[vision-master]

All time high today....... $4.19 gal here. I figure the middle east conflict should kill the American way of life shortly. Are west Coast prices @ $5 + gal now?

[Beery1]

I have a 90 cent spread here in suburban Maryland - as little as $3.35 for regular and as much as $4.25 for premium. Not that I care about gasoline prices - gasoline is for suckers - I've never had to buy even a teaspoon of the stuff in my life. But I like to keep track to see how it's gonna affect food prices.

[Econ101]

From $3.81 this morning to $4.30 this afternoon!

Dont think for a minute it reflects supply.

One reason gas prices are uncoupled from oil is the electric and hybrid car. These things are showing just how much some consumers are willing to pay to drive, so, at least to a degree we will all pay more. Its an unintended consequence but its real.

We are also having trouble with the EPA. They have made refining very difficult. Certainly refining capacity is tough to permit. There is one refinery North of Sioux Falls, SD that opened last year. The Fort Berthold Nation is building another. Both are small but have room to grow, especially Fort Berthold.

There are a lot of ways to control things, as recent political developments are showing. Some of these things are costing you a lot of money, me too, at the pump.

Just think if that 900,000 barrels North Dakota pumped today would flow right into a gas refinery for distribution to the United States in a non-political, efficient distribution system!! Every picture tells a story dont it!!

[John_A]

All time high today....... $4.19 gal here. I figure the middle east conflict should kill the American way of life shortly. Are west Coast prices @ $5 + gal now?

Prices higher than that sure ain't killed Europe, any reason you figure they'll kill America? Quick check....run out into the middle of your local interstate, randomly jog back and forth across lanes, and if you come back and post we'll know peak oil is absolutely decimating the place where you live. If you don't come back...well...maybe the Europeans have a point?

[John_A]

I have a 90 cent spread here in suburban Maryland - as little as $3.35 for regular and as much as $4.25 for premium. Not that I care about gasoline prices - gasoline is for suckers - I've never had to buy even a teaspoon of the stuff in my life. But I like to keep track to see how it's gonna affect food prices.

You sir, deserve an award of some sort. My hat is off to you, and I agree with you completely. While not able to kick the habit as well as you, my years of peak oil awareness have stood me in good stead when it comes to progressively spending less and less on gasoline, even as it becomes more and more expensive.

[careinke]

For Regular today. The Low I saw was 4.03 and $4.17/gal the high. Whats up?

[Econ101]

SNAP (food stamps) affects food prices more than fuel costs.

[Plantagenet]

gasoline is for suckers - I've never had to buy even a teaspoon of the stuff in my life.

Have you ever rode on a bus or flown in an airplane or taken a ferry boat ride?

If you have then you bought the gasoline for your trip when you purchased your ticket.


Airplanes run on gasoline!

[Pops]

Just think if that 900,000 barrels North Dakota pumped today would flow right into a gas refinery for distribution to the United States in a non-political, efficient distribution system!! Every picture tells a story dont it!!

LOL, where do you think it goes?
The US uses 18 million a day, 782,934 bbls is a drop in the bucket

* ND daily production for March

[Pops]

SNAP (food stamps) affects food prices more than fuel costs.

Criminy, your trove of unsubstantiated assertions never ceases to amaze me.

It's like a full time job following you around and refuting your BS.

[Peak_Yeast]

Hi Pops

Thanks for bringing up that graph again.

When i was looking at it one thing struck me:
It looks like the correlation between food price and oil price has increased noticably in the last few years of the graph.

Earlier on in the graph it looks like food prices had some kind of "buffer" - maybe long term energy contracts - but now it looks like they are paying spot price for the energy or some similar effect.

Do you or others have some thoughts/data about how this has come about?

[John_A]

For Regular today. The Low I saw was 4.03 and $4.17/gal the high. Whats up?

The price of gas. Poor convenience store owners have to try and get at least some portion of the usual spring runup in prices prior to the recent surges in supply showing up in inventories and cratering margins.

[ROCKMAN]

Pops – “Just think if that 900,000 barrels North Dakota pumped today would flow right into a gas refinery…” Colour me confused again: AFAIK every bbl of oil produced in N Dakota does flow into a refinery somewhere. Along with every future bbl. And along with the 18 million bbls of oil we consume every day.

And not to take a bit of credit away from beery but I had never bought a teaspoon of motor fuel for the first 25 years of my life. And the grandparents who raised me never bought a teaspoon of motor fuel their entire lives. OTOH they and I have depended on the consumption of motor fuel for ever day of our lives. We might not have been burning any but someone was for our benefit.

Now if I could get about 100 million Americans to follow beery’s lead I could buy that V8 4X4 pickup I’ve always longed for. LOL.

[Pops]

Hi Pops
It looks like the correlation between food price and oil price has increased noticably in the last few years of the graph.

Hi Yeast, Make one think of Liebig's law doesn't it? Growth isn't limited by total resources but by the scarcest resource. Prior to the oil price moving up it wasn't the determining factor in food prices but once it passed some level perhaps it was.

[Tanada]

Hi Pops
It looks like the correlation between food price and oil price has increased noticably in the last few years of the graph.

Hi Yeast, Make one think of Liebig's law doesn't it? Growth isn't limited by total resources but by the scarcest resource. Prior to the oil price moving up it wasn't the determining factor in food prices but once it passed some level perhaps it was.

I think if more people were to garden or farm they would understand this so much better. It doesn't matter if there is plenty of Nitrogen in your fertilizer if the plants have a shortage of Phosphorus or Sulfur
, nor vice versa. It is what you lack that matters most, not what you have in abundance.

[Peak_Yeast]

Hi Pops
It looks like the correlation between food price and oil price has increased noticably in the last few years of the graph.

Hi Yeast, Make one think of Liebig's law doesn't it? Growth isn't limited by total resources but by the scarcest resource. Prior to the oil price moving up it wasn't the determining factor in food prices but once it passed some level perhaps it was.

I agree that is also my first impression. I think I understand the impact of scarcest resource. At least a little.

My simple mind tells me that if the resource limit is being reached and the price is not rising then it means that its not possible for some to pay more and demand destruction should be evident.

But if a limit was reached in 2008 - first in production, then in what people could pay - what stopped this oscillation from occurring again? Perhaps there could have been implemented some type of "Executive order" to stabilize the price - which possibly made a tighter correllation between food and oil?

Perhaps its just me being impatient, but I would have suspected the oscillation period to be faster than it is.

[SeaGypsy]

That's the expectation of those who forget the rest of the world, outside the USA and the rest of the price based demand destruction sphere. There is another part of the world where it takes several hours wages to buy 1 liter (1 Gal/ 3.8L) of gasoline, where a full 12 hour day might buy a gallon- these places are still growing their demand. What does this say about the DD regions? The expectation of cheap gas is the real issue, not value for money or utility for perceived necessity. To those likely to supply the next 30 years of oil, does demand destruction in the developed world matter when the rest of the world is willing to work it's butt off to pay for the product?

[Pops]

Yeast,
The thing about food prices is that the driver of supply is not fast to respond to changes in the market simply because the production cycle is long. I raise feeder calves, from the time the decision is made to add a new calf to the markets several years go by. Instead of selling a heifer into the slaughter market she is bred, then she calves then the calf is raised and slaughtered. Right now decisions are being made that affect the beef supply in 2016. Obviously not everything is on as long a cycle as dairy and beef but potential damage to the winter wheat crop for a cold spring for example is impacting how much corn is planted right now, which affects what the cost is to feed the above mentioned calf in 2 years...

I'm off topic.

[Beery1]

gasoline is for suckers - I've never had to buy even a teaspoon of the stuff in my life.

Have you ever rode on a bus or flown in an airplane or taken a ferry boat ride?

I've done a lot of things that have involved gasoline - I also eat food that's farmed with gasoline-powered tractors and delivered to grocery stores on gasoline-powered trucks, I order things over the internet for home delivery using a gasoline delivery truck and I have the government pick up my trash with gasoline-powered trucks - and many other things that can't be done other than by people using gasoline (against my wishes I might add - if I could get these things done by people on bicycles, I would, but I can't). But I have never once bought gasoline. Buying gasoline is for suckers. That's all I said.

[SeaGypsy]

Suckers like the providers of all those services? Should they prefer to go out of business if they can't 'do it on a bike'? (Just askin')