$113.93/barrel for oil. $3.386 national average for gas.

[Subdivisions]

Oil prices jump to new high near $114

Oil prices rose to new heights Tuesday, surging to almost $114 a barrel after the dollar fell and concerns mounted about global supplies. U.S. retail gasoline and diesel prices also struck new highs.

Traders honed in on a report by the International Energy Agency that said Russian oil production dropped this year for the first time in a decade. The report raised concerns about whether the key oil-producing nation will have sufficient supply to help meet increasing global demand.

“In an emotionally driven market like we’ve got now, it just doesn’t take much in the way of a headline to prompt a psychological response,” said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Ill.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose as high as $113.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before backing off to $113.58, up $1.82 from Monday’s record settlement price of $111.76 a barrel.

Meanwhile, retail gasoline prices rose to a new average national record of $3.386, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Prices were highest in California, where mid-range and higher grades are now averaging more than $4 a gallon.

-snip-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/

Up, up, and ....

When will we finally get off our asses and do something about this?

[marmar]

1. Sacre bleu!

:scared:

[LSparkle]

2. Gas was $3.79 for 87 octane when I left for work this a.m.

I should have filled up then instead of waiting until tonight or tomorrow. I'm
sure it'll be up by at least 5 cents by the time I get home.

[tama]

3. Panic!

Russia announces Peak Oil:
http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/commodities-trading/russia-hits-peak-oil-00087.html

"When will we finally get off our asses and do something about this?"

Do what? About what? What do you suggest to be done about the end of the oil addicted consumerist civilization (about to go cold turkey...)?

[Subdivisions]

4. "Do what? About what? What do you suggest to be done...

about the end of the oil addicted consumerist civilization (about to go cold turkey...)?"

EXACTLY!

And, as for Russia, any new finds will be used up just as quickly. The world uses 87 million barrels per day. A new Ghawar would last just 5 years.

Then what?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Short term solution:

Release some oil from the Strategic Reserve. Of course, they will not do that because commodities is where all the big losers in the credit markets are now, trying to make that money back out of our hides.

Dear Leader is not gonna hurt his close personal buds.

[Q3JR4]

5. Good thing I don't drive,

otherwise I'd be really worried.

Q3JR4.

[tama]

6. Good thing I don't eat

otherwise I'd be really worried. ;-)

[NickB79]

7. But you eat food, buy goods in stores, and work a job, right?

The price of oil effects on everything around you.

The food you eat has been grown with oil-fueled tractors (my dad uses over 1,000 gallons per year on his farm), shipped on oil-fueled semi-trailers, and packaged in oil-based plastics. Similarly, all the goods we buy in the stores are shipped in either trucks or oil-fueled container ships, and also use oil-based plastics. All that is already going up, and will go even higher. Finally, as prices for goods go up, consumers are already cutting back on purchases of non-essential items. The US economy is based on consumer spending, and when it drops, the layoffs come rolling in.

My place of employment in the dairy industry is already seeing pain from high oil prices. We lost a major contract with a certain East Coast-based coffee corporation largely due to the cost of shipping refrigerated dairy products halfway across the nation as diesel prices climbed. It resulted in 5 employees being laid off.

The pain will continue to spread until we are all touched.

[bdamomma]

12. when we will spread that "pain" to the ones who inflicted this on us.

[NickB79]

15. Technically, we did it to ourselves

As unpopular a statement as that may be, we are the ones that continued to base our entire economy on unsustainable fossil fuels and the promise of unlimited growth, despite the evidence around us that the party wouldn't last forever.

But we, as individuals, are the ones that bought SUV's, 3000+ sq. foot homes, moved to the suburbs at the expense of 50-mile commutes, filled those homes with massive amounts of consumer crap, etc.

[Obamanaut]

24. Waaay back about the time of the Ford administration, auto

makers were tasked with having their auto fleet (non-truck) avg something like 29 mpg by 1985. They pretty much complied, in large part by adding some tiny little cars to the inventory to balance the larger ones. But, little progress has been made since. Japan and Britain (I think) require an avg of greater than 40 mpg.

I was on a bicycle forum a few days ago on the fuel cost issue, and found that other places - Australia, Japan, eg. - have fuel costs much higher than ours. I'm sure we can catch up though.

note that the 1985 date listed above is from memory, and may not be accurate.

[bdamomma]

9. they are crushing the American people by the balls, when will

enough be enough.

[taterguy]

10. Good thing I don't have balls

[tama]

11. Boohoo

"Not us, not yet" is normal and natural self centered human way of responding, but let's remember the food riots are now in the poorest countries, and that's how the famine game works: when the music stops, the poorest dies of hunger. The psychological terror - not unlike on deathrow waiting for the needle or electric chair - that US and west are now suffering as the collapse is becoming imminent, is nothing compared to actual famine (war and pestilence etc.); only a form of poetic justice.

[bdamomma]

13. I am not crying about this, I am enraged aren't you?

or do we have to hit the bottom of the barrel to scratch ourselves out of this?

[tama]

19. I'm currently eating pills

that take rage away and makes one docile and placated. Nowadays only get enraged when they kill trees and hurt forest nearby; it's been a longtime since I accepted that forest is more important than humanity.

And when the global "civilization" is gone and hopefully forgotten (except as a warning example and a horrible story) we can only hope that what arises not from ashes, but out of todays networks of ecovillages and those primitive tribes that have succesfully resisted civilization does not repeat the same mistakes. That is the kind of responsibility we who live now in the midst of this collapse cannot escape, responsibility that surpasses many generations.

[Nickster]

14. Just wondering out loud. How much of this skyrocketing is due to Saudi Arabia trying to squeeze us

out of the Middle East?

[NickB79]

16. Probably very little

Having the US in the region keeps Iran from breathing down their necks, so it's in their best interests to see the US maintain it's presence.

[Nickster]

17. I think it's a little deeper than that. Remember the Saudi government is very much

aligned with Al-Q. Not to mention, I think the Saudi gov't would love to have us out of the way so that they can start matching Iran's influence in Iraq. Iran's president can come and visit and he's safer than any American would be. I haven't seen any of the Saudi Royals out there and I know it would benefit them greatly to create a buffer in Iraq.

[Dukkha]

18. I'm anxiously waiting for someone to die over this

Sooner or later it will happen someone digruntled and ruined over the inflation will enact their revenge and a Haliburton fatcat will be found face down in a pool of blood.

[tama]

20. It's a good day to die n/t

[taught_me_patience]

21. Nothing we can do

We do not have the infrastructure to deal with the rising oil prices effectively (wasted all our time and money in Iraq). We cannot tighten our money supply to strengthen the dollar, either, because we would then head into a depression. We are in a real bind in this situation.

[taterguy]

22. What's this "we" shit?

With the existing infrastructure I manage just fine and rarely have a need to buy gas.

I realize that other things I pay for will go up in price but I'm not gonna get all gloomy about it. That's what the bad guys want you to do: give up.

Fuck that.

If you decide there's no hope it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'd rather enjoy myself and keep fighting the good fight.

Like a wise man once said: NOTHING IS OVER UNTIL WE DECIDE IT IS.

[tama]

23. Mama Earth says: nough of your shit

Modern day Prometheuses (living the Oedipus myth of killing the Papa Sky and raping Mama Earth) can wail all can they want trying to believe themselves into Godhood, but Mama Earh says: you are a cancer, a melanoma on my skin, so bad case that you may succeed to kill your host in your greedy vanity, but what good would that do to you? Repent and amend your ways! Papa Sky speaks nicer and more kindly, but he too in the end only this: listen to your Mama, or...

[Initech]

25. Let's PRAY that we dont go to war with Iran.

War with Iran will skyrocket the gas prices to unheard of levels. $15 / gal? $350 / oil? We really need to work to make sure that Shithead McCain doesn't get elected president!

[Strelnikov_]

27. An attack on Iran could result in the collapse of the US

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3256381#3256532

[Strelnikov_]

26. Its almost like something has . . peaked n/t