A gallon of gas costs $3.43 around town today, and the price of oil is setting new records, hitting $110 a barrel. How are the high gas prices affecting you? Are you changing your driving habits because of them?
And, prices are likely to go higher before the summer. Are these high prices causing you to drive less, take public transportation more, or cut back in other areas of your budget? At what price-per-gallon would you really have to drastically look at modifying your behavior to continue your standard of living?
There's always a silver lining to most things. On the short term, my mother-in-law and my wife's sisters don't visit us as often as they used to "way out in the country" here in Naperville....They usually stop, stretch, have a cigarette (cause I won't let them smoke in our house) and change drivers at the I-55 weigh-station near Rt. 53..... But more sincerely, the cost of gas is finally high enough to motivate us and hopefully our auto industry to look at alternatively fueled vehicles. In the long run, this will reduce our reliance on oil, lower emmisions and improve our air quality.
Where's "Jimma Cada" when you need him? I'm sure B.H. Obama will fly in for the rescue and perhaps impose price caps or effect some other miracle. Or maybe Hillary will just grab every nickel of those filthy oil company profits and redistribute them equally throughout the "villagers".
Do ya' think that maybe these gas prices have something to do with prohibiting us drilling ANYWHERE for our own oil. You do understand that the drilling just off our Florida coast for oil by the Chinese is just plain stupid don't ya? Russia is just being silly as they expand their search for natural gas and oil reserves EVERYWHERE aren't they? Europe is certainly confident that Russia will share "equitably" with them these economically mandatory resources aren't they? Ah, by the way, our high oil prices couldn't be impacted perhaps to the continued irresponsible printing of money for all the entitlement handouts resulting in a greatly devalued dollar could it?
Nah, it's the Republicans, no wait a minute, it's all George Bush's fault. Yeah, that's it
This whole gas thing is a Farce. If our elected officials truly wanted to help the economy as well as us, the consumers, Maybe and Just Maybe, they should look at the the taxes that are imposed on a gallon of gas.
Current cost per gallon is about $ 1.65 in taxes alone. How about the local, state, and Feds backing off some of the taxes to help out the economy not to mention the consumer. And how about getting rid of the so called summer blend that is coming. Another rip off imposed by the environmental wackos'.
And how about drilling in our own country so we are not so dependent on foreign oil? Can't do that either because of the waco environmentalists.
If we would all pulled together and back off a little bit we could easily get through this.
It is very evident that none of the governments(state,local, fed)will help us out with the taxes on the gas and they won't take a stand. Don't totally blame the oil companies. Our government has not helped us out either. 50% of our cost per gallon goes to the government.
And as for Hybrids, that's a farce too. Guaranteed that in theory,
if everyone drove a Hybrid and our consumption dropped, the oil companies will raise the price to $20.00 per gallon because they are not making enough money.
People-------- Wake up and call or write our representitives and ask about a reduction in the gas taxes.
There is a way to keep the money and jobs back here in the good old USA. It is coal gasification plants that use coal as input and gasoline as output. We have plenty of coal resource in this country.
This is what South Africa does to supply its countryfolk with gasoline.
Of course, politicans prefer to impose such things as corn-based fuel that they now require that has wrecked havoc upon food prices. And, to top it off, more energy and water is used to grow this corn.
Reduction of oil prices would also be influenced by mothballing oil burning electric generating stations. We need to replace these with modern nuclear fuel plants.
Rod great comment. We as a people are finally faced with the idea that oil is a finite commodity. If we look at countries in Europe and South America it becomes apparent our energy policy as a nation is in need of some overdue attention. Our federal gov. must aggressively consider how we as a nation are going to ween the nation off the reliance of both liquid oil and natural gas. while they are working on this complicated problem individuals must objectively look at how they can make an impact. I evaluated our families position and have recently purchased a small fuel efficient vehicle (Pontiac Vibe), which replaced a minivan. The fuel conserved with this simple change will save approx. 303 gallons of gas/yr. I would like to say I did this only for the envir. but the real motivation was to save the $1000/yr operating cost.
If we as a nation put our mind and spirit to conservation, and the federal gov. gets serious with a real 10-20 year energy plan, our children and their children will inherit a much better world.
Gas prices are killing my family business, there's no two ways about it. For the past ten years now we have been going to estate sales, antique shops, thrift stores, and other outlets for what most people would consider junk and then traveling the country selling these antiques which we restore on the flea market circuit.
When we started we made a decent living. Not remarkable by Naperville standards I'm sure, but we were able to take our kids on massive cross-country road trips seeing sights most people only see on TV in the process of making ends meet. Now though, with gas at close to $3.50, heading out to our best show of the year in Quartzite, Arizona is going to cost over $1000 in gas alone.
When you're hauling a trailer, there really aren't many options in increasing fuel economy. We've looked in to diesel (and even greasil) but the costs all seem to be about the same.
In the past few years we've made adjustments and eat spaghetti much more often than we eat steak, the various "luxuries" we were once able to enjoy now just get poured in to the gas tank. To say that gas prices have affected our standard of living would be an understatement.
It doesn't just stop at our costs being raised though, fewer and fewer people are actually coming to the shows we set up at because middle-class Americans who already live on a fixed budget can't afford the $100 in gas to drive to a flea market that is a couple hours away... and if they do, they don't have a dollar of disposable income left in their pocket to buy anything.
On the plus side, in recent years our online sales have been increasing, but it's still nowhere near enough to defray the ridiculous costs of gas to set up at a show with nothing but lookers because no one can afford anything. Once you leave the reality distortion field of upper-class Naperville where cost is no object in any decision it really is quite apparent that gas prices are one of the main contributing factors in the state of our country's economy today.
Just to let everybody know:WE DO NOT NEED OIL! there are so many alternatives out there its pathetic,the only reason we continue to use oil is because our economy would crash if we drastically quit using it right away. our economy depends on the revenue produced by oil, there for when our government finds something to put in place of oil like "compressed hydrogen" which actually is right around the corner they will. our oil production hit its peak in 2007 just has it was predicted in the 1950's which means the demand is higher than the production,which reflects our gas prices, the world right now produces 83 million barrels a day,we use 83 million barrels a day. thats part of the reason we are in Iraq, did you know Iraq has the worlds second largest oil reserve? yey pretty scary huh? there are countless alternatives to oil,like:Geo thermal energy,bio fuels,hybrid is a joke because theres no reason we cant have all electric thats just a way to keep you buying gas,thers hydro electric power,solar,windmills,etc. i could keep going but that should be enough to get your brain turning.oh yey did you know? diesel's were originally designed to burn veggy oil! in the early 1900's.
Bill L, I don't know where you got your figure, but according to Money Magazine, taxes on a gallon of gas average $0.40, not $1.65:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/13/news/economy/gas_gallon/index.htm?postversion=2008031317
Dear John Q. L ---
I received my info on the gas prices from one of the local area gas station owners. I will be doing some further research and maybe the $0.040 might just a local tax. None the less, any form of reduction in gas prices would be of help to all of us.
John Q.Public:
I stand corrected. In Illinois it is 57.9 and in California (the highest) is 63.9. Most other states are cheaper.
You can also to to the website below (state motor fuel tax rate) , go to the main page, scroll down and click on the map of the US.
www.api.org/policy/tax/stateexcise/index.cfm - 26k - Cached - Similar pages
I guess that I was mis led. However, If the taxes were to be dropped by 25 cents per gallon that would be a great help to all of us.