Posted on 06/09/2008 4:37:47 AM PDT by shrinkermd
TCHULA, Miss. — Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country.
But the pain is not being felt uniformly. Across broad swaths of the South, Southwest and the upper Great Plains, the combination of low incomes, high gas prices and heavy dependence on pickup trucks and vans is putting an even tighter squeeze on family budgets.
Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.
People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.
The disparity between rural America and the rest of the country is a matter of simple home economics. Nationwide, Americans are now spending about 4 percent of their take-home income on gasoline. By contrast, in some counties in the Mississippi Delta, that figure has surpassed 13 percent.
As a result, gasoline expenses are rivaling what families spend on food and housing.
“This crisis really impacts those who are at the economic margins of society, mostly in the rural areas and particularly parts of the Southeast,” said Fred Rozell, retail pricing director at the Oil Price Information Service, a fuel analysis firm. “These are people who have to decide between food and transportation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No light rail in the rural areas.
Waaa Waaa Cryers for hire in full BS mode. The tone of this article would have you think that the world was ending or the sky falling or something like that. At anywhere from $4 to $7 a pack I wonder how many of these "poor' people are giving up their cigarettes to buy gas? I wonder how many are giving up their beer to buy gas. I wonder how many yuppies are giving up bottled water (which costs more than gas for something you can get free from the tap) to buy gas.
Dear Congress,
Despite over a decade of ever growing demand for Oil, you have allowed our domestic oil resources to sit untapped. Our domestic production of oil has, in fact, consistently dropped during this period
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus2m.htm
Please try and explain to us why we should not fire your butts for this criminal level incompetence
Drill here, drill now!
Pass HR 6108 Drill offshore bill!
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-6108
If they have natural gas, they may be interested in this info I received yesterday:
The technology and means to solve our oil crisis are already here. I refer to NGV’s (natural gas vehicles). They use cng (compressed natural gas) for fuel. The emissions are cleaner, fuel is cheaper and the U.S. has the the 6th largest reserves in the world. Mr. T. Boone Pickens recently stated he could reduce oil imports by 40% in 10 years through use of natural gas. Many other countries are taking advantage of this. In Thailand they are currently constructing super stations that can fuel 40 NGV’s at once. GM manufactures new cng cars there. Cummins Westport manufactures these engines for trucks and buses. Our politicians pursue a joke called ethanol to gain votes from farm states. Meanwhile we transfer our wealth to Hugo Chavez and his pals. They can sit back and laugh, watching the Great Satan self-destruct. By the way, Iran is manufacturing 250,000 cng cars this year and Hugo has mandated all new cars to run on cng starting in July.
I was also told Honda sells a Civic that can be filled up at home with the use of this device at www.myphill.com. They say it is about $1.50 per gallon to fill up with CNG.
Free market capitalism.
If you can’t afford the product, don’t buy it or use it. Change jobs.
Stay close to home. Sell your 3.5cylinder truck. Quit complaining.
Maybe the government should “subsidize” them.
/sarc
Ever since I supplied equipment to convert Public buses and taxi in New Delhi to CNG, I have become a big fan.
Rather than ethanol, we should be pursuing CNG to power vehicles. If we increased nuclear power and used the surplus gas to do vehicles it would be a far better solution.
There is no infrastructure..other than tank cars and truck to transporting ethanol, but there is alread a gas pipeline network in the US. Many gas stations have access to natural gas and they would only need to install a compressor and bottles to service cars and trucks.
Ever since I supplied equipment to convert Public buses and taxi in New Delhi to CNG, I have become a big fan.
Rather than ethanol, we should be pursuing CNG to power vehicles. If we increased nuclear power and used the surplus gas to do vehicles it would be a far better solution.
There is no infrastructure..other than tank cars and truck to transporting ethanol, but there is alread a gas pipeline network in the US. Many gas stations have access to natural gas and they would only need to install a compressor and bottles to service cars and trucks.
Exactly. And according to the link posted by justlurking yesterday, www.myphill.com, you can even fill up at home. It’s pretty neat stuff, but the speculators will no doubt drive up the price of natural gas too as this becomes popular. But then, we will have recovered our corn fields for meat production, so the price of meats should be reasonable again.
As proven by the use of CNG in city buses in Boston, for one place, it can handle the heavy load of work vehicles pretty efficiently, whereas hybrids lose most or all of their advantage by the time the vehicle gets up to the size of a heavy-duty construction worker’s pickup truck. I’m sure it has its drawbacks and limitations, but I’d be interested in seeing it considered in the mix. Anybody got a list of reasons not to use it more?
Prices have been climbing
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm
And even higher more recently
It is now. Compete with the home heating and electrical generation markets for natural gas and it won't be long. It will have a ripple effect that hits other sectors.
I worked for a company which had trucks which ran on propane or gasoline. They had to be started on gasoline and run until they warmed up after the temperature dropped below -20 or so, otherwise the propane would stay liquid and the truck would not run.
While that does not affect everyone, some of us live in regions which commonly get that cold in winter.
Availability for one. Coming from first hand experience. In a state LE agency, our vehicles were equipped with LPG tanks and gas tanks (in the 80s--Texas), we were ordered to use the LPG as priority. In our rural areas (of all things) not enough outlets to purchase LPG, that would have to be solved also, as in all government control, lots of restrictions and regulations. You would think in farming/ranching areas where LPG is used a lot it would be no problem to access but bureaucrats will find a way to restrict common-sense solutions.
Private citizens might have more leeway in refueling, don't know. LPG performance was not as good but okay overall.
Look, we have plenty of resources, DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW.
How safe is CNG if the automobile is in an accident?
I don’t smoke or buy cigarettes...but with a pickup truck (you can’t haul hay in a Prius) and a job 25 miles away (not a problem when I bought the home & gas was $1.50), it isn’t much fun.
Of course, I could shoot our horses and move to an apartment within bicycling distance of work, rather than complain about a Congress that won’t allow drilling for oil. I’m in no danger of going broke, and in fact will be retired in a month - but $4 gas hurts.
And, as the article explains, if you need a truck to move stuff and you don’t live in a city, it hurts more. And I wouldn’t get upset, except we have so-called environmentalists who don’t want us to drill oil, use nuc power or even put up solar panels in the desert. They want to use artificially high prices for power to punish people for the sin of living - and I’m supposed to like that?
Bull
Maybe in the city's they are
But those of us that live out in the sticks it just means another deer and a few more turkeys and rabbits die.
Besides wild meat is better for you less fat and all that.
“I wonder how many yuppies are giving up bottled water (which costs more than gas for something you can get free from the tap) to buy gas.”
I like to look at economic numbers and they tell me bad things seem to be happening...then I look at the amount of garbage purchases people make, like bottled water at over $10/gallon, and realize we still have a long way to go before this economy implodes.
I am just eagerly waiting to hear about “gasheads” people who commute several hours a day in fuel guzzlers and are giving up the basic needs like meat to pay the cost of fuel.
Soon we will see emaciated drivers behind the wheels of the tuna boats, we will see ads on Craigslist of parents selling children for gas, we will be seeing new individual owners starting their own car pools like the trophy wives in the oversized SUVs, I can just see them parked in groups near Walmarts tossing catcalls of a suggestive nature at passing commuters to “ride” with them all in a similar fashion to streetwalkers on a busy street.
And a new snob society will be borne, status now is not being able to just buy an expensive car or SUV, its how much or rather how less fuel the car needs, pure electric are now at the top of the list. The lowly much taunted Prius is now the school yard bully, the Hummer crowds cower in fear or lie gasping for fuel alongside the road.
Somehow I don't think an additional $21.25 a week would be a make or break amount for most people, but I do agree that the high gas prices are 90% the fault of the government in two ways. First they suck their taxes out of us. The oil companies drill, explore, refine, and distribute fuel for about $.09 cents per gallon profit with the rest of the cost being taxes and production costs. The government does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING EXCEPT MAKE THAT PROCESS MORE DIFFICULT and they collect anywhere from $0.35 to $0.68 per gallon. The second way the government raises prices is by lowering supply. Demand is growing, and the crooks in our Duma are pandering to the vocal minority of ecofreaks to restrict drilling. They and their greasy haired hippy freak greenpeace type supporters should all be lined up against the wall and shot.
“No light rail in the rural areas.”
Most folks today don’t realize what once _was_ in parts of rural America.
Find a copy of “The Interurban Era” (William D. Middleton), and you can learn about the amazing network of rural/urban electric trains that once existed in much of the country.
Virtually all of it disappeared with the coming of the automobiles.
Perhaps when the automobiles whither away, they might return....
- John
“Free market capitalism.
If you can’t afford the product, don’t buy it or use it. Change jobs.
Stay close to home. Sell your 3.5cylinder truck. Quit complaining”
I guess you could always ask the Czar about that! :)
- John
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