DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Gas prices...*sigh*

Yet another poster bitchin' about the gas prices heh...yah it's time for another gas price thread...

It's freaking 3.32 for regular in hilliard ohio(columbus sburb) and usually we have the cheapest gas in columbus.....it's freaking insane...i have had to fill up my tank twice in the last 2 weeks cuz i had to drive a lot more lately...i've spent close to 100 dollars in 2 weeks for GAS


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070516/ap_on_bi_ge/gas_demand_6
Congress urged to ease pain of gas prices
NEW YORK - The average U.S. household is already spending $1,000 more per year on gasoline than it did five years ago, two consumer groups say in testimony they planned to present to a House Judiciary Committee task force Wednesday.
That's an increase of 85 percent, and rural households have been hardest hit because they spend about 20 percent more on gas than urban residents, the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union said, citing Labor Department figures.

"It is time for Congress and the administration to do their part to help alleviate the pain consumers are feeling at the pump," said Mark Cooper, director of research for the federation. At Wednesday's hearing, he plans to call on the federal government to provide greater oversight over oil industry market practices, create strategic refinery and product reserves, and enact policies that promote reduced oil consumption.

The rising price of gasoline has certainly increased the amount of complaining from drivers paying $3 a gallon or more to fill up their cars, but it so far has done little to curtail how much people are driving.

That's the message from government statistics showing that demand for gasoline is only just starting to level off even as refinery outages and tight supplies have sent pump prices soaring by 43 percent since the end of January.

And brace yourself: experts say with gas already closing in on $4 a gallon in Chicago and San Francisco ahead of the peak summer driving season, higher prices could be in the cards.

Most Americans are locked into their driving habits and can do little to alter their fuel-buying patterns when prices rise, experts say. For example, the number of workers with commutes lasting longer than 60 minutes grew by almost 50 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to Census Bureau data.

"I drive 55 miles each way to work every day," Sandy Colden, of Medford, N.J., said one recent morning while loading groceries into her Honda Pilot SUV. "So I really don't have a choice, unfortunately."

But that usually means people have to cut back elsewhere, as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is finding, to its distress. The world's largest retailer said Tuesday that earnings in the current quarter will fall short of Wall Street expectations, in part because of higher gas prices.

Weekly gasoline demand in April increased as much as 1.9 percent over the same weeks in 2006, even as the average national price of a gallon of gasoline grew from $2.71 to $2.97 by the end of the month, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Only during the first week of May, when prices jumped to $3.05 a gallon, did demand for gasoline abate slightly — by about two-hundredths of a percent, EIA figures showed.

Experts disagree over how high prices have to rise before consumers are shocked into driving less — at least temporarily.

"We might actually see some reaction at $3.50 (a gallon)" nationally, said Larry Compeau, executive officer of the Society for Consumer Psychology and professor of marketing and consumer psychology at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.

Lars Perner, assistant professor of clinical marketing at the University of Southern California's business school, disagrees, saying the tipping point is more likely $4 a gallon.

Try telling that to Jennifer Hoover, 32, a graphic designer who lives in the San Francisco area. She said she was startled by her bill — $58.69 to fill up her silver Audi sedan with $4.09 a gallon premium gasoline Tuesday — but was late for an appointment and had no other choice.

"I was just thinking when I drove up — 'Why am I stopping here when it's $4.09?'" she said. "But it's on my way and I'm late and I have to do what I have to do."

Eddie Engles, 37, didn't blink twice after he filled up his GMC Yukon at a gas station near downtown Chicago on Tuesday. At $3.71 a gallon, the fill-up cost the clothing distributor $83.89. "That's a new record. Every time I pump up, it's a new record," he said.

Engles, who uses his sport utility vehicle to haul his wares, said he has few options when it comes to cutting down on travel and gas expenses. "I just need it," he said. "What am I going to do? Not fill up?"

There was a definite consumer reaction in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina outages pushed prices above $3 gasoline for the first time. Demand dropped as much as 6.5 percent. "There was ... something significant psychologically about the $3 barrier," Perner said.

Since then, however, consumers seem to have adapted, with demand rising throughout a brief period of prices above $3 a gallon last summer.

"People complain about higher oil prices ... but they still drive their cars, they still buy their SUVs, they don't want to carpool," said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.

"It's a little inconvenient for me to take the bus," said David Harris, 31, a film school marketing manager in Los Angeles who commutes 40 miles a day for work.

Consumers may suspect that oil refiners are colluding in the recent price spike, but analysts say the real culprit is an unprecedented number of refinery accidents and maintenance outages this spring — combined with drivers' rising demand for fuel. Most prominent of the outages was a February fire that shut down Valero Energy Corp.'s 170,000 barrel-per-day McKee refinery in Sunray, Texas, for months.

"If you just count incidents, there are more this year than there have been in previous years," said Mike Conner, a specialist on refinery operations at the EIA.

As a result, gasoline inventories fell by more than half, to 93.5 million barrels in the week ended May 4, from 205.1 million barrels in the same week in 2006 and 214.7 million barrels in 2005, according to government figures.

Charles Drevna, executive vice president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners' Association, said many refineries shut down for maintenance for the first time since their operations were kicked into overdrive by Hurricane Katrina. When the 2005 storm knocked out gas and oil facilities along the Gulf Coast, refineries in other parts of the country had to step in and pick up the slack, Drevna said. In many cases, that meant putting off regular maintenance for years.

"There's still a lasting effect from that," Drevna said.

Also, he said, the process of turning crude oil into gasoline has become more complicated over the years, particularly as different governmental entities have mandated changes to the chemical makeup of gasoline for environmental reasons. It takes more equipment, more complicated processes and more oil to make gasoline now than it used to, Drevna said.

Drevna said refiners have been steadily expanding their existing facilities, adding the equivalent of one new refinery a year, on average, every year for more than a decade. That's a cheaper and faster way to expand refinery capacity than going through the multiyear process of trying to win a permit to build new plants, he said.

While higher gas prices haven't done much to cut demand, they also don't appear to have had much effect on consumers' car-buying behavior, according to Autodata Corp. Sales of lights trucks and SUVs declined 3 percent in April, less than the 12 percent slump in car sales. Light trucks and SUVs continue to make up the majority of vehicle sales in the U.S., or about 53 percent.

At a Chevron station in San Francisco that was charging $3.95 for a gallon of regular gasoline, Nathan Sullins, 31, a computer programmer, gloated as he filled up his Toyota Prius hybrid for a fraction of what other drivers were paying.

"High gas prices are a bummer, but you reap what you sow," he said. "If we had started making fuel-efficient cars 10 years ago, we wouldn't be in this situation."

William Hill, of Pittsburgh, said he'd consider downsizing from his minivan to a hybrid sedan if hybrids weren't more expensive.

"They charge you more for a hybrid to compensate for what you would pay for gas," Hill said while gassing his minivan along the Pennsylvania Turnpike one day last week. "So either way, you lose."

As much as I hate and try to boycott all Pittsburg companies, do you guys have Giant Eagle down there, or does Krogers and Meijer dominate the market for groceries? Giant Eagle offers an accumulating .10 off/gallon discount for every $50 you spend. So if you spend $300/month in groceries, you receive .60/gallon credit on your gas purchase at one of their Get-Go locations.

Not bad for this time of year. I just used my credit I'd been saving and paid $1.39/gallon last week to fill-up.

I drive a Jeep V8, this is not news to me.

Oh yeah. it is a great program. I have a $6.00 credit so I haven't paid for gas there in about a year. I buy supplies for 2 bars and my household there so I spend alot of money per week . They make out in the end but at least it is something.

If prices rise too high, I may have to revert back to the 87 octane tune for my Mustang. but for now I just ride with the wave, and try to plan my errands around my daily commute to save trips.

There is one across the street from me....but their groceries are always lot more expensive than meijers....which is also across the street frm me...along with sams club and walmart.....so i never end up going to giant eagle

I have an idea ... maybe we should stop buying gasoline for one day. Better yet, let's all pick the same day to not buy gas. Then maybe we can email all our friends and let them know not to buy gas on that day too. That way, gas companies will feel the burn and be forced to reduce their prices or something ... yeah, that's it! Who's with me?

Are you being sarcastic?

They had one of those yesterday ... you didn't get the memo?

while I appreciate your sense of humor and sarcasm, there is something we could do thats tantamount to a boycott and would be far more beneficial....we could organize a day, say a Sunday, where you do not drive at all. Walk, bike, use public transportation whatever, but stay out from behind the wheel. The economy may take a hit, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Let's all flush our toilets at 3:00 PM EST on Sunday May 20th as well.

Hey! I work at giant eagle. Even though they are a Pittsburgh company, they do sponsor the Browns.

I'm sick of these gas prices, of coarse they go up before my TN trip next week. Thank God my car is very good on gas.

Just to put rip-off England into perspective:-

We are paying 95p a litre - £3.59 per gallon which equates to roughly .....

$7 per gallon!!!!

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Hey! I work at giant eagle. Even though they are a Pittsburgh company, they do sponsor the Browns.

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If I had my way, there would be no corporate relationships with any company within a 90 mile radius of Pitt. I would take less money from Heinens, just to make a point.

I want to puke every time I hear that "Heinz" Red Zone reference down at the stadium.

The Democrats promised to lower gas prices in the first 100 hours of taking over congress...... WHOOPS...... I wonder why the media isn't all over this?

They never said how much or how long it would last.

It seems like there's very little difference between penny stocks and gas prices these days. "Bad news" or the "threat" of bad news (LOL) hits the wires and all you hear is OH NOES OIL IS GOING TO RUN OUT THE ISLAMICS AND CHINESES ARE TAKING IT ALL!! OMG!!! BUY BUY BUY!!

Gas prices will fall once we give the hedge funds and speculators something more lucrative to trade or a large entity forces them to dump their stakes quickly (like in January). To anyone who doubts this I only ask do you think China stopped using gas or things suddenly stabilized in the Middle East in January? Of course not.

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/M

Funny thing is ... I said something similar in January. I said, if you had any money, LOAD UP on gas commodities, because you KNOW they are going to shoot back up through the roof come April/May ... I just wish I had money to throw around.

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Giant Eagle offers an accumulating .10 off/gallon discount for every $50 you spend. So if you spend $300/month in groceries, you receive .60/gallon credit on your gas purchase at one of their Get-Go locations.

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Yes, they do this and it's terrific..

Let me tell you a few tricks..

Giant Eagle sells gift cards to lots of different stores. As an example. My mother loves the Olive Garden... SO I took my mom, my wifes mom, my sister and her family to Olive Garden for Mothers day.. Before hand, I bought $100 worth of gift cards at Giant Eagle... thus getting .20 cents off per gallon.

Next week, I'm going on Vacation to Florida... I need some tee shirts and shorts etc... so does my wife.. so I went to Giant Eagle and bought Kohls gift cards for $200,,,, you guess it, .40 more cents off of a gallon of gas!

Cool huh?

If you really want to screw with the man,,, Try this.. Buy Kohls or JC Penney or Sears or Walmart gift cards at Giant Eagle... Buy a bunch of stuff at the store you bought the gift cards for, then in a few days, return everything back to that store.... y ou still get the discount on gas and it cost you nothing,,

Example,, But a $100 gift card for Kohls at Giant Eagle... go to Kohls and buy some stuff for $100.... wait a day or so, then return the items to Kohls...

You still get the gas discount and you didn't spend a dime!

Is there a list online of what stores gift cards you can buy at Giant Eagle?

I buy the gift cards at Giant Eagle using my Discover Card. Discover Card then gives me 1% cash back

$3.32??? thats high? i've been paying $3.50 for quite awhile now... and $100 in 2 weeks? multiply that by 2 and you'll see how much I pay if not more. but it's a fact of life. Gas prices will always increase.. how about this.... when they go down, still be mad and angry! Dont be happy because when they fall they will never be as low as they used to be...

I payed $2.99 just down the road from my place.

i haven't bought gas in 3 weeks.

LOL! sweet rim's