Why are Gas Prices increasing? 2011 Version

So, we can sit here and talk about markets over and over and over and get into tiny, miniscule details about this measure and that index - or we can just acknowledge the truth.

You don't need to be an expert to understand things like this, as much as the 'experts' insist on their own unassailable insight.

Oil is going to run out, and the oil corporations and states have a vast amount of power in the world - they are grabbing as much money from us as they can get away with. Also, once every 6 or 7 months they will send out some big story about how the price of oil is dropping - then, the cost of a gallon of gas will drop by $0.20 and then it will gradually rise back up to highers levels than it was at before.

So, keep splitting hairs if you'd like - but the reason gas prices are increasing is because the vastly powerful cadre of people who decide these things want to take as much of our money as they possibly can, and they want to do it in the shortest timeframe possible. That's it.

 

Exactly. The same thing happens with food. I remember when meat was $1/lb for chicken breast and Ice cream used to be 2 gallons for $5 for Blue Bell. People act like they never saw gas prices increase before. The price of vegetables and grains are even more volatile from season to season and year to year.
Look at the food price indexes.

 

I guess I didn't expect to see them continue to rise. One station close to my office went from $3.79 yesterday to $3.99 this morning.

 

I guess we'll find out in a couple of months or so.

 

Some good news but still upsets me. Gasoline futures freefall (as they should) but trading halted to minimize the drop. What a crock of ****....

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110511-713260.html

 

On monday I was thinking of shorting too.

 

Here is my prediction. Crude oil contracts will go up at least 20% from October '11 to May '12, buy some futures and profit. Crude will be up or down 10% in October '12 from the May '12 price.

As the old stock market wisdom goes, "Sell in May and go away."

It works for oil, too.

 

Price are finally dropping. I was paying $4/g in the beginning of May. I just picked up some gas for $3.699 at a station on Westpark. I wish that I had shorted gasoline futures, after the drop in oil futures.

http://www.houstongasprices.com/

 

Let's all just not get gas next Tuesday and be like "ya, we can do that!"

Just fill up Monday though.

 

That'd actually be a pretty interesting display of social/collective power.

 

Look at the difference in price between Crude base price and National price for 7/01/11 ($1.35) versus a year ago 7/01/10 ($0.85). $0.50 higher due to speculation.

 

If you guys live anywhere near Spring, hit up the Walmart by Louetta. That Shell station always has the cheapest gas. I pumped at $3.49 this morning

 

I would've thought the cat was out of the bag by now. I can't understand why this isn't a national outrage and recieving more attention. What is fair about a select few banks being allowed to speculate and drive the prices up to their advantage?

When the thread popped up a few months ago I read the Rollingstone article and followed the comments on the other forum board. For some naive reason I thought something was being done by the Fed.

 

Paid $3.50 in Conroe at a Krogers two days ago.

 

Whole host of stuff. People keep blowing pipelines, oil tankers are being attacked by pirates, Israel wants to attack Iran, Japan announced that it will reduce reliance on nuclear energy, there is not enough oil to feed everyone anyway, the oil-producing countries got screwed by a financial crisis they didn't start, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi need money to feed their children (Bahrain and Dubai), Libya is a mess, and most importantly, it's summertime, people get horny, and I suppose they then need lubricant.

 

But why has the price of gasoline increased more than price of oil (in terms of percentage)? I can understand, for the reasons you listed, that oil prices will increase but shouldn't gas increase at a very similar amount?

 

well oil coming down is always a good consequence of these situations

 

Question is, will gasoline prices come down with it? Fairly pathetic that WTI at $145/bbl (July 2008) led to an average gasoline cost of $3.95 in greater Houston, while we're at around $3.50 today with WTI at $81/bbl. I know there's about a month disconnect, but even if you put WTI around $100 (where it has been), it's still an absurd ratio. Hope it changes, but I don't have much faith