This Is Just The Beginning

[JFN1]

Last week some government and/or industry group forecast gas would be around $4.15 by the end of the summer. Nice fantasy.

Here in the real world, the way things are going, gas will easily be $4.15 by the end of June.

Three days ago, gas was $3.87 a gallon in my town. Yesterday it shot up to $4.08. That's 21 cents in a single day, and thats not even the biggest leap I've seen - but it is significant, as it sped passed $4 a gallon without so much as a pause. And we're not even halfway through June.

We are just beginning to see the price increases that are coming.

With a finite resource - energy - someone, has to take less - and it sure ain't the big corporations, who are taking less - they want and are receiving their regularly increasing profits, and expect the rest of us to pay for them. In other words, average Americans are being asked to accept less, so rich corporations can have their status quo maintained.

It's disgraceful. It's unAmerican. And it is only going to get worse.

When gas hits $6 a gallon, this country will grind to a halt. With a good portion of the country making $10 an hour or less, $6 a gallon gas is going to eliminate many people's ability to survive. Poor elderly, the working poor, the poverty stricken, disabled people on fixed incomes - all will be in grave danger.

Once gas hits $6 a gallon, we're going to see hyper-inflation like we've never seen before. Since EVERYTHING in this country depends on gas/diesel to get to the end consumer, prices are going to skyrocket out of control. Remember - corporations simply will not take less, and thus, they will be at the forefront of the looming disaster.

There are food riots in Spain right now, because gas has hit $10 a gallon there, truck drivers can't afford to drive anymore and have been striking for 5 days; store shelves are empty.

We're just now beginning to see the effects of Bush's oil economy. Even energy industries like natural gas, of which the US has some 11 trillion cubic feet (thats a whole bunch), has gone up in price at the same rate as oil, suggesting deep price gouging and/or manipulation, since there is no shortage or other price pressures on natural gas that bear any resemblance to what is going on with oil right now.

My bet is gas will be at, or very close to, $6 gallon by Labor Day.

Any takers?

[NightWatcher]

1. um, the truckers cant take much more. I've heard reports that another 80 cents will start a chain

reaction of truckers stopping and goods not getting to market.

I am really afraid of what may be ahead this hurricane season if one storm should disrupt oil in the gulf. Let Katrina and FEMA's response teach us all that we should be prepared to go a month without electricity, water, or outside help from the government.
We are all on our own

[MaraJade]

9. My husband was a trucker. . .in fact, we owned a truck-tractor and

a "reefer" trailer. Fueling a truck right now costs about $1700.00. Imagine that!
Imagine having to reach into your pocket at the pumps and pay nearly $2000 to fill up.
Worse yet, many shippers pay no fuel surcharge and the truck owner has to eat this cost.

All sorts of trucking companies are folding now, going out of business, and it will only
get worse. The rippling effect through the economy is certain. Even if intermodal train
transport is used, the cost of trucking loads to freight yards is astronomical right now.

[dana_b]

2. pretty close.

we're over $4.50/gal in my area and it seems to be going up by .01-.02 cents a days so I'd say that's pretty close to $6.00 within a few months. It's definitely going to get worse. I don't know about the better.

[BeatleBoot]

3. It was already $ 4.10 in Michigan

And based on the following three things that have occurred in the auto industry, I would agree $ 6.00 is not outlandish:

1) General Motors decided to close 4 of its Truck/SUV plants and increase funding and timing of the Chevy Volt

2) Ford Motor Company just had a summit in Dearborn of all of their plant managers and UAW personnel to tell them that they see more job cuts due to sinking Truck/SUV sales

3) Within the last month Truck/SUV sales have plummeted

Everything listed has been reported in the media.

[JFN1]

4. And yet, Americans pay silently

I just don't get it...why do we continually allow big business privileges and rights we deny ourselves? The price we are now paying for our subjugation...no way its worth it...

[napi21]

5. I suggest you STOP pushing the oil companies agenda! They're

LYING TO YOU, and they're using all of us!

Listen to the hearings some time. You hear all the "we need more supply, we need to drill here in the US, we need to drill in ANWR!" Well guess what! They've been issued 25,000 permits to drill offshore, and naven't drilled ANY OF THEM! They have authorization to drill over 10,000 exploration wells, and have drilled only 4,000 of them! There have been internal corporate memos published that state "We are not making enough profit on our product because supply is higher than demand. We need to close some refineries and reduce that supply to increase our profits!" They SHUT DOWN 200 refineries since those memos!

I don't dispute that fossil fuels are finite, and we have to find alternatives, but in the mean time, we DO NOT have to be paying $4-5 a gal for gas!!!!! We need to expose the scam they are pulling and put them back in line with the world!!!!!!

[JFN1]

6. I said "energy" - not fossil fuels

for I agree with you - I was attempting to be precise.

Energy is finite right now because price has become a bottleneck to supply - not supply as in "there are shortages," but supply as in, "can I afford to buy it?"

I see many parallels to the electricity "shortages" that led to rolling black outs in California a few years back - there was no shortage, the markets were simply being manipulated to maximize profit on an energy resource which was purposely bottlenecked for the sake of profit.

[napi21]

7. Absolutely! And they're doing the same damn thing with oil!

Much of electricity is actually made via generators powered by a fossil fuel too. The corporate crooks have us by the short hairs right now, and they're hoping it will take a long time for us to figure it out! That's why I responded with such a harsh post! I refuse to be used like this, and I'm going to do everything I can to expose the fraud!

[MaraJade]

8. Since home heating fuel follows the cost of diesel. . .

just imagine what it will cost millions of people to keep warm this winter?

Can't guess? Well I can give you a clue. My sister heats her home with Oil.
She's got a 200 gallon tank (so do most people). At $4.50 per gallon for home
heating fuel, she can expect to pay about $900 per month to keep warm. That's $300
more than her rent payment. The LIHEAP (federal heating assistance program) is broke;
besides, it doesn't cover people like my sister, whose income is just over the
eligibility line.

At this rate, she will be bankrupted by trying to keep warm this coming winter. So will
millions of others. We are facing an energy disaster of near epic proportions if someting
substantial isn't done.

[driver8]

10. I dream of $4.15/gal for gas.

Here in the Los Angeles area we are paying around $4.55/gal.

It will definitely be $5.00/gal very soon..., and $6.00/gal won't be far behind.

It is going to be a long, hot summer and shit is about to hit the fan.

[and-justice-for-all]

12. Indeed..nt

[and-justice-for-all]

11. Great way to break people is'nt?

If you cripple the energy/fuel source, everything else falls like dominoes.

Gas here in Indiana, on the Illinois, is $4.16 a gallon. On the way back fro St. Louise IL, we found a FAST STOP where gas was $3.95. By the end of summer, the cost will be close to $5.00 a gallon, if not at 5.00 a gallon.

[GoneOffShore]

13. What destroyed our shipping infrastructure?

The oil companies, the automobile companies and the tire companies.

Every one of them encouraged the use of road shipping - more efficient, faster. And unlimited gasoline! :sarcasm:

We had railroads. We almost had canals. And now, now we have highways.

And soon, only the very wealthy will be able to drive on them.

The rest of us will be relying on wind power. Or wood fueled, steam driven vehicles.