Gas Wars: A Gallon Is Just 46 Cents Here

CNBC - REUTERS ^ | 1-18-2016 | Katie Little | Steve Kopack

[blam]

CNBC
January 18, 2016

While gas prices are low nationwide, some stations are slashing the fuel's price to rock-bottom levels to the tune of less than 50 cents a gallon.

The drastic price cuts are part of a gas price war at three Houghton Lake, Mich., stations.

During the last three days, the prices dropped below a buck per gallon, falling as low as 46 cents at Sunrise Marathon. Meanwhile, the Beacon & Bridge gas station was as low as 47 cents, said employees of each station in interviews with CNBC.

(snip)

[Personal Responsibility]

I thought the gas tax was steady (e.g. $0.18 / gallon) regardless of the price per gallon? Is that incorrect?

[entropy12]

So long as Americans keep electing CAREER politicians who are in the pockets of their rich donors and keep pushing the cheap labor express as ordered by their rich donors, that has screwed the hard working middle class. Rafael Edward Cruz is just another such career politician.

Path to Legal Status for Illegals

Cheap Foreign Workers on H1-B visa

Pushing TPP

[dragnet2]

Yep. And why Trump has all the right enemies.

[KGeorge]

I remember those handsome furbabies! You posted them on one of the threads recently. :-D What a good looking group! They match.

Yeah, dog food is getting ridiculous if you’re feeding anything of any quality. (We feed Natural Balance, which is about mid range). They’ve had our (pet owners) number for a while now.

We’ve always fed dog food in the morning & people food at night; either baked skinless boneless breasts or 90% lean ground sirloin with rice. Plus veggies- usually either carrots or green beans. Our youngest girl (9.5) is crazy about brussel sprouts. LOL We’ll eat bologna sandwiches or popcorn, but the dogs’ dinner must be served.

I need to get pics of the cutie pies up on my page

[Chode]

cheapest gas i ever saw was ~$.21 in the 64 Calif gas wars

[oh8eleven]

We’ve been looted and robbed.
You can thank LBJ - the tab for Vietnam and the "Great" Society was (and still is) HUGE.

[Captain Rhino]

The price of fuel is only a small part of the cost of food.

A lot of the present high price for food is tied to the continuing drought in the western United States. (The recent rains in California, heavy as they were, have not completely restored water to pre-drought levels.)

The drought has reduced the size of the beef herd in the US and the resulting shortage has raised prices. Ranchers are not going to start increasing the size of their herds again until they have the weather for more reliable range and feed products they need to economically raise cattle.

As consumers switch to more affordable alternative meats, demand for them has raised their prices as well.

Vegetables, fruits, and nuts produced in the western United States have been similarly affected by the drought. Wholesale suppliers are lining up alternative sources but the shortfalls are being made up from other, more expensive regions.

Of course, lower fuel costs - primarily diesel, I would imagine - do bring production costs down. But the producer is likely to initially pocket that as profit from internal savings and not pass it along to the customer.

For consumer costs to really come down, there would have to be a significant oversupply in the market. With the careful, computer-based, satellite and Internet-driven, management practices followed these days in modern agriculture and the time required to produce some of these products, there is probably a lag (how significant I don’t know) between improved growing conditions and any real improvement (decrease)in retail food prices. Creating a significant oversupply in the market is just not in their economic interests.

Then again, who thought we would ever see a below $0.50/gallon gas war going on in Michigan?

[mware]

Hot damn, my next heating fuel top off should be under $500. Last year it was 1,200.

[familyop]

Why are we not seeing fresh numbers from the Dow today?

Did I miss something? Today is Monday, and it’s the middle of January. No holiday. Didn’t see any headlines Friday about markets closing today.

What’s going on?

[21twelve]

Martin Luther King Day. Federal holiday. Most everyone else has to work though!

[dragnet2]

But the fact remains, the prices of food and nearly everything else are sky high and energy/fuel prices have a direct impact on all of them.

If there was not disconnect going on, we see the prices of nearly everything ticking down along with the fuel.

I have not seen it.

[familyop]

Thanks!

Weird holiday. King must have been quite a preacher for so many immoral government folks to take a day off in his honor.

;-)

[Polynikes]

“As of last night, $2.53 for the low grade watered down crap. Reno is a vampire on the poor.”

Roll down the road a bit. Gas is running in the 1.80’s in Carson City.

[showme_the_Glory]

Rats Rock

[SunkenCiv]

Of course they are. It just won’t happen instantly.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping. I paid $1.67 a gallon today at the Waterford (M-59/Crescent Lake Rd) Mobil.

(I remember it at 19 cents a gallon sometime back in ‘66/’67 in Lincoln Park MI)

[nascarnation]

Do you remember “Bay” brand gasoline back then?

It was rumored to be made of byproducts of some Dow Chemical high volume batch process and was always the lowest cost gas.

[cripplecreek]

I really only remember prices back to when I started driving in 1980.

[PGalt]

I do recall seeing the “BAY’” signs at times (bottom photo at link), probably when my parents were taking the family on vacation from Detroit area to the U.P. and driving through smaller cities.

http://www.gassigns.org/bay.htm

I don’t recall any stations “downriver” from Detroit when I was a young driver.

[justiceseeker93]

This is lower than its ever been in my memory.

You must be fairly young then. I can recall gas selling for 33 cents a gallon in the 1960s. But taking into account the massive inflation from then until now, the 46 cents (even though only a short-term gimmick) is much lower than the price back then.