Yesterday, Thursday, March 3, 2022, I had a very unusual experience at the gas pumps at the Shell Station on Rio Road. I was in my Sprinter and needed to get diesel. I inserted my credit card, noted the price was 5.399, as I expected from the sign out front and proceeded to pump the diesel. A Ram pick up pulled up on the other side. While pumping, I looked up at the sign of the prices, and it was in the process of clearing. WHILE I was pumping gas at 5.399/gallon, the prices started disappearing, and before I was finished pumping, the price for diesel had gone up 50¢/gallon! I got it for 5.399, but the guy in the Ram paid 5.899/gallon for the same gas only a few minutes later than me.
Boy, was I glad I made it there by 9 am! Won’t be driving the Sprinter anytime soon, so who knows what I will pay next time?
Note, because of a political comment I got, I looked up his claim that we were energy independent during the last administration, and found this:
“ President Biden has passed policies that could negatively impact domestic oil supplies in the future. However, thus far the price surge is primarily a result of 3 million barrels per day (BPD) of oil production that was lost in the spring of 2020 that hasn’t fully recovered. Demand has fully recovered, so that is the fundamental reason for the surge in prices. Further, that surge began in the fall of 2020 — five months before President Trump left office.” Robert Rapier, Senior Contributor on Energy for Forbes Magazine https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2021/11/14/is-the-us-energy-independent/
Thank-you, Kate. Important information. Staying home as much as possible and clustering essentials into one drive in and back. SUCH TIMES.
I hoped you thanked Shell for being a bit slow in applying the Vladimirovich Surcharge
Wow, just wow! Best watch for price changes –up, in real time– everywhere. Serendipitous in a way. 🙂
Ouch! I use the smartphone app Gas Buddy to shop gas prices at my favorite stations (or any stations near me when traveling). Prices are confirmed or updated by users. Handy!
Gas prices are up here in Texas as well, but not to the level you’re experiencing. Best wishes as we all continue to adapt!
Inflation is surely a pain, but here’s a clear explanation.
“For most Americans, that gas-pump price is the single most important indicator of inflation, not just because they fuel their cars with gas but because the cost is emblazoned in big numbers outside every gas station in America. (The biggest beneficiaries of these price increases, by the way: energy companies like Halliburton, Occidental Petroleum and Schlumberger, which are now leading the S&P 500. Anyone in favor of putting a windfall profits tax on them?)” 🤔
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/24/russia-putin-invasion-ukraine-robert-reich
My husband was in the waiting line in Seaside at the Costco station and by the time he got to his pump, the price had risen 6 cents a gallon. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Keep yer Justin’s oiled & waxed.
We haven’t seen the end of it either.
Putin made a deal to supply china with all the fossil fuels they need and he has a number of LPG tanker ships to boot.
https://www.marinelink.com/news/china-taps-alternative-payments-keep-494784
Gas is so much cheaper in Seaside if you make it out that far… I have an appointment in SALINAS once a week so I joined Rotten Robbie and just got my latest full tank for 4.59 per gallon!
Gas Buddy is great where ever you are gives you the best prices. Since we paid the highest gas prices in the nation due to the excessive taxes, perhaps our governor would remove some of the heavy taxes that are attached to our gas price until we get through this crisis.
Fossil fuel pricing is a global situation. Biden’s administration has clearly shown a distaste for fossil fuels. The financial overlords of various banking functions are pressing for fossil fuel “risk assessment”. So whatever one thinks about overt actions the Biden administration has taken, the subjective regulation threats indicate poor returns, more audits, higher costs, to remain in the fossil fuel business. No cognizant and responsible representative of ownership in fossil fuel enterprises would put his/her ownership at risk. Hence, reduced investment, reduced capital, reduced production. Whatever your view of risk to the planet about fossil fuel use, the Biden administration is making those fuels more costly.
Inflation is not math, its genocide capitalism and social conditioning, do not be fooled by economic fallacies, all governments can print as much money as they need without causing inflation, the root of the problem is corruption in the monetary system, not corruption in the social sense but corruption in the engineering sense, the system has inherent losses due to the way the monetary system functions, there is much social corruption also, but the root problem is in the engineering.
One problem is having a currency to cover all required needs for currency, why should a billionaire’s dream of private space flight effect your dinner table and your children’s education… The billionaire only became a billionaire by removing currency from a system that requires a circular economy, what if basic needs had its own currency and could only be used in the basic needs economy without the currency being punished by the mechanisms that now punish currency through purposeful manipulations like, tax, interest, artificial scarcity, inflation, ect…
Another problem is most governments do not know how the international monetary system actually works, they know how to pull the levers and turn the knobs but they don’t actually know the math, in fact the worlds banking system is very much a work in progress, there are some very intelligent people on a committee that write the Basel international regulatory framework for banks, this document comes out years in advance before anything in the document is integrated into the international banking system.
One solution being presented is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) though it has some flaws it is now one of the best theories being investigated, in fact the covid-19 economic relief is an implementation of MMT, the main issue with the covid-19 economic relief is the system was corrupted by congress, a social corruption not an math problem, another implantation of MMT was presidential candidate Andrew Yang promise to give everyone over the age of 18 a payment of $1000 a month, Andrew Yang’s math was proved correct during the trump administration when the federal reserve minted $10+ Trillion dollars and congress through genocide capitalism facilitated $5.5 Trillion to double the worlds billionaire wealth in 17 months, unless you are selling something billionaires want that money will never make it back to your dinner table.
BTW, gasoline prices currently in Russia after economic sanctions are $1.90 a gallon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
https://ips-dc.org/global-billionaires-see-5-5-trillion-pandemic-wealth-surge/
https://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_stimulus_package_10_trillion_2020/us_stimulus_package_10_trillion.html
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Currently in Russia after sanctions the 92-octane gas costs $1.8 (€1.64/£1.36) per gallon or $0.49 (€0.45/£0.37) per liter.
Keep in mind that Russia comprises 12% of the global oil trade, as the country exports around five million barrels of crude oil every day. This means Russia is the world’s largest exporter and the third-largest producer of petroleum. Naturally, it has enough for domestic consumption. Europe (60%) and China (20%) were its biggest customers up until recently.