Record Gas Prices: Some Analysts Predict $3 A Gallon By Year's End

LA Daily News ^ | Mar 1, 2004 | Brent Hopkins

[hardhead]

Los Angeles gasoline prices hit a record $2.178 a gallon for regular on Monday -- up more than 50 cents since Jan. 1 -- and some analysts openly talked about it hitting the once-unthinkable mark of $3 a gallon, possibly by late this year.

The Automobile Club of Southern California reported that the price of gas soared 40 cents in the past month, putting it more than 22 cents above price a year ago and 1.1 cents higher than the previous high of $2.167 on March 21, 2003.

[commonerX]

""Some do feel that the government should force the issue, by making cars too expensive to drive.""

""If that's the case the government would raise the price of gasoline to over US$4.50/gallon with more taxes and put excise taxes on automobiles based on the size of the car, the size of the engine and/or fuel economy results. Why do you think that the average car in Europe is somewhere between a Toyota Echo and Toyota Corolla in size and engine displacement?""

How much tax is on gas now? I am an Architect and I have to deal with civil engineers. And for many the answer to the gas problem, overcrowded streets and deaths from accidents would be to remove as many cars from the streets as possible. Making cars too expensive for the avarage joe is one sullotion I've heard.

[Dane]

Six out of 51 Pubbies, while there were probably 45 out of 48 demos against drilling in ANWR. Now tell me which party is more mathematically against drilling in ANWR.

Whoops wait a minute, I assumed that you could understand math, nevermind.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Action not talk gets things down. I don't see gasoline as a big problem.. But you do. That is your right. I encourage you to take action. At least you are saying that gas prices are Bush's fault. Prices are the consumer's reponsibility to change.

CG

[Walkin Man]

It's almost like they enjoy sticking the American people with an electrical cattle prod.

It would seem so Joe.

Of course if you are not a CEO, a Wall Street hustler, or an outsourcing free traitor, your opinions don't count to many on this board or the Republican party in general.

[newgeezer]

Can people really be convinced that Kerry has a better idea regarding fuel prices.

LOL. The voters I had in mind need only to be convinced that they don't like things the way they are. Thus, they'll vote for "change," figuring the Dem won't be any worse than what we have now.

I strongly suspect it's that kind of 30-second-attention-span voter who inspired Clinton's '92 "It's the economy, stupid" marching orders. All the Dems need to do is convince those voters that times are tough and couldn't possibly be any worse under Pres. Kerry. "It's time for a change!" (What have you got to lose?).

[Final Authority]

This is one of the unintentional consequences of free trade with China. With their growing economy, China has become one of the worlds largest producers of motor vehicles. It isn't so bad except that they are not replacement vehicles like in the more advanced nations but rather they are adding each one to their inventory or fleet. All of them use petroleum based fuels. They need to import such fuel to meet their demand. That demand is driving up the price of gas.

Free trade is surely the noose that we indeed will hang ourselves with.

[Shermy]

I thought with Sadaam out of the picture and the Oil for Food bs abolished that there'd be a glut of oil coming into the market and thus decreasing price?

The planners forgot to contemplate that agents of Iran and our-friends-the-Saudis, both "capitalists," might make a small investment in Iraqi pipeline bombing for big returns!

Neat, selective, well-spaced out attacks, none of this suiciders blowing up mosques stuff.

[Walkin Man]

You never see the rats back down do you? No matter what.

The repub's and the President fought for ANWR drilling just like they "fought" for their judicial candidates!

Republicans are the get-along, go along party.

Having control of both houses of Congress and the White House has done nothing to change that fact.

[Joe Hadenuf]

You run from thread to thread supporting illegal aliens, and now you are here supporting the oil companies and these obscene daily price hikes

Wouldn't be Joe Hadenuf reply without some reference to your pathological hatred of hispanics on a thread about petrol economics, IMO.

So typical of Dane to throw out the race card.

It takes a liberal leftist to equate being against the invasion of illegal aliens to a pathological hatered for Hispanics. LOL!

Nice try Dane. You've only succeeded in establishing your true, pro illegal, pro open border, pro big government position

[claptrap]

Apparently Bush has been unable to restrain his Big Oil
Constiuency from gouging at the pump? Wasnt the Energy
Bill Bush recently signed supposed to appease the hungry
giants of oil? I dont think we can rely on what is said
rather we must watch what is being done!

[angcat]

Explorer Sport. Almost choked this morning when I went to fill up at Sunoco $26 bucks. Drums, PA. Good thing I only work 10 miles from home.

[aShepard]

...$3/gal would be pretty close to covering dollar devaluation.....

I believe that only about 25% of the pump price of gasoline is impacted by dollar devaluation. The rest is refining, distribution, taxes, and pump margin.

[angcat]

I just clawed my bar fly coworker who said it was Bush's fault about the gas prices. He asked me to explain how it is not his fault. I told him why should I enlighten a rock. Go back to the bar! He also said he was not voting. I said GOOD!

[Dane]

Having control of both houses of Congress and the White House has done nothing to change that fact

Uh having a one seat majority in one of the Houses is not going to change the world overnight.

Oh that's correct I live in the real world where things don't go my way all the time and people have differences over issues.

Given that you still haven't refuted the fact that the demos are much more against drilling in ANWR.

[pctech]

But we caught a bit of the integrities, and the line is now (as it was) that the Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people. Could be one of the greatest strategic blunders in the history of warfare; but it makes us look nice.

Taking the high road is important, and we should always be honorable in our dealings with other countries. Now that doesn't mean we should willing to lay down and not expect some type of repayment. We freed another country's people, and we paid the price with our son's blood. We should expect, and receive, some type of compensation from Iraq and it should be the oil that they have at their disposal.

[Doomonyou]

not even 1.50 here....

Must be nice. Here in Sonoma County, about 25 miles from the huge oil refineries on the bay, I paid $2.20/gal.

Must be all the trucking costs.

[patriot_wes]

I agree. We should be drilling there and tripling production in the gulf of mexico also where estimates are there is enough oil for us for 300 years. the greens are gonna kill us if we don't take control of our own destiny. An oil shortage is pure BS! As is global warming...hey whats a few tenths of a degree among friends anyway?

[RayChuang88]

True, but the effect is the same. Mercedes got rich by totally ignoring this piece of crap legislation and rolling the charge of the tax into the price of the car.

However, if you start charging excise taxes on a car based on vehicle size and engine size, a Mercedes-Benz could see its price zoom up 40-50% just to cover the excise tax charges. That's the reason why in Europe many cars are usually limited to a certain length, width and engine displacement to keep the customer from being hit with increasingly high excise taxes. I mean consider the current generation of the Honda Civic sedan. The reason why the car has this specific shape and engine displacement is the fact that they also sell this model in Japan, where exceeding certain external dimensions and engine displacement results in a steep rise in the excise tax imposed on the car.

Anyway, improvements in drivetrain technology will improve fuel efficiency fairly steeply very soon. The wide availability of low-sulfur gasoline will mean engines can switch to direct-injection fuel delivery (e.g., directly injectin the fuel into the combustion chamber), which means we can increase the fuel efficiency of a car as much as 20%! Combine this with increased use of hybrid drivetrains and a Toyota Prius could break the 70 mpg barrier pretty easily.

[newguy357]

I'm glad I have a gas guzzling truck.

[Pitchfork]

You use mass transit?! You must be some kinda socialist or something.

P.S. at $3 a gallon save a spot on the train for me.