Steely_Gunz said:
My next question is how much of this is calculated figures based on emergency supply and demand...and how much of this is the gas companies licking their slobbery chops?
I got a C in economics, but i know that public panic equals profits if you're selling the right stuff.
Jake
Exactly. I worked for Chevron USA for almost 7 years and I can tell you without a doubt that these thieving SOB's raised the price overnight based on this news, even though millions of gallons of gas are in the system pipeline and storage reserves that didn't cost them anywhere near this price at all.
You have only one defense, and it's not a bad one, and that is to buy stock in the oil companies. The stock price doubles and splits and doubles again. They will rake billions more off the top by this gouging, and have been doing so all along even pre-Katrina. I have been paying $3.19 per gallon here for weeks. My last fill up cost me almost 60 bucks.
If they don't watch it their gouging will cause a huge recession, but they are immune from that as well. And wait until the Winter hits and fuel oil prices start skyrocketing as well. Thanks God I don't live back east.
We in CA have been asking for years why our prices are so much higher than the rest of the CONUS, when most of the major refineries are out here, and they didn't have to move the stuff far at all. So now the Southland gets hit why should our price go up? But I guarantee it will. I have stockpiled some gas but it's all 87 octane and I can't use it in my car, although my wife can use it OK.
I worked for Unocal in '73, and for Chevron in '78, and I could tell you stories that would curl your hair about gas lines and the demanding aholes in them who would do anything, wait hours, to save 5 cents a gallon, and they blamed the guys at the pump for the price gouging. That was back when it hit $1.55/gallon in '78, and the company sold it by liters for a while trying to fool the public that they were "only" paying .41 cents per "unit." It took a bit for the public to understand the concept that there are 3.785 liters per gallon and that they were essentially paying almost .40 cents a quart.
Years after I left that company I was waking up with nightmares, and that is no sh*&. I went for two weeks once in '78 getting into some kind of a fight with a customer every day, and kept a pair of small tin snips in my pocket so I could cut up credit cards on the fly, an awl to either sidewall tires or defend myself with and a boot knife. We kept 2 big floor jacks on the pump block so that when people locked themseves in their cars and refused to move (unless they got gas), we could jack up both ends of the car and wheel it off the island and out into the street.
That year I lead all Chevron USA CA stations with over 150 customer complaints, I am proud to say; I would take some abuse but I was literally not going to be used as a punching bag. I don't think I have ever hated people as a general rule more than I did that year, (and also as a general rule I _like_ people.) I would have 7 or 8 drinks every night just to calm down, and being toasted was about the only way I could get over my anger from that day.
We were the only company to obey the state mandated odd/even plate days. The high point was when a guy came after me and my buddy with a fire ax, and was chopping through a steel fire door to get to us when the cops showed up. Or maybe it was the 75 year old grandmother who shrieked "FU#! YOU! FU#! YOU! " over and over again, or the guy who pumped 15 rounds through the back wall while we were trying to close up, or the guy who crashed his car into the gas pump and wouldn't move it until we gave him all the gas he wanted, or the 1/2 mile long lines, with people fighting other in line, lying, stealing, cutting each other off, pulling tire irons and knives, etc., etc., etc. We had an allocation of 3000 gallons per day, and every night the floor safe would be so full of cash that we couldn't close the lid. We had to keep the pumps padlocked and then unlock them for each transaction, and then lock them again, or people would try and steal the gas, even though you were standing right there.
I hate to say it, but people who are scared and stressed (and some of them not too smart to begin with) are capable of _anything._
ANYTHING!!! That experience along with my particular religious upbringing is the reason my home is (original deleted) very secure, and I spent 12% of my gross income for two years fortifying and arming it and stocking it. Paranoid? You bet your a$$!
I will never place myself or my family at the tender mercies of people with that mindset again. Meanwhile the oil companies are making sympathetic noises, taking concessions with one hand from the Government and making a show of freeing up their reserves, while gouging everyone within a 3000 mile radius because of the unfortunate "shortage."
Buy stock! Oh, and a locking gas cap wouldn't hurt. The Fram ones are good; $22.99 at AutoZone (Advance Auto back east) or Kragen.
Regards,
Norm
By the way, just found this from an HI thread from 6-19-2000:
Avg. Fuel Prices
Orlando, FL 6/19/00
Chevron
Regular: $1.62
Plus: $1.72
Premium: $1.80
