Love that totally new image!

i'm paying alot more than $300 over last year:
the new car takes premium and gets 3mpg less/fewer than the ol' Accord.
/still not complaining

yup.. time to convert the car to woodgas / electric http://www.green-trust.org/woodgas.htm

oh and buy oil company stocks & corn futures..

Ha!

Lookout, Microsoft! Google's sure to notice the prodigious possibilities of your Paint program and will soon introduce their own web-based version.

A good chunk of those high gas prices stem from taxes. And as much as the media loves to hype gas prices when they go up (and ignore them when they go down), this time around it has had basically zero effect on the larger economy. People are still spending, driving and buying big cars. We have an extremely robust economy, and have proven that we can absorb gas spikes quite handily.

Not that lower prices aren't better, but start with cutting the taxes.

@Awesomist_VI: Specifically which taxes? I think state and federal gas taxes are only ~ $0.60

"...more than 30 prior government investigations...the industry did nothing illegal."

Sounds like what the tobacco companies were saying way back when.

@SwatLax: Well it really depends on the state and city, but you're saying that $3.00/gallon wouldnt make any difference to you than $2.25/gallon?

@Awesomist_VI: But the taxes haven't gone up

at all

So, the extra $20 billion that we have spent has nothing to do with taxes at all.

nada

Would you like to revise your statement?

Sure, I'd like the money. But, that's what, $10~15 a tank, if you were to remove all of the taxes. And your pocket change savings at the pump is going to be lost to the potholes and greater traffic (forget those lane additions) that will result. Seriously - oil demand in India and China are crowing like Loverman's chest hair. What are you gonna do when gas is again $3.00 a couple years (or months) down the road?

It's not like were paying European level gas taxes here, where it accounts for most of what you're buying.

Pretty much every politician is beyond the point of ignoring global warming and oil consumption, so I think you have to acknowledge that the gov't is going to do something that will step in and mess with the 'invisible hand.' Your view on this probably depends on where you sit on the political spectrum, but in all the ways that the gov't can try to increase MPG/reduce oil use in cars, I'd much rather have a higher gas tax than overly restrictive CAFE standards.

CAFE, or any other method of telling auto companies what to build is back assward. As the Car Connection article linked to here points out, the Aveo does not help anyone do business.

So, since creating supply has proven to only work so much, you now have to create demand, and a gas tax would do that (yes, its regressive, so give tax credits to lower class in return or something else). While its clear that automakers generally suck at creating demand, you can be sure that anyone that wants to survive will do a bang up job at meeting it once its there.

Oh, and suddenly you've got extra money to pay for the war this situation got us into in the first place. (And yes, I am concerned that the money would fund another Bridge to Nowhere, but that's a separate issue).

@jonnylieberman: No, I'm just saying that the free market is what it is, and that taxes are the only element of the price that anyone has real control over.

So before complaining and calling for investigations and price controls and all of those ugly things, we should acknowledge that taxes don't help. And if the government was really interested in easing the cost of fuel until the market comes back down again, they can temporarially lower the taxes; a move which would actually spur the economy.

@Awesomist_VI: And screw over the budgets of the federal and state govt's. You think China just found those $1 Trillion in play money in the ground?

Here are charts comparing crude oil prices and gas prices. Crude oil is affected by OPEC and supply and demand. If there was perfect competition in the refining and retailing industry the cost of the output should almost perfectly track the cost of the input, but there is divergence here:

http://www.wtrg.com/daily/oilandgasspot.html

Taxing gas is an ideal way to make users pay for road improvements and maintenance. If gas taxes are not being used for those purposes in your state then complain about that, not the tax itself.

@SwatLax: Tax cuts generate revenue. How many times does this need to be demonstrated?

Don't forget the "hidden tax" that goes with the reformulared gasolines that have been mandated over the last decade or so...as in California, where there are 14 refineries (down from 24 a little over a dacade ago). The higher pump prices we've seen here over that time, compared to bordering states, has served to add, for example, about $7-10 per tankful when filling up a car with a 15-gallon tank (like my Mustang).

Then there's the tax on public health that comes from the increase in ground-level ozone (that's "SMOG" for those of you in Rio Linda) that California's ethanol-blended "cleaner air" gasolines create in hot weather, especially in the LA basin and Central Valley. That comes after the MTBE-blended "cleaner air gasolines" that preceeded the ethanol blends--all of which were government mandated, BTW--fucked up a good chunk of California's groundwater when they leaked out of storage tanks old and new.

@Awesomist_VI: I understand that tax cuts create revenue, but this would be a very temporary fix. While current pump price has spiked because of factors not related to the price of oil, do you really think that oil isn't going to keep going up?

What is the alternative to gasoline taxes for road maintenance? Make all highways toll roads?

When is the market going to "recover" and yield lower fuel prices? Demand is soaring internationally, supply is pretty static.

If gasoline is cheaper, people use more, that is an economic fact.

@Awesomist_VI: You are missing the point of the post here and derailing it with pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

Death and Taxes -- get over it.

The point here, is that we've paid $20 Billion -- not to our own government -- but to four or five corporations. And this is extra.

In less than six months, mind you.

Rising gas prices really don't bother me. Sure, it's more expensive to get somewhere, but I can still get where I want to go. When we all have to worry is when gas becomes scarce, and we have to start rationing fuel. Thats when we have to start taking drastic measures

@jonnylieberman: Since people here care more about your thoughts than mine, thanks for getting this point across.

Buy stock in the oil companies. When they declare record profits & pay dividends, you get some money back. Pretty simple, really. Just be glad the oil co's aren't privately held.

@Retiree: Yes, but then can you sleep at night?

That's the dilema

@jonnylieberman: Actually my whole point, going back to the first post, is that this market can obviously absorb higher prices, as there haven't been any adverse effects on the economy (quite the opposite). But if the government felt that they HAD to do something at some point, the first thing they should do is cut taxes rather than institute price controls, as some people are already suggesting.

And to your other point about 'how do you sleep at night' for buying oil company stock; thats just crazy. One of the truly great things about an open economy is the public can share a stake in the success of a company. Would it be better if the government controlled the oil companies?

Oddly, the oil co's pocket the whole shebang while the station owners are struggling to make ends meet. Sometime the free market economy really bites.

@Retiree: Until the private equity firms figure out how to change that to their advantage anyway.

If oil companies were really price gouging, you would see that their profit margins are much, much, higher. In fact, if they really wanted to serve their shareholders, they would "gouge" much more because then their shareholders would see higher dividends and a stronger stock price.

They are seeing record profits because, more than anything else, they are selling record amounts of gasoline. If we were all driving in Fits and Versas and Yarises, that would be one thing, but the sales leaders are still named F-series and Silverado. And Oil Company profits come from more places than selling us gasoline.

The easiest way to fix the problem of demand would be to add a gas tax, but that has its problems (foremost being there are so many guzzlers out there it would take millions to make the switch to have any longterm effect). Even though the goal is to get commuters out of their Escalades, it will also serve to drive many normal people out of their Corollas and such.

It's probably the right thing to do, but no politician wants to be on the hook for that, so instead politicians will pander to their constituents saying that they will get to the bottom of price gouging when they really know that there is nothing that they can do. We all saw what happened when we tried price controls in the 1970s. First there were long lines at the pump, and then when those price controls were removed, oil companies realized it was more profitable to buy imported oil. That worked out really well in the end, didn't it? Even Jimmy Carter eventually used his executive powers to peel away price controls.

Yargh; once again: GOUGING IS BULLSHIT

There is no goddam gouging. There is no mysical way for them to charge a higher price than people are willing to pay. The fact of the matter is that in the short run, gas consumption is relatively insensitive to prices (there's not alot you can do to change how much gas your current car uses). So, when demand rises (as ALWAYS happens in summer) and supply falls (as OPEC is wont to do) PRICES RISE ALOT, and consumption does not fall very much, so aggregate expenditures on fuel rise.

End of story; there is no debate here. Anybody who wants to propose some kind of government interference is a fool who hasn't learned from long lines under Carter's gas price controls.

@NoneMoreBlack: How about fining the oil companies for taking refineries off-line at the worst possible time?

And, there is plenty to debate here.

If you are worried about price gouging, y'all need to read HR 1252, aka the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act, which was introduced to the House this past Feb and recently debated on the House floor.

Basically it states the FTC will be given oversight powers to prevent, "UNCONSCIONABLE PRICING OF GASOLINE, OIL, NATURAL GAS, AND PETROLEUM DISTILLATES DURING EMERGENCIES"

Of course the bill sponsors do not define the meaning of "unconscionable pricing" but the language seems clear that the bill is meant to target local retailers instead of Big Oil. So the gov't solution to escalating oil prices is to punish the low man on the food chain, the one person who is powerless against market prices?

Maybe in the wake of Enron the gov't does need to have a little more oversight in some of the business practices of critical energy suppliers. But why is the gov't getting involved in what should be a state issue? And don't most (all?) states have anti-price gouging laws on the books already?

I don't know that it's price gouging. It seems to me that if they were price gouging, they would be charging more than $3.60 a gallon (in my neighborhood). I think it's that. I don't know, I haven't bought gas in a couple weeks.

Anyways, if the govt wants to cut gas consumption, they should raise gas taxes and give that money back in the form of mass transit subsidies and (re)development grants for in-city living, so as to increase the available housing, industrial, and commercial space close in to city centers, creating a virtuous circle. But maybe I'm just a damn socialist.

@leighzbohns: Your avatar is the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.

@jonnylieberman: The problem with that is we have very little excess refinery capactiy. Most refineries run at 90%+ capacity, so when one goes down for maintenance, an accident, or upgrades, it's not like the others can just pick up the slack. Because of the way the industry runs, it is hard for independents refineries to make money. We could probably encourage more independent refineries with some sort of tax break, but adding to the gasoline tax to give money to increase refinery capacity is going to be a tough sell, and wouldn't be of any help in the short-term anyway.

@Uncle_Bo: Exactly. Politicians love to make up acts like that. It means that they can say "I signed into law a bill that helps protect us from the greedy oil companies" in their campaign ads, even though they know most of what they do won't work.

@jonnylieberman: So the burden of proving that the refinery is brought down unnecessarily is going to rest upon whom? Our government, icons of efficiency and paragons of excellence in the field of policing the private sector?

And what is there to debate? These debates didn't spring up when gas prices hit their 5 year low not 6 months ago. Should we have been arguing about how great capitalism is for achieving such low prices, only to turn around when market forces produce the opposite effect?

A great number of Americans see the current spate of "gouging" as a some kind of crisis, but its just business as usual, with a little extra manipulation on the part of the oil companies.

We whine and moan about it, but using the Iraq war as an analogy, we aren't personally affected by it, not very much. Like the war, its going to take quite a bit of money out of our pockets long-term, but we've got lots of money. There are many simple solutions most of us can take to reduce what we spend on transportation, if we want to.

I for one think the problem is just greed...