40+mpg if I can stay out of the throttle, faster than 99% of the cars ever made, initial purchase price $500.
Posted on 01/18/2011 2:57:11 PM PST by NRG1973
Americans are starting to watch their spending more carefully as gasoline prices reach levels not seen since October 2008.
Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, says Thursday's government report on retail sales indicates that consumers are skipping a restaurant meal or a movie because they have to spend more to drive.
Swonk estimates gasoline prices are affecting the spending habits of more than half of U.S. drivers. The national average for a gallon of regular hit $3.10 on Monday, according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration. That's about 37 cents more than a year ago.
Average pump prices in major cities range from $2.91 in Denver to $3.38 in San Francisco. Drivers in New York City pay about $3.19 a gallon, while gas stations charge $3.24 a gallon in Chicago and $3.37 in Los Angeles. In Boston gas goes for $3.11 a gallon. It's $2.92 in Houston and $3.20 a gallon in Miami.
For every penny the price at the pump increases, it costs consumers overall an additional $4 million, according to Cameron Hanover analyst Peter Beutel. If the price goes up a dime, it means consumers pay $40 million more each day that 10-cent hike is in place.
Swonk noticed consumers starting to make trade-offs in November and December. "As we moved into December, even some of their gift purchases were curtailed as prices at the pump continued to escalate," she said.
Swonk says economists at Mesirow "think of higher commodities prices as more of a threat to demand than inflation at this stage of the game." On Friday, the Labor Department said that excluding gas and food prices, there is little growth in inflation at the consumer level.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Back in 2008 the airlines started charging flyers for extra bags. It looks like some of that is coming back:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=7905441
http://www.660news.com/news/local/article/170970--airline-fares-taking-off
http://www.wtma.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=114&itemid=29622508
This suggests to me that higher fule prices are not only here to stay but will be getting worse.
as gasoline prices reach levels not seen since October 2008Weird coincidence that those high levels are only seen just before recent elections. Thanks NRG1973.
Real American CITIZENS, will not be DE-SENSITISED to higher prices.
Real American CITIZENS, will not “play the game”, until free spending and insulated salary hikes to D.C. bureaucrats and “industry” lobbyists stop.
drivers need a 4x4 just to survive in winter driving, and they get very poor gas mileage...we have totally stopped our dinners out and are down to no more than one trip a week to town...do we stop church activities next???
when we retired here seven years ago, gas was $1.49 gal...where is the media now? under GWB they crucified him daily...Hussein gets nothing but praise...
anxious await 2012....
Nothing will change unless Americans get off their collective duffs and really start trying to change their neighbors and friends minds - (those that vote dem). I know a lot of people who say you can’t change someones views so you can’t talk politics. I say that is BS. What we need is a total and complete PSYOP (psychological campaign) by creative grassroot conservatives. We need to be hitting the social media sites like youtube, and the blogosphere.
Don’t forget the rise in gas prices being due to the moratorium on drilling, the regulations on drilling and that since the oil spill/moratorium BS, a lot of platforms went to other companies/countries.
It’s BS that other countries can drill on our shores, at any depth, any where, but we can’t. We need to stop this...and start drilling and using OUR resources!!!
What planet are you on? Gas prices have gone up almost 50 cents a gallon since the fall.
I've been cutting back already and I've also been stocking up on groceries and non-perishables, because they'll be going up soon enough.
Does anyone else feel that the current run-up in commodity prices is a bit similar to the 2008 bubble, and that it could all come crashing down again?
Much to the profit of Goldman Sachs and the like of course.
Than you live in an alternate universe.
It took a cheif economist to figure that out? Out her in CA where we pay some of the highest prices for gas and travel some of the longest distances, its going to have an impact among those that work for a living. I am far from strapped but I don’t like the price of gas one bit when it should be and can be cheaper. The powers that control the price of fuel in my opinion are no better than drug cartels. ANd we have a clown in the WH that thinks this is great.
40+mpg if I can stay out of the throttle, faster than 99% of the cars ever made, initial purchase price $500.
Nice. I have an ‘84 Nighthawk S. Like it mostly, until I’m trying to climb a mountain at 6,000 ft with a head wind, then it poops out.
Yeah, you and I have corresponded before.
You might want to change your jetting if you live at higher altitudes.
“I lived/worked through the inflationary period of the 1970’s and remember that, although there was indeed a lot of inflation, wages went up close to the same rate as prices”
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Either things were much different where you lived or you have a very bad memory. I was getting about eight percent more every year and it was not nearly enough to keep up. By the time things were under control I was barely scraping by with the same basic situation that was very easily manageable at the start. Now wages are falling so nobody can keep up.
The slide down has already started... so few see it.
Your post is spot on. The PROXIMATE cause for crude oil’s (and thus, gasoline’s) recent price increase is the Quantitative Easing 2 program of the Fed. Buying back US bonds held by Arab and Chinese investors dumps US currency overseas, thus reducing its value, and pushing up crude prices. Oil is not going UP, rather the dollar is going DOWN.
I keep looking for this info to be more widely reported but it is not. The sheeple are again being misinformed, on purpose, to attack big oil and demonize profit. It’s sickening. Government makes more profit from oil than oil companies and government does it with no investment and risk.
“Government makes more profit from oil than oil companies and government does it with no investment and risk.”
That is EXACTLY RIGHT! I have worked in oil & gas my whole life. Yet more key data suppressed by the US Media Monolith. (At least the Times in the UK is covering the inability of the leftist governor of Hawaii to find ANYTHING resembling a Birth Certificate for Hussein Obama!)
“(At least the Times in the UK is covering the inability of the leftist governor of Hawaii to find ANYTHING resembling a Birth Certificate for Hussein Obama!)”
Mr. Moratorium, I call him.
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