Gas Prices
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wsidepinoy
New Member
where im at in N.California it just hit an average of about $4.05/4.07 per gallon...uggh
Peter Kraemer
New Member
Ok - i have read prices about 4 dollar per gallon - sounds great for my vacation in september!!! I am happy to get some cheap gas......
Sorry - but in "good" old germany we will be happy about this price.
In germany costs the gas at the moment about 1,65 Euro per liter.
In US-Dollar per gallon (x 1,44 dollar per euro x 3,78 liters per gallon) that is equivalent to 8,98 USD/gallon!!!!
Be happy to live in the usa!!!!
But i know that the price of a gallon years ago was real cheaper than now.
Greetings Peter
Sorry - but in "good" old germany we will be happy about this price.
In germany costs the gas at the moment about 1,65 Euro per liter.
In US-Dollar per gallon (x 1,44 dollar per euro x 3,78 liters per gallon) that is equivalent to 8,98 USD/gallon!!!!
Be happy to live in the usa!!!!
But i know that the price of a gallon years ago was real cheaper than now.
Greetings Peter
fluxlizard
Avid Member
Well, part of the problem is the USA wasn't planned out the same way as much of europe. Most people here live in housing neighborhoods 30 minutes or more by automobile to their employment, and 10 minutes or more by automobile to shopping. There is usually no way to travel by bicycle to these places either (bicycles are not allowed on highways). And public transportation in most cities and between most cities is either unavailable or not much coverage, or expensive.
Also, most americans are in debt up to their eyeballs and credit cards and housing loans are very nearly outright theft, yet we go along with it for a couple of generations now instead of helping our families build wealth (for example by living with family to save for a house after college (takes about 2-4 years) vs getting a loan with the bank and being "independent" of family (takes about 20-30 years to repay and many americans use credit cards and then refinance after several years into the home loan, and then the home loan basically starts over again- even without the refinancing to cover credit card debt, "normal" home loans mean you pay triple the money back to the bank that you borrowed over the 30 years).
So things here are strained and stressed from the past 40 years or so of economic culture and life culture including community planning and construction.
Our government believed big business and thought we could ship our manufacturing backbone out of country and everyone could get white collar jobs that require college degrees. Unfortunately if nobody is actually making something physical that can be traded for american money, then we can't afford to pay for the abstract white collar stuff. Heck now even many white collar jobs are outsourced to other countries - we can hardly call our credit card companies to find out how much more interest we are growing for them without someone in India picking up the phone to assist us on the other end of the line.
And then we had to start buying most of our stuff from clothing to construction materials to electronics to even food from foreign countries. We chose walmart and started shipping our money by the bucketful to China, never to be seen again as they intelligently keep that money in their own economy and build it. With cheap labor and factories built with foreign government subsidies making cost to big business even cheaper, meanwhile no penalty for selling those cheap subsidized goods in our market, so even if we still wanted to make some of these products here and try to build wealth, it would be impossible to produce it competitively.
It was very foolish anyway- manufacturing is what made us wealthy after ww2 when european manufacturing had been destroyed in the war and took years to build up again. It wasn't our cleverness that built our economy - it was the fact that we were the only modern manufacturing based economy left standing for years following ww2 and so we had a head start after the war. We added cleverness to that for great effect, true, but then the clever ones who understood the nature of the system they built retired and the next generation grew up in prosperity and thought money came about from magic and they took over control of the system and crashed it.
Cost of gas is a reflection of 2 factors-
instability in the middle east (follow the money- guess who will be making big money drilling for oil on american soil once gas gets expensive enough for us to all start begging the government to allow more native oil production?)
And value of our dollar (inflation). Which is going down the crapper fast because we have lost our manufacturing base and produce nothing physical of value that we can insist other nations buy using our dollars. Until now, we have been able to insist that oil all over the world is paid for with our dollars, which has kept us afloat for the past decade or so after trade agreements allowed our biggest employers to ship our manufacturing jobs out of country and not suffer penalties when shipping the products back in here for us to buy on credit. But soon the news tells us that our money will not be necessary for other countries to buy oil. Maybe chinese money or the euro- if that happens we are going to be in huge economic trouble because our money will become nearly worthless. On top of that we are talking about trying to inflate our way out of our national debt- very foolish and will double our trouble if world oil is purchased soon with some other currency.
I won't be surprised if we are soon paying what you guys in Germany are paying for gas.
Also, most americans are in debt up to their eyeballs and credit cards and housing loans are very nearly outright theft, yet we go along with it for a couple of generations now instead of helping our families build wealth (for example by living with family to save for a house after college (takes about 2-4 years) vs getting a loan with the bank and being "independent" of family (takes about 20-30 years to repay and many americans use credit cards and then refinance after several years into the home loan, and then the home loan basically starts over again- even without the refinancing to cover credit card debt, "normal" home loans mean you pay triple the money back to the bank that you borrowed over the 30 years).
So things here are strained and stressed from the past 40 years or so of economic culture and life culture including community planning and construction.
Our government believed big business and thought we could ship our manufacturing backbone out of country and everyone could get white collar jobs that require college degrees. Unfortunately if nobody is actually making something physical that can be traded for american money, then we can't afford to pay for the abstract white collar stuff. Heck now even many white collar jobs are outsourced to other countries - we can hardly call our credit card companies to find out how much more interest we are growing for them without someone in India picking up the phone to assist us on the other end of the line.
And then we had to start buying most of our stuff from clothing to construction materials to electronics to even food from foreign countries. We chose walmart and started shipping our money by the bucketful to China, never to be seen again as they intelligently keep that money in their own economy and build it. With cheap labor and factories built with foreign government subsidies making cost to big business even cheaper, meanwhile no penalty for selling those cheap subsidized goods in our market, so even if we still wanted to make some of these products here and try to build wealth, it would be impossible to produce it competitively.
It was very foolish anyway- manufacturing is what made us wealthy after ww2 when european manufacturing had been destroyed in the war and took years to build up again. It wasn't our cleverness that built our economy - it was the fact that we were the only modern manufacturing based economy left standing for years following ww2 and so we had a head start after the war. We added cleverness to that for great effect, true, but then the clever ones who understood the nature of the system they built retired and the next generation grew up in prosperity and thought money came about from magic and they took over control of the system and crashed it.
Cost of gas is a reflection of 2 factors-
instability in the middle east (follow the money- guess who will be making big money drilling for oil on american soil once gas gets expensive enough for us to all start begging the government to allow more native oil production?)
And value of our dollar (inflation). Which is going down the crapper fast because we have lost our manufacturing base and produce nothing physical of value that we can insist other nations buy using our dollars. Until now, we have been able to insist that oil all over the world is paid for with our dollars, which has kept us afloat for the past decade or so after trade agreements allowed our biggest employers to ship our manufacturing jobs out of country and not suffer penalties when shipping the products back in here for us to buy on credit. But soon the news tells us that our money will not be necessary for other countries to buy oil. Maybe chinese money or the euro- if that happens we are going to be in huge economic trouble because our money will become nearly worthless. On top of that we are talking about trying to inflate our way out of our national debt- very foolish and will double our trouble if world oil is purchased soon with some other currency.
I won't be surprised if we are soon paying what you guys in Germany are paying for gas.
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Peter Kraemer
New Member
The newest brainchild of the administration in germany is an environmental zone in the bigger citys. You can only get in with an ecological car (it depends on the emission) or you have t pay an surcharge.
Nearly all of my hometown (in the size like Washington DC) is such an environmental zone.......
..... and we have to pay an higher tax when we have "dirty" car......
MPG - ist that mileage per gallon?
Nearly all of my hometown (in the size like Washington DC) is such an environmental zone.......
..... and we have to pay an higher tax when we have "dirty" car......
MPG - ist that mileage per gallon?
Carlton
Chameleon Enthusiast
Gas prices in my little SE Alaska town have been about $4.79 for the past year.
I have a 10 year old Oxygen Lepton lithium ion battery scooter (an electric version of a Vespa type bike) and use it whenever the weather permits. It costs me about $0.35 to charge it after running for 18 miles. They are almost silent when running, no fumes, no oils, spark plugs, exhaust, infrequent tuneups, very very inexpensive to run. Oxygen sells many electric delivery or courier style motorbikes (look for the Oxygen Cargoscooter) in the EU and these are permitted in those cities' "environmental zones". If you don't need to run at highway speeds or drive 20 or more miles, they are definitely the way to go.
There are other makes of electric motorcycles and scooters out there and you can often get them used. Some are even large highway speed cruiser bikes (but be ready to fork out $11,000 for one). Lots of cheapo knockoff scooters to avoid and some can't be licensed because they don't have a proper VIN. There are forums dedicated to electric bicycles and scooters that can tell you all about various makes, batteries, dealers, etc.
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wsidepinoy
New Member
i hate it !!
Eltortu
Established Member
I just payed I think it was 4.55 the other day and man was I pissed.
Drove by the Chevron earlier and it was $4.27, I bet by Summer it'll be $5.99 a gallon...
Eltortu
Established Member
Oh it has gone down now about 20 cents. Thank you Jebus!
No need to thank me, but look and wait gas prices are going to shoot up like crazy!
DISLIKE! I'm gonna need to get a hybrid.
KTown333
New Member
..... sounds like Road Warrior time soon!
Texas Panther Man
New Member
Middle grade gas was 3.79 here today. I got mine for that because I pay cash. It may be against the law but alot of stations give cash customers a disc on their purchase.
