Gas Math
June 30th, 2008
Yesterday we went to my sister’s house, 45 miles away. Doing that cost about $15 for gas:
90 miles ÷ 25 mpg = 3.6 gallons x $4.10/gal. = $14.76
If gas goes up to $5/gal it will cost $18, round trip.
Filed under: Politics, Religion & Money
5 Comments Add your own
1. Cactus Lizzie | July 1st, 2008 at 12:15 am
It’s already up to $5.00 a gallon somewhere in California, Doug! I just heard it on TV.
I’m also hearing more and more that there aren’t any oil shortages. There’s an anticipation of increased demand by some emerging markets, and a soft dollar. Speculators are driving the price up.
As they were saying on CNBC TV, think about it…There hasn’t been any sudden decrease in the availability of oil these past months, while the price of gasoline has been spiking. There are no gas lines, like back in the 1970’s oil crunch of the Jimmy Carter administration. Gas stations are not running out of fuel, like they were back then. I remember the “odd” and “even” license plate digits, which determined which day you were supposed to buy gas.
I think we can trace it all back to when the dot-com’s became the dot-bombs. Everyone fled to brick-and-mortar real estate instead of stocks. Then as people began defaulting on all those imaginative loan vehicles to buy houses, that bubble burst, too. The final refuge of Wall Street became precious metals, energy (in particular oil), and natural resources in general.The commodities market.
So while a relative handful of Americans get richer in their hedge funds through all this, the rest of us are paying more for gasoline and food, and our plain vanilla mutual funds are almost entirely in red ink. Sigh…
2. jeaniebeanie | July 1st, 2008 at 8:43 am
Going to the mall in State College yesterday cost a good chunk of change. Because we have to drive over a bunch of mountains, it’s not a straight shot, so it’s over 42 miles, round-trip — easily over $20 a trip if you use the air conditioning, which I need with my hot flashes!
Here’s something else strange: Everything at all the “chic” clothing boutiques at the Nittany Mall had been slashed down to bargain basement prices! I mean, we’re talking $60 designer clothes whacked down to $5.99. Molly and I hit EVERY female clothing store and it was the same thing, over and over! Gigantic price slashes. She bought a pricey sweatshirt that went from FIFTY DOLLARS down to $7.50, with no stops in between. You know how they keep cutting it and putting new stickers on top? No. Now it’s huge signs “EVERYTHING 75% off!” and this included non-clothing merchandise. Three stores that had just opened two months ago were already closing their doors. The heyday of the American mall is fast becoming “The Day of the Dead.” Say! That would be a propos, since that classic was filmed at … The Monroeville Mall! here in PA!
3. Dave | July 1st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Its over $8 a gallon here! You guys are lucky.
Of course that is because the Westminster government taxes fuel to the sky.
It was amusing to hear, when the idiot Brown went to Jeddah to instruct the OPEC countries to produce more oil, that King Abdullah pointed that fact out to him very publicly. Humiliation again for him on the world stage.
As usual of course, as you say Cactus Lizzie, the rich are getting richer out of this and the poor …. well, we’re getting poorer. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose!
4. Marianne | July 1st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Amazing, isn’t it? We took the girl scouts to Maine the weekend before your visit. 3 1/2 hour drive there and back and a lot of driving around while we were up there. This is the first time I’ve actually submitted for gas reimbursement for a girl scout outing. It’s also the first time anyone asked me what the gas cost. I had already figured it out: about $75.00. That’s for one of the two cars. I comforted myself that at least the minivan was filled to capacity with people and gear.
5. jeaniebeanie | July 3rd, 2008 at 7:19 am
Yes, Dave, the more things change, the more they stay the same! I can still speak and read quite a bit of French, but not as well at Petula. Passe simple kills me every time.
Everybody has heard of the car dealers who are offering “free gas” with the purchase of a new car. Really a rip-off. Well, I caught a news item the other day where other businesses, even pharmacies, are offering consumers big lump sums of free gas on “gas cards” just for switching to them. I think one was Rite-Aid.
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