The experts are predicting that increased gas costs are going to crush the Christmas Holiday spending. Of course if the main stream media keeps reporting it that way, it could become a self fulfilling prophecy.
But lets do the numbers. Say the average car drives 24,000 miles a year and gets 20 miles to the gallon. One is high, the other is probably low. That means that it will use just a smidgen over 23 gallons a week. Now, assuming that gasoline is up $1 from "wherever", that means that the average person will be spending about the cost of four Coffees at Starbucks a week additional for gas. Of course the prices aren’t up a buck, but more like 50 cents but I’ll be conservative.
Lets compare our costs here with the UK. The price of gas there is about $5.50 a gallon (that’s a US gallon), Its about the same across Europe and over six bucks in oil rich Norway. Of course you could move to Venezuela where its 12 cents a gallon but that’s another story.
Here in the US at this writing the average gasoline price is $3.10 a gallon. (It always goes up over holiday driving periods for some strange reason). That’s up from $2.70 in September. So my comparison above is probably twice what it should be. OK you folks in California, the reason your gas prices are so high it that in your infinite wisdom you have required the suppliers to make a special "blend" and have not allowed any new refineries to be built. Also remember that an average of 43 cents a gallon is collected in various state and federal taxes nationwide. In California its 60 of tax cents a gallon. That’s almost 20 cents a gallon more in California. What a bunch of nincompoops we are.
So if we aren’t conservative with my numbers above, and be realistic, the average car is costing about $10 dollars a week more to drive today that it did in September.
Of course you will NEVER hear this from the drive by main stream media. They will scream and scream about how horrible the high gasoline prices are and how folks are being driven out of their homes, taking food from their mouths, and will have no Christmas because of high fuel prices. There will be interviews with folks who decided not to take a vacation, or go see grandma. Balderdash. The facts simply don’t bear it out.
Ok, about $20 a week is something but it isn’t the end of the world. The MSM and pundits want so badly to bring bad news that they never NEVER consider the other side. Fair and Balanced — HA
I think the biggest problem is the numbers on the outside of gas stations — Its a constant reminder of what we pay for fuel. There are no numbers on the outside of MacDonalds, or the Grocery Store, or Macys. The only price we have put in our face daily, hourly, is gasoline (OK and perhaps parking) prices.
This is a good marketing ploy since people usually go to the lowest price. I go to Costco which is usually about 10 cents a gallon lower than the street average. That means I save about $1.50 per fill up, that’s over $120 a year. And I don’t have to drive out of my way.
End of screed
JVH
2 Responses
Great post! I totally agree with you. I get so tired of the sad sad stories that are all tied to gas prices. Yes they’ve gone up, but I don’t feel its enough to break the bank. It’s as if the media just wants to find the whiners to interview and that’s it.
I might have read this either on cnn.com or theonion.com, but here goes: gasoline prices go up during the WINTER holidays because refineries have a limited amount of capacity. Starting in the fall, they shift production away from gasoline and over to home heating oil for the folks in the chilly climes. Therefore, market forces are at work: reduced availability = higher prices. Darned if I know why they go up over 4th of July, tho.