mmarshall

Shell Gas in my neighborhood is the highest I've seen it since the summer of 2008. Regular is now $3.74, Premium $4.14.

I'm not a liberal myself (and I supported the "Drill, Baby, Drill" policy), but the fact is that high gas prices, today do NOT seem to be causes by any shortages caused by a lack of drilling. The current prices were not brought about by a real shortage, but simply an anticipated one on the part of speculators. They simply panicked at what was happening in several North African and Mideast countries, with the political unrest, and bid up raw crude prices up to unrealistically high levels. The loss of any Libyan crude, for example, beacuse of the war there, is only 1-2% of the world's supply, hardly enough for the recent big price-runup.

Sadly, we have moved away from a time when we had true, market-based, supply-and-demand pricing in the world oil market, to a later time when prices were dictated mostly by OPEC, and finally to the way it is now, when they are strongly influenced by run-of-the-moment oil-price speculation.

Jewcano

iTrader: (4)

^WHO are the speculators and what purpose do they serve? Did they not exist when prices were factored by supply and demand? I'm just having a hard time understanding why we are using this **** poor method of 'speculation' instead of actual market demand?

mmarshall

This site, although a few years old, does a good job of explaining it....probably better than I could. It's a long article, so I won't print the whole text.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=8878

IS-SV

$4.059 to $4.099 for Chevron regular here today in Silicon Valley, with uplift on premium in range of $0.18 to $0.20.

Kira X

iTrader: (24)

Last time I checked, premium is $3.69 around here. Since my SC gets terrible mileage, these prices are killing me. Luckily I have a more fuel efficient car to get me to work and school.

If gas hit $4 around here, I'd have to quit driving my SC all together.

CDNROCKIES

Premium was $4.22/gallon here in Bellevue, WA today.

Still a deal compared to the $1.26/liter ($5.04/gallon) at home when we left on Tuesday.

GiantsFan

iTrader: (9)

Regular is around $4.00-$4.30 in the SF area... with premium anywhere from $4.30 to $4.50..

Bigrahizzl

iTrader: (8)

what goes up, must come down. So relax, it was the same way in 2008

bad co

Thats the stupidest thing I have heard so far this year...

Bigrahizzl

iTrader: (8)

^^^^ really??? sounds like u've had a ****ty life

KillaIS250

iTrader: (1)

Filled premium in my car for $4.19, and $3.99 for regular in my girls car.

I'm skeptical that gas prices will hit $5. In this market, i doubt that would last very long, i'm sure there's a good chunk of people that absolutely cannot afford a full tank of gas at $5/gal.

If gas hit $5 a gallon, i would pretty much be driving only to and from work lol

LunaVyohr

Oil companies aren't stupid. I don't think gas prices will stay this high. They want to make a profit, but they also want people to keep buying more. People won't buy as much if it costs $5.00.

But, I could be very wrong.

xsh0tya

People will buy it if they need it, which they do. They just gotta put it real high 5 for a couple of days then put it down to 4 and we think we got a deal.

bruce van

If gas prices stay high, it is going to affect the economic recovery. I don't think the government will want this, but then again, they've been pushing for people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles.

Maybe this is the catalyst they have been waiting for. Maybe the government wants people to dump their cars and buy new fuel efficient cars from GM and Chrysler.

It gets sooo complicated now that the line between private and public has been crossed.

stick

I hardly ever look at the price of gas anymore. I need it, so I pay for it. If gas was $10 a gallon I'd still fill up, I would not just fill half my tank.

I remember when gas was 0.60 cents a gallon in the mid 80s.