On the Road Again: Gas Giants

I may be the last person in America to do so, but I finally filled up the tank of the Insight with gas under two bucks. That's a downside of a fuel-efficient hybrid, but one I'm willing to live with.

Gas prices have been moving downward throughout the summer, affected by mysterious forces that us mere mortals cannot understand. Despite a major hurricane hit in the Gulf, they continued down, and continued to plummet even after the November election.

When the prices were going up, there was always some storm, war, or general excuse to the excessive prices. Now that prices are sinking, specifics are avoided, and the plummet seems to be treated as proof by the media of how bad the economy is.

Yes, this is this year's fashion for economic reporting - falling prices are bad news. Now you can fill your tank, but look at all the collateral damage! The economy is tanking worldwide now. Alaska can no longer pay people to live there. Alternate energy sources are now hampered because they are too expensive.

This, by the way, is Grubb's Law of Economic Reporting: Whatever happens, it is bad for YOU. In front of every civil lining is this big dark cloud.

Of course, now is a good time to revisit all the excuses made before and see how the situation has changed to make this price-plummet happen. The Mideast remains as unstable as a breakfast burrito topped by two diet cokes. The gulf continues to churn out hurricanes. Peak oil has still peaked. Demand has not evaporated. Yet gas prices have continued to tumble.

Of course, it could be that prices were set not so much from supply and demand but from consumer panic and corporate gouging, and the gas giants have finally run out of mattress space to stash their profits. Or have seen the effects of their profits ricochet through the rest of the economy in higher prices for, well, everything.

But that would just be cynical. Better to tank up and feel guilty that your modest bargains are a reflection of a wounded economy. Hope you're happy.

More later,

Rainfall on Grubbstreet since November 1: 3.125 inches

Won't You Fill Up, Jack Benny?

Yeah, if you remember that old jingle, you ARE old.

But it is actually a modern spate of commercials that have me thinking. It's those ones for small economy cars, increasingly for hybrids, that show people NOT filling up, or going past gas stations, or forgetting which side of the car the gas cap is on.

Nice concept. Real life? Not so much. I seem to fill up just about as often for my driving around. And I had it confirmed for me by a recent Seattle Times article on the front page which covered high fuel prices. Yep, its gotten so bad, that the media is donating valuable space on the front page about gas prices (though by Saturday, the topmost feature was on a young woman who is literally crawling hee way into the Guinness book of world records, so things get back to normal pretty quick).

Anyway, the article has a sidebar which talks about how much it costs to tank up various vehicles. Listing fuel tank sizes and MPG, it then tells you how much for a full tank. The problem is, one's MPG doesn't affect the cost of a full tank, only the price of that tank, and how many miles you can go between fill ups.

And it confirms for me something I had believed for a long time - that smaller cars, with smaller fuel tanks, fill up just as often for the same number of miles.

Here's the numbers they give:
Honda Civic - 13.2 gallon capacity, 34 MPG highway = 448.8 miles between fill ups.
Ford Taurus Crossover - 19 gallon tank, 24 MPG = 456 miles between fill ups.
Toyota Tundra - 26,4 gallon tank, 17 MPG = 448.8 miles between fill ups
Chevrolet Cargo Wagon - 31 gallon tank, 20 MPG = 630 miles between fill ups
Peterbilt Semi 150 gallon tank, 7 MPG = 1050 miles between fill ups.

Now, you don't PAY as much to fill the tank, but the MPG advantage is balanced by the amount of gas you're putting in. So those commercials where you never fill up the tank because it has such great gas mileage - not true, because the gas tank is now smaller.

My own little Insight gets about 50 mpg (real world) but has a 10 gallon tank, so it falls into the rest of the pack fairly neatly. But when the zombies take over, and I'm trying to get to Chicago without promise of gas stations between here and there, I'm stealing a Peterbilt.

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DOW Breaks 13000!

And it took less than 6 months to gain a thousand points. Why aren't people happier about this?

Maybe it's the fact that the front page, above the fold news story on the front page of the Seattle Times is that gas has been going up steadily for the past few weeks, and now looks like it will cross the four-dollar a gallon line sometime this summer. And mind you, this hasn't been a timid escalation, a frog-in-boiling-water situation. This has been a broad-shoulders striding into higher price ranges, wading ashore like a gulf hurricane, tossing SUVs in its path.

And the reason given for this latest round of escalation? Troubles with Iraq, Iran, Venezuala, Russia, or any of the other oil-producing countries we've been picking on? Sudden weather changes creating more cold (demand on heating oil) or more warmth (encouraging driving) than usual? The article I read put it down to stressed refinery infrastructure and a potential strike by Belgian refinery workers.

Look at the first one hard. The oil companies have been making money hand over fist, and haven't been using any of it for repairs and upgrades? Yeah, right.

And the second concept that was floated - Belgian Refinery Labor. I think they're just using MadLibs for their press releases nowadays.

I remember when gas first nudged tentatively past a buck a gallon, and America was shocked, simply shocked, and demanded action. These days, it gets a mention about two weeks after it has sailed by the three-buck milestone and a shrug of "What are you going to do?". And these strange, strange answers.

But maybe one is tied to the other, cause higher gas prices are good for SOME Americans - those who own large chunks of Exxon stock. The rest of us, not so much.

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Fact Check at Register Three

So the whole gas price thing has become a bit of a motif here at Grubb Street, since there is always a new development or tweak to report. The media seems to have gone through a "gee, I don't know if there's something going on" phase, to a "well, MAYBE there is something going on, but we don't know" phase, and has settled into a "Yeah, it looks like something is going on, but whattaya going to do?" phase.

Meanwhile, one of our readers, Joe (Hi Joe!) dug up the information that I was unable to ratchet down. You can find it here, and indeed, it shows gas prices dropping steadily through the summer, bottoming out the last week of October/first week of November, and starting to rise again almost immediately thereafter (despite the fact that OIL prices have been dropping).

Funny how not a lot of folks have noticed this.

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Gassing Up (Again)

So a couple months ago I started keying in on gas prices, in particular on the fact that they were dropping nation-wide in the weeks leading up to an important election. Notable sage heads and magazines all noticed this phenomenon, but concluded it was due to regular market forces as opposed to any sinister market manipulation. Of course, a nail in the coffin to this theory would be if, say, after the election, prices started climbing back up again.

And sunovagun, if that didn't happen. The Seattle Times had a graphic in the Business section over the break (unfortunately not on its web site that I can find) that shows Seattle area gas prices hitting their lowest on about 9 November, and have been inching their way back up ever since. This price rise shouldn't be a surprise to drivers in the area, but it has been relatively quiet on the news front, as previous rises have been.

Well, its not really news, until someone brings it up on the radio and connects some of the dots. Oh, wait a minute, someone has. Conspiracy, anyone?

More later,