it's not.

I disagree. trollface.jpg

oh yeah. i was too rich saving money for over 3 years; level playing field now.

Assuming that their fleet averages 25 MPG (a fairly safe assumption these days), it would, to use a popular (though cliched) metric, cost them the equivalent of slightly less than one half of one 16oz Iced Caramel Macchiato per business day.

Assumptions:

5 days / week at 50 weeks / year.
7% sales tax

A number of liberals would like a 5-7 dollar gas tax slapped onto present prices.

So would the CEO of GM...

Which is how much? Those hardest hit by a gas price increase are those least likely to be buying expensive coffee 5 times a week.*




*This claim is very likely untrue, but let's pretend that those with smaller budgets are generally more frugal.

...they seize upon a catch phrase—any catch phrase—because it fits their emotions.

Such men do not judge the truth of a statement by its correspondence to reality—they judge reality by its correspondence to their feelings.

But that's just the problem. While there are Erin Brockoviches in the world (is this the thread where I used that analogy earlier?) most of the people who I personally know that fit into the "would be hurt by $8/gal gas" are not by any means frugal. They are, in fact, the ones who have the latest cell phones, the latest game consoles and big LCD TVs, drive leased cars, order take-out from "dine-in" restaurants on a regular basis, and generally just fail to see the relationship between "spending every penny I earn and then some" and "not having any money left at the end of the month."

That's how they got to be "poor" in the first place.

Is this true of 100% of the population? Of course not- no generalization more specific than "they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide" usually is. But you can't base policy on things like that.

none of that matters.

Yeah, I've figured out what doesn't matter, I'm trying to figure out what does matter.

From the standpoint of the election of a President, that would mostly be things like trade policy, foreign relations, healthcare policy, the appointment of cabinet members and judges, etc.

If the president wants to influence the price of gasoline in a sustainable manner, (s)he really only has two levers to pull. One is the Military, the other is the EPA.

Unfortunately, conquering foreign nations and annexing their natural resources has historically been a problematic venture (just ask the Brits), and I honestly can't figure out why no administration to date has had the balls to tell the EPA and Greenpeace to go fuck themselves insofar as the habitat of the endangered red-spotted toad would be at risk vis-a-vis drilling for oil.

I guess you have to be dumb as shit and talk like a canadian to be a female running for president....

I think this about more than just drilling oil.

Its the winey bitches in the world that ruin it for everyone. I understand that sometimes things will change, but before there were people there were other things so just look at it as evolution. Edit: i realize i opened a whole new can of worms. sorry.

I still don't get how the country with the most oil reserves in the world (Canada) has as astronomical gas prices as we do..

And by "suppliers" you mean the banks who are storing crude in supertankers and then refusing to unload until crude prices rise right?

If you do the maths and converted the $/L CAD to $/G USD we are hovering around the $1.30/L CAD mark which equates to $4.96USD/gallon. And that's for 87 octane. 91/94 is around $1.40-$1.45 ($5.30 USD/gallon).

I wish we had $3.50/gallon gas up here.

I have a 90 mi/day commute. Gas prices impact me pretty hard. My solution was to buy a car that provides twice the miles/gallon ('11 Fiesta vs '06 LGT). So if gas prices double...then I guess that I am back to par.

I consider myself to be very frugal. My $$ splurges are nil.....except for the turbo miata (which i have vowed to not drop another dime into). No iphone or the like for me.

You live in New Jersey. Your argument is invalid.

12,000 miles per year / 25 MPG = 480 gallons per year

(Y0) 480 gallons per year * $2.00 = $960 per year
(Y1) 480 gallons per year * $3.00 = $1440 per year ($480 or 50% YoY increase)
(Y2) 480 gallons per year * $4.00 = $1920 per year ($480 or 33% YoY increase)
(Y3) 480 gallons per year * $5.00 = $2400 per year ($480 or 25% YoY increase)

[check my math as those were real quick calculations]

Or, thought of another way, as cumulative increases: $2.00 to $4.00 = $960 per year increase. Assuming a real median income of about $50,000 per household, that is about 2%.


Or, as Joe might say, only about $1.32 per day. That does seem pretty insignificant on its face. Obviously, this grossly understates the total economic impact - but on a household basis, even if that number is doubled (e.g. two cars driving 12,000 miles each), it does not seem like ~$19/week should be debilitating to most families.

A challenge with gasoline price increases is that they are quite regressive in nature.

???