Oil is less than $44.00 a barrell
 

:deadhorse:This is what is happening in Iran right now.

If you hold to the "demand, not speculation" theory as to what drives oil prices, then global demand has fallen 70% from last summer.

speculators and hedge fund types drove the prices way up this year
not demand!!

The only silver lining - if those oil prices had held it would have been even worse. Cold people not buying anything for Christmas.

I think the US should put a tax on a barrell of oil to keep it a min. of $75. Above that no tax. It would make alternative sources viable. Better to keep the $ here than borrow from china to pay the ME.

Only problem with that would be the govt. would use all this extra cash to bailout more morons that don't deserve it.

That's easy enough to solve with the right bill. A lot of people have suggested the min price/bbl as a good way to drive alternative development.

But put all of this in context it's a drop in the bucket. The amount that the US Gov actually puts towards alternative energy is pathetic. Sure, big business does invest but they have shareholders who must get paid first.

A fraction of what's going to the bailouts, hell, even 10 or 20 billion in incentives for R&D would completely transform the progress we'll likely make over the next few decades.

The problem, is Bush. We'll see what Obama does...

-spence

Don't add new taxes in times of recession and high unemployment. That extra money available for people to spend right now is a good thing.
Send a stimulus check to everyone who paid taxes last year.

The CEO of gulf oil was on tv predicting 80-90 cent /gal of gas soon..

I remember people on this board saying we would never see it under $2/gal ever again. :fishslap:

True. I said it myself. Then again,we weren't in a recession at the time. If it goes back to 3 or 4 bux and we are still in the recession, we will be in deep doo doo.

oil closed at 40.81 yesterday

Opec is between a rock and a hardplace for a change bastards want to cut production but if gas goes up and deepens the recession they shoot themselves in the foot as they are killing the goose that keeps on giving golden eggs.

People cut down on their driving and stopped buying SUV's after that spike last summer, and it looks like they are not going back.
The oil companies got greedy and screwed themselves.

Well, if gas goes back to .80 a gallon, I'm definitely taking out the straight 6 and putting a small block crate engine in the Jeep.

Fastest fish-wagon on the Island :ss:

I saw $2.39 diesel this morning on the way in.

If gas drops to $1.00 a gallon then get ready to bend over. (and I'm not sure that it even can go that low anymore for a bunch of reasons)

The gas tax will tank and every state will be forced to instantly raise income taxes to fund daily activities and payment of chapter 90 funds. They will clamp back even more and it will cause a instant rise in property taxes because the towns will get less assistance money from the state.

Don't tell me it won't happen because my town just DID this exact thing. My taxes just went up $400 a year. :whackin:

btw, I'm not positive on this but the reason I made a comment on gas not being able to go down is that I believe there is a minimum gas tax in most states plus a percentage that is based on the Consumer Price Index. I know Maine has a state law that automatically raises the fuel tax every July based on the CPI percentage.

If the wholesale price of gas is around $1 a gallon right now and drops to say .50/gallon then it's still going to be over $1 a gallon no matter what. You got the fuel taxes and then you got the distributor markup then the gas station markup too. So if right now it's $1 a gal wholesale and the street price is $1.65 then there's roughly .50 a gallon fuel tax in there and the dealers are making squat. .15 a gal right now. That's scary....

My town is doing a re-evaluation of properties. As everyone knows, property values are down. My town expects valuations to be lower. But this will not result in lower taxes, because the town will raise property taxes in order to keep tax revenues the same. Down the road, when property vaules come back some, they got themselves a defacto tax raise. Pretty slick.

I am still at 2.499.

Station margins have always been small.

Federal tax is 18 cents per gallon.

http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/r...S_Jan_2008.gif

yes and state tax is significantly more...these guys margins are gonna be even smaller..

I don't necessarily believe that map though because last I heard Maine's tax on diesel was $.61 a gallon..not sure on gas.

Dealers make less than .15/gal. My best friend owns a station, he told me what he makes. You have to remember that if your station is in a good location it is pumping MILLIONS of gallons..... They make different amounts on different grades btw. My buddy makes like .03/gal on economy if he only sells a million gallons, and he sells alot more than that, he made 30,000.00, now if he sell 3-5 mil...


Also Massachusetts has a fixed gas tax and it hasn't been raised in a long time.

don't get to comfortable.their is talk of OPEC cutting production by 2million barrels a day.here comes $2.50+ a gal again.

off topic but here's the announcement of the cuts..

10% comin up

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/poli...09/detail.html