SheepOfBlue

Oil is down below $117 and still falling. Gas will fall in a similar fashion (already started here). So the question is at what price will the flighty sheeple cease to panic and revert to previous bad habits?

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figment

those days are gone forever

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BizJetGuy

The panicing or the bad habits?

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luvtolean

Doesn't it make you nervous making a statement like that? (Whether you're referring to cheap oil, people's habits, or freedom in China...)

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James Madison

Bourne

My bad habits are gone for good.

Well, the gas related ones anyway.

And by "gas" I mean the kind that goes into your car.

figment

nope

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JohnnyDiablo

Don't jinx us Sheep! There is enough oil seeping out of the Santa Barbara coast to keep Cali in oil for 20 years. Coming from the guy with the new 13mpg vehicle.. DRILL!! DRILL!!

I have been having a kick ass commute with less cars on the freeway too!

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"I wont have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage.. You know, If I help him, he's gonna help me."

seamus

$3.50 and you'll see new Suburbans flooring it on the highway again.

Then again, I was passed at XXmph today by two Subs and a Yukon XL. The overnight 50cent (Fiddycent?) drop has already made some people giddy.

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Bourne

It's only dropped $.34 here so far.

$3.65

SomeStrangeGuy

$3.68 here today and I feel like I did the last time it fell under $.99.

Sheep, I don't foresee any change in your future. Why? because if you've been able to get along in the present, any changes in the future will now put more dollars in your pocket.

Personally I'm amazed at the fact of all the things I could have done all along that would have actually boosted my income in better times. I'm a bad person moneywise, Abtech says it best :"money and I are good friends we just don't hang out together very often" .
Anyway...on severely inclement days I've been able to work from home, and rest of the time taking the bike. I fill up once every ~200 miles for 14$, and I look forward to riding to work and riding home, even found a few cooler backroads to/fro the office. Stress level down, fuel bill per week down (at current fuel prices) is down about 62$ (a WEEK mind you). 4.3 weeks a month = new bike payment

My Ridgeline has not left my property in nearly 40 days if my count is correct. Next I'm going to write a book on how to fit anything essential in life into a vario topcase

Suprised at all the 'little things' I've found myself doing to cut corners, and despite how much more the prices fall/things improve I don't think some of these things will fall off the habit tree. Least I freaking hope not, cause I still have to heat my house this winter.

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SheepOfBlue

I said sheeple, blue sheep made no change at all. I had a Vibe commuter car when gas was $1.50 and still do. I have a truck for towing and still do. Been checking Suburbans out but like keep with my paid for truck a while longer (with fresh tires )

I have found the whining and panic of the sheeple amusing but not surprising. the number of people that never do basic math is stunning to me. Things like budgets and cost vs savings are very easy to do IF you stop and think, many do not. My prediction is that you will see gas below $3 before next spring and many will return to old habits that never made sense at any gas price

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NorthernRR

Gas has dropped a whole 2 cents a litre here. I can hardly wait to go for a long drive and waste gas...

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figment

I'm no soothsayer but thinking that gas will ever be below 3/gallon again seems like a pipe-dream. The fluctuation in prices will likely sawtooth UPWARD from now on. Partly based on economics/refinery issues and partly on the instability of certain areas.

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luvtolean

I agree, with the big unknown being the spectre of a (D) pres and (D) Congress.

Either way...I had no habits to change, and still don't. I had a cheap car to drive to work in when fuel was in the $1 range, and I still rode my bicycle too.

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James Madison

Bourne

Agreed.

We'll never see it below $3.00 ever again. There is absolutely no precendent to support such a theory.

This is no blip. This is a conditioning.

luvtolean

Well, I am sure you guys hope you're wrong.

RE: Conditioning- Bourne, I thought you disliked conspiracy theories?

Either way, keeps life interesting I suppose.

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James Madison

Bourne

If you look at the sawtoothed upwards trend that we've seen over the last two or three years, it's hard to come to any other conclusion, isn't it?

A couple of years ago we suddenly discovered that paying two bucks a gallon wasn't so bad after all. Now? We would look at paying only three bucks a gallon as heavenly compared to the four dollars we've been paying. Three years ago the thought of paying four bucks per gallon would have had most folks giving suicide a closer look.

We're climbing Everest, baby! Up a little, back a little. Up a little farther, back a little less...

That, by definition, is conditioning.

And no, for reasons I've already outlined, I don't want to be wrong.

luvtolean

Who gives a crap about 2 years, that is the definition of a bubble.

This country chose to build the interstate highway system when inflation adjusted gasoline prices where $2.5-3 a gallon.

Actually, we've been on a downward trend since 1919...

(It's a crap blog, but for some reason I'm having a hard time finding a better image after the recent downward spiral of the dollar, but the shape of the curve is correct. Also, it used 2007 dollars, 2008 dollars would've shifted that chart up again)

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/03/...inflation.html


If you are against GDP growth, and for a poorer populace, I guess that is logical...while you contemplate that, go look at times of falling gasoline prices, and think about what was happening in the economy as they got low.

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James Madison

Bourne

GDP? How about how much we export in dollars per day to foreign oil producing countries?

How strong was the dollar trading back in the golden days?

Were we also running record trade deficits at the time?

luvtolean

Funny enough, a weak dollar and high oil prices self correct trade deficits.

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James Madison

Bourne

Well, that wraps it up.

figment

yep. there is much futility in arguing the future...

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"Einstein, don't tell God what to do with His dice". - Bohr
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SheepOfBlue

Nope in the future sheep rule.... just a matter of time.

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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way

Bourne

Not just that, but the bizarro economics involved.

“As a result, the value of US oil imports increases, which in turn widens the trade deficit, which weakens the dollar further.” - Dr. A.F. Alhajji, Associate Professor of Economics at the College of Business Administration, Ohio Northern University



LTL, can you explain how the weak dollar that we are exporting to foreign oil producing nations will eventually correct the market and our trade deficit?

luvtolean

First off, "onshoring". The cost of shipping goods has gotten far more expensive. As the currency of the world becomes more valuable against ours, doing business in the country with the most productive workers in the world, that's us, gets cheaper. I'm "in" global manufacturing, have been for about a decade. And in my career I've never heard or seen the amount of people talking and doing "onshoring" that I do now. Been several articles in the media as well. (Onshoring is getting a boost from other issues too, but the money ones are definitely part of it.)

Then of course, there's another aspect of our efficiency. The United States is far more adept at turning a gallon of gas, a Watt, whatever unit you prefer, into GDP dollars than any developing nation.

The IEA has a nice 1 page summary in this 2004 report (I didn't read the whole thing, hope there isn't something later waiting to make me look dumb. ):

http://www.iea.org/textbase/papers/2...oil_prices.pdf

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The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which are governments are most liable.- James M