Gas price adjusted for inflation
 

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

I was looking for historical information on gas prices and came across this graph. If I interpret it correctly, it appears that prices are about equal to inflation adjusted prices from the early 80's. Does that make sense to the analytical folks in the group? If that is correct, we are really no worse off than we were back then, it just seems that much more painful.

Apologies for not posting the complete graph but I didn't know how to do that. I'm sure there will be some rants in the offing but I am interested in some constructive feedback other than it's Dubya's fault.

The inflation-adjusted price of gasoline is about where it was during the oil shocks of the 1970s. Which was not exactly a pleasant period, economically speaking. The longest recessions of the post war years.

here's another chart which is longer term, and I updated it to reflect current prices (the red circle) . It appears that adjusted for inflation, gasoline prices are higher than they've been almost since the car was invented.

4 Airlines hit the deck in 2 weeks. I heard an analyst this morning say they are all going down, just a matter of when. They use too much fuel at $100 per barrel to survive.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1207924923.gif

I have a bad feeling that the recession we're on the brink of will make the recessions of the 1970s look tame.

I hate to be a doomsday prophet, but the overall prospects for our economy don't look particularly good. There's very little to dance and sing about these days when you look at the fundamental underpinnings of our economy.

I think the coming recession will be more like 1929 than like 1975.

I really hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately I'm usually right when it comes to these things.

We use half the oil per dollar of GDP then we did back then. Burn a few Mcmansions and scrap a few SUVs and that would keep going down.

Also, by that chart - the highest gas prices were in the early '80s. It was all Ronald Reagan's fault!


We shall see.

Even though buyers love our fall collection, orders are down over 100%...and that goes for the long-established names out there as well.

The recession we are entering in is the direct consequence of short-sighted idiotic policies form the governement, and short-sighted idiotic greed from the public.

Everybody should know that an economy based on oil cannot survive with high oil prices. To prepare for the future, it would have been smart to use the money spent on idiotic war in Iraq on other items such as:
- Developing a high-speed railroad network for transporting goods and people.
- Developing more nuclear plants to produce electricity.
- Investing heavily in research on alternative energies.

Everybody also should know that the value of houses cannot keep doubling evey five years, and that a 3% interest loan cannot stay at 3% forever.

Go figure, it is Darwin law at work on a large scale.

Aurel

Yep.

The party is over, and it's crashing down fast. Something like 27% of Americans, (and ~0% of the rest of the world), approves of the job that Bush has done as president. Quite a few of the 27%ers seem to be here on this board, all with weird explanations of how everything that is happening would have happened no matter who was in charge; the mismanaged/bungled war based on false intelligence, the record-breaking deficits that are sinking the U.S. dollar against all other currencies, tax breaks for anyone who owns any type of business to buy a Hummer, etc., etc...

We are living through some history, folks. And the decline might be the fastest ever, when you consider the U.S. economy and our place in the world 10 years ago compared to today. It's absolutely tragic and stunning. Everyone but the very rich are going to see their lifestyle, savings and their future severely curtailed. OBL won the chess game w/ the idiot.

I wouldn't give all the credit to OBL. We're the ones who put the idiot into office, twice.

Bush Lied. People Died. And Gas Prices Went Up.

Obl ????

It's good to see that you finally get it. :cool:

Al Quaeda would rather have our economic system collapse, then take a huge body toll at this point. It has been said that this is Bin Laden's primary objective now.

Agreed completely.

The problem is that 80% of the people out there are either too stupid or too unsophisticated/uneducated to realize this and that the remaining 20% realize it and say "screw it, I know it's not sustainable, but I'm going to try and make my $$$ while I can because there might not be a chance later".

Frankly - I only agree a little bit.

- It is a big country. Denver to Albuquerque or Salt Lake City by high speed rail makes no sense. Transporting basic goods at high speeds is silly too.
- More nuclear power is a good idea - but once long distance transmission is figured out - and they are not built in popluation centers there will be less resistance. A lost opportunity over the last 30 years..
- As for "alternative energies" - forget Iraq for a moment - think of the supidity of ethanol, solar and wind power. Feel good technologies propped up by tax credits and lobbys. They have little long term potential and have been a short term diversion.

The reality is basic conservation and some kind of restrained lifestyle would go a long way. McMansions in across the North American continent cooled to 65 degress all summer without a shade tree in sight is just wastefull and idiotic. Much less the Pick-Up/SUV boom.

Start by doing the logical thing - connect "hub" or major cities. A high-speed rail NYC to LA would be a good start. Our Amtrak rail system is a joke by global standards. The only thing that we have that even resembles good rail service is on the DC/NY/Boston corridor (Acela train) and that's pitifully slow by international standards. The technology exists today to build a 300 mph train. That's 10 hours coast-to-coast (2,982 miles from Union Station L.A. to Boston's South Station). Assume a couple of hours' worth of stops along the way (Denver, Chicago, NYC) and make it an even 12. Not quite air travel, but close. One day trip. Pretty much what a smart traveler allots for getting there by air now, especially factoring in all the additional TSA bull***** and a connection (or two) in there for most routes, etc. AND you could launch one of these things every half-hour if need be.

Why aren't we doing this? Is there REALLY no market for it?

I mean, nobody wants to ride coast-to-coast on Amtrak because it'll take you the better part of a week and be stopping every 45 minutes in half the podunk towns in America. If you seriously had a dedicated high-speed line with only quick-turns in major cities, you'd have a very viable transportation system that would ease a lot of congestion at airports, etc. Not to mention the maglev technology uses ELECTRIC power (not fossil fuel) which could be powered by nuclear, solar, whatever. You'd be substituting one or two of these power plants for how many hundreds of millions of gallons of Jet-A a year?

I think the time might be here (or will be shortly) to dust off these ideas and start giving them some serious consideration again. A few years ago it was simpler/easier to just say "aww, screw it - we can just keep going on with 'more of the same old' and we'll be fine", but as oil starts approaching $125, $150, $175 or $200 a barrel, maybe not so much.

Anyone who talks about building a train network across the country, or even over several miles, has no idea of the costs involved. I'm in the industry, and it costs a minimum of a million dollars per mile to buy up land and lay track, and that's if you're doing it in the middle of nowhere. Once you get near cities, the price goes up almost exponentially.

I think the best plan for the future is electric cars. While I don't know yet how much promise solar and wind energy can deliver on, building nuclear power plants could get us a long way towards an "electric economy", and I guarantee building some electric plants would be much cheaper than building a rail system across the country.

Uh, didn't P-O-P grow up in Boston? Home of the Big Dig? $1 mil per mile is chump change, where he's from.

forget the transportation. Better telepresence technologies.

My retirement funds took a serious hit this past quarter. Good thing I'll likely die before I retire...

So I take it you're getting back on two wheels? :P

well, I've been on two wheels (bicycle) for a couple months now. There could be more in the offing though...

So you're talking $3B to construct. Call it $4B for overruns, payola, etc.

That's chump change by government standards. That's <12 days of I-wreck to support "more of the same" foreign oil dependence (numbers based on the "costofwar" web site).

In rough figures, regular gas has gone from $2.80/ gal to $3.45 in the last twelve months and in that same period oil futures have gone from $70 to $115/barrel. That is a 23% increase for gas vs a 64 % increase for oil. Why the discrepancy, is it just because oil is based on futures and if that is the case will we see $5.00/ gal in the next 3 months?? due to summer demand.

I purchased 100LL aviation yesterday for $4.83, at the same airport I paid $4.70 a year ago? That was a pleasant surprise but don't expect that to last for long.

CA has been studying a high-speed rail service from San Diego to Sacramento. I looked at the info on the web (Caltrans website). Looks logical and economically sensible.

I think we should start with north-south line along the West coast (San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Salem, Portland, Seattle). And beef up the existing north-south route on the East coast (Boston, New York, Wash DC, and extend down through mid-Atlantic, Atlanta etc). Those are pretty dense routes. When those are working, extend to Midwest and Southwest.

Yes, the money to build the above is huge. Let's say $20 to 40 BN, just guessing.

That's only a few months's spending on this black hole of a war in Iraq.

The price of a barrel of oil has gone up when the actual physical indicators suggest it should be going down, in fact the supply and inventory suggests it should be around $70 a bbl and gas should be around $2.70 a gal.
Some folks (including me) suspect underhanded actions by huge brokerage houses have manipulated the oil market and artificially drove the price up. They leak BS info, the media jumps all over it, and the price goes up. They slowly sell off, the price falls about $6 or $8 a bbl, then they buy and drive it back up, lather rinse repeat. If that aint illegal it should be.
I follow the markets pretty darned close (spend more time doing that than i do at PPOT) and i've noticed things that simply shouldn't be and wouldn't be under normal circumstances.

I've seen reports from so-called "expert analysts" that say the opposite of what the department of energy's enery information association's report. They put out very clear and consice and accurate reports, but often the market will make a big move on some BS report put out by an expert the day before, only to dip after the EIA report comes out. I watch the volume of trades and the patteron of trades, and can almost see their fingerprints it's so obvious.

Oil should not be over $70 and lots of us think it will soon fall to that level in a really big hurry, and lots of regular people with 401ks will be the ones hurt, not the big boys who are playing with the price.

As a comparison, the price PER GALLON of light sweet crude oil is around $2.74.
The wholesale price of gasoline (what the refineries sell it for) is around $2.88. The difference between that price and what you pay at the pump is taxes, and profits from the suppliers, transporters, and retailers. Yes, the retailers are making a killing right now. If they say they aren't they are lying.

The difference between what the oil costs and what they sell the gas for is 14 cents. Onliest problem is, it takes around 13 to 15 cents to process the stuff so if they are lucky they are paying the bills and breaking even.
Yup, the big bad refining guys are not making any money, or if they are it's not very darned much.
The guys pulling the stuff out of the ground are still doing pretty good though.

Sammy,

Have you adjusted for the various fractions that come from that gallon of crude. Refining is a process of separation. When you crack crude, the sum of the value of the fractions is far greater than the cost of the crude plus the processing cost. The number of distinct products that comes from each unit of crude is staggering. I'm not sure that I understand your analysis that gasoline sells for $0.14/gal more than the crude oil that went into making it.

That seems like a gross over-simplification.

Furthermore, it is the government that is making the biggest killing of all on gasoline. For each gallon, they collect a lot of tax for which they provide absolutely no value and have absolutely no cost.