Gas Prices

[Atrocities]

I want a Ford Expidition Hybrid made by Honda!

Thanks for broading our perspective on the topic El Phil. Sometimes I forget that there is always more information and truth out side the conventional box of thinking that I give credit for.

[Leslie]

What should be mentioned, is gas prices is not just about the cost of getting around in your car.

When they talk about oil, they mean everything made with it.

I don't have a car, but I just moved from a place that used gas heat. Normally gas heat ISN'T more expensive, but that is now not really such an easy remark to make. I have electric heat here now, but my rent is inclusive (ie not my problem).

But oil is used for paint to clothing to pens to lubricants.
It impacts the price of your groceries, because it also runs farm equipment.

If they don't soon get a grip on the oil costs soon, it is eventually going to cause some trouble in more areas than just the cost to run your car.

[Atrocities]

A world wide oil shortage will lead to starvation and other comodities break downs. This is something that also is not in dispute.

[El_Phil]

Or perhaps as the price goes up oil will stop being wasted. well wasted isn't exactly right, but currently oil/plastics are dirt cheap so it's the first choice material, even if its not the best.

There was a story about DVD-R price rises, optical-grade polycarbonate the main component, is now $3.50/kg. Three and a half bucks for a very high grade plastic. That's massively cheap. A DVDs only, what a couple of dozen grammes? So how much of the cost of a DVD-R is actually the plastic? **ck all, yet the price rises 10% when the material goes up a few cents. So AT if you want a bunch of money grabbing fat cats.....

[Leslie]

"There was a story about DVD-R price rises"

Rising prices?

Heck, blank dvds seem to be so cheap now, I actually find needing an actual blank cd occasionally to be a nuisance, as a dvd holds more.

I have, when it is possible, considered compiling cds as images on dvds, just so I can have more for less.

[Xrati]

The higher prices are OK. They should have gone up years ago. The US has been paying some of the lowest prices in the world. I've just seen to much waste! Not just in personnel use but in corporate use as well. Jet planes flying empty, delivery people leaving their vehicles running and traffic systems that leave you stopping at almost every light instead of having them timed to keep traffic flowing. Maybe now we'll get better at conserving gas.
As El_Phil said, all plastics are a bi-product of oil. China is now using more oil than they used to. All this and more is causing the price to rise because production is still the same and we really aren't doing anything to increase it. BUT the real cause of the price increase is the refining process. We are operating at max capacity and there are no plans to increase that either.

[Wolfman77]

As fuel prices go up companies will pass the extra cost on to others. It's already happening. The place I work spends $10,000 a year to rent a water purifier that needs replacing every 3 months. Our new invoice has a $5 "fuel surcharge" at the bottom. Not a large amount but it is just one piece of equipment, and as prices rise, more companies will do this, and for larger amounts. In the end it will all be passed on to the consumer, as with everything else. I do not, however, believe it will mean the end of the world. That is just someone trying to scare people into beliving what he believes, And since most people are quite suggestible (even more so when they are scared), it works.

In the end you will pay more. And you will learn to like it

[El_Phil]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050616A4014.html

DVD-Rs, like every other plastic product, has got pricier to make because the raw material, oil, cost more to buy. For most products the actual cost of the plastic is such a tiny proprtion of the total cost, the price doesn't get passed on.

However the CD/DVD makers have been in a vicious(ish) price war, hence the dirt cheap prices. So oil rises is just an excuse to push up prices and start making money not breaking even.

Xrati, Refinery capacity would be OK, but for that Texan oil refinery blowing up. That and all the refinerys have been running flat out for so long they're starting to break down. The US may have no plans for new refinerys, I don't honestly know, but other countries certainly do.

[Kamog]

Yesterday when I filled up my car, the price of gas was $1.095 per liter, the highest I have ever paid. If gas price keeps going up, I'll consider buying a hybrid vehicle. But when I was in the UK a couple of weeks ago, the price of gas was more than twice as expensive there.

[El_Phil]

In the UK the price of petrol is all tax, well as near all as makes no odds. On the other hand the mpg of the worst car you can buy is better than the average of Detroit's finest.

There's probably a connection.