant about. Not one person on this thread has offered or suggested a viable solution to gas prices or taxation. So until then, it's just a way to vent and pony up the cash at the pump.

BTW, most of those prices you show in the second URL IMG are lower than the posted pump prices across Canada, so I don't feel much remorse for those European places. And since our gubment isn't raking in all those profits it can only mean that big oil is getting fatter and richer while the masses pay.

tru-blue 442

^^^Umm yeah. Kuwait you suck!
That was when we needed to say, HEY!! And by the way...
A few spoils of it...
This people pay what? .16 a litre or gallon or...

Apologies guys. I'm still a little bent
out of shape over the so called bailout.
And the 2 termmer as well.

These,^^^, after yours Pogo.

oldcutlass

Wow that's an old chart, Kenneth

Fun71

Note the date at the top of the chart.

Yeah, I know. I tried to locate something more recent but that was the best I could do. I was at work and couldn't spend too much time searching the web. Anyway, I was just trying to show that the countries with really expensive gas were due to the exorbitant taxes their gubmints put on it.

Allan R

This chart shows the Canadian gas price averages for the past 2 years. Similar trending, but nowhere close to same pricing as USA (shown below)



And this one shows the average for the USA for the same time period

Oldsguy

That is a true statement my friend. I was down in Houston and Galveston over the last three day Holiday weekend and was really impressed by the number of refineries that were in the area.

Oldsguy

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that point. If we (I) could just control the desire to "get that new one" and live a little more modestly I think life would be much more pleasant, definitely simpler. I recently purchased a strategy computer game (like the board game risk) and it has consumed my last four evenings almost exclusively. I must exercise a little self control and balance that with other things in my life (like my wife) or I may find myself out in the garage all alone . And haven't we all made a major purchase of a vehicle or a major appliance or something that we really, actually could have made due without? I know I have. Monetarily that can represent a large chunk of our budget.

Fun71

Those are pump prices only. I was trying to show that the reason the prices were so high is due to the amount of tax on the fuel.


Yep, and there are even more in the Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange area. This is the region that was hit by Hurricane Rita, but all you ever hear about that one was "it missed Houston" and all the news stories were about evacuees stuck in the world's largest traffic jam.

Allan R

Yes, I understand that. That's why I agree with oldsmobiledave. Be glad your grub meant isn't as greedy as ours. I live in an oil producing province, but still don't see the cut rates that peeps in TX or LA get. Just sayin

jaunty75

Gas price of $2.86 per gallon at a Shell station in Cuba, New Mexico (look it up). We were passing by on September 22, and this price is down 20 cents since we passed by going the other way late last week.




Around where I live, prices have generally fallen about 10 cents per gallon in the last week. Most stations are now in the under $3.10 range where they were around $3.20 or slightly less last week, with a few stations now a few cents below $3.00.

orange442

Cheapest around here that I saw was $2.82 yesterday and this morning. Every station in town jumped up to $2.99 just before rush hour today.

1969w3155

Well, it was 3.29 today going into work today, and 3.55 when I got out..going back up apparently.

BackInTheGame

I'm totally jealous! It's still at $3.45 here in south Denver area!

jaunty75

Our travels this past weekend took us through southwest Colorado, eastern Utah, and southwest Wyoming, and prices do vary considerably. While it was $2.86 in northwestern New Mexico, it was about $3.50 in Durango, Colorado and in the $3.20 to $3.50 range in Utah and Wyoming. As we were passing though the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, there were some isolated gas stations/camp stores with regular at $3.99 per gallon. Ouch.

I'm guessing it's a combination of everything, including local market situation, taxes, proximity to refinery, competition, what the market will bear, etc. that determines price. As we passed through Albuquerque, I saw most stations were just under $3.00 for regular.

BlueCalais79

I come from the land of high taxes. Among the best around in CT Hartford area, I just paid $3.62 yesterday. In this area that's about the best around lately. It's held between $3.62 and $3.68 now for the past 6 weeks or so. Hope it drops before Hershey next month! I'm taking my 72 Cutlass S, it likes to visit alot of gas stations.

jaunty75

You ain't kiddin'. Connecticut is 4th on the list of state gas taxes, tacking a whopping 45 cents onto every gallon. Where I live, New Mexico, taxes add just under 20 cents. Alaska, with the lowest, adds just 8 cents in taxes.

cutlassjoe

Meanwhile in Windsor, Ontario, Canada the prices came down a little for a day or two then jumped up higher than they were before. They are at about $1.27 a litre or close to $5.00 a gallon. Beauty Eh! Glad I work in Metro D. Gas at the duty free on the Ambassador Bridge is about $3.25 a gallon.

RandyS

Might be cause Alaska refines their own gas, which they have in abundance.....

jaunty75

You mean refine their own OIL. Of course. Most of the oil-producing states have lower taxes on petroleum and petroleum products in an effort to stimulate demand of a product that contributes to their state coffers and employs their citizens. I recall during the initial operation of the Alaskan oil pipeline back in the '80s or whenever it was completed that Alaska was raking in so much oil tax revenue that the state gave every resident $2000 or something like that one year. I don't think I have this exactly right, but it was something like that.

Earlier I noted that New Jersey has relatively low fuel taxes, which seems to make it an outlier amongst the northeastern and eastern states. But doesn't New Jersey have a large number of refineries? Isn't a lot of the oil from the Middle East delivered to ports there? They don't want to hurt businesses that pay taxes and employ people by discouraging consumption of those business' products.

jaunty75

You guys in Canada are in a whole different world.

You have high taxes on everything. It pays for your government-run health care system and all of that.

We in this country just created our own government-run system called Obamacare, but we did it better because we didn't bother to find a way to pay for it. We just run trillion dollar deficits. I remember when a trillion dollars was a lot of money. It isn't any more.

RandyS

Yes, the Alaska Permanent Fund. I was living in Anchorage in 1982 when it began. Every citizen at least 6 mo. old got $1000. So a family of 6 got $6000.00. The amount has varied over the years, and is up to $1,884.00 per person for 2014............ Also, no state income tax and no state established sales tax.

jankyrre

Drove through 24 states this july and prices were between $3,10 and $4.Highest on both coasts.Cheapest in Oklahoma and Texas.

jaunty75

Thanks for the info!

jaunty75

It's always this way. Don't know why anyone lives on the coasts!

Or what people who live on the coasts refer to as "flyover country."