Gas Prices and Economics

By now, even those who live under rocks are aware that gas prices have jumped massively. In North Carolina they jumped over 40 cents in less than 24 hours. The prices here are well over $3 now, and may reach $4 before the weekend is over. There are problems with supply and many gas stations are running out of fuel.

If you want to understand how economics work without just screaming that this is Bush's fault, or SUV-driver's fault, read this post by Perry Eidelbus. He does an excellent job explaining what's going on and how the prices fluctuate -- including pointing out that politicians CANNOT help lower the prices without destroying people or companies.

Posted by: Ogre at 11:03 AM

Comments

1 Georgia Governor Plans to Lift State Gas Tax for Rest of the Month

ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said he will sign an executive order Friday that will exempt consumers from state motor fuel taxes through the end of September to "relieve some of the financial burden" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The order will remove the 7.5-cents-a-gallon tax and a 4 percent sales tax on gas, the governor said, and was set to begin at midnight.

The move comes as gasoline in some parts of the country has risen well above $3 a gallon.

Now that doesn't sound like a bad idea.
I will not hold mt breath for a similar move in PA.

Posted by: Tomslick at September 02, 2005 01:08 PM (xNjHI)

2 Nor will I expect the same from NC or the feds. If North Carolina does anything, they would be likely to put a cap on prices, alleging gouging. There's no such thing!

Posted by: Ogre at September 02, 2005 04:52 PM (L0IGK)

3 Great link.
Thanks.

Posted by: jimmyb at September 02, 2005 07:36 PM (591UF)

4 Good stuff over there -- and from nearly everyone on the Life, Liberty, and Property blogroll, I might add (over there on the left side).

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted by: Ogre at September 03, 2005 02:50 PM (L0IGK)

5 Ogre, I ran up against an interesting post over at the Cigar Intelligence Agency (!! LOL), http://www.cigarintel.com/agency/ , which pointed me over to this article: (Gosh I hope this works OK) at the Telegraph. Steve Forbes (yes, that one) predicted last week that oil prices would be down to $35-40 per barrel in the next 12 months.

In.ter.es.ting. What do you think?

-- R'cat
CatHouse Chat

Oh, here's the link again, if it didn't come up right:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=MOXEOZW1TKBUFQFIQMGCNAGAVCBQUJVC?xml=/money/2005/08/31/cnoil31.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/08/31/ixcity.html&menuId=242&_requestid=63318

Posted by: Romeocat at September 06, 2005 11:57 AM (dIews)

6 It's already dropping like a rock right now! Isn't it down to $60 a barrel already? Not gas prices, but oil prices. I don't know that it will drop THAT far, and I don't see average gas prices getting below $2.50 EVER again, but anything's possible!

I think if newer technologies are invented, if government gets out of the way, gas prices could drop lower, but not as long as we're so dependent on the gasoline engine (the source of all evil, according to Algore).

But it makes sense -- if Iraq stabilizes and we start doing more drilling, why wouldn't oil prices drop?

Posted by: Ogre at September 06, 2005 12:58 PM (/k+l4)

Processing 0.0, elapsed 0.0105 seconds.
18 queries taking 0.0084 seconds, 14 records returned.
Page size 6 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.