Everything that could go wrong seemed to today, especially for Indy/Indiana. Nationally prices went up about 20¢, reversing some of the losses of last week due to a Louisiana refinery issue. Chicago is also battling refinery issues, and PADD2 is now at an 11¢ premium to Group 3. For Indiana, we also lost 3¢ to Chicago’s rack this week, meaning higher prices all around.
Look for a spike up in all areas tomorrow.
Are Speedway’s outside of Kalamazoo offering “Free Tea Day” on Friday?
If you didn’t notice, this Friday is the 13th. While that’s an interesting enough choice of date, it’s especially interesting for Kalamazoo. Friday is the 31st anniversary of the Tuesday, May 13, 1980 Kalamazoo Tornado. So, you have tea “T” for tornado and the reversal of the digits 31 (number of years) to 13 (date).
You can watch original before video of the Kalamazoo tornado at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naR9KzPXAzE
You can watch original after videos at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZNaEh_L7lM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAPPTp12vl8
Speedway thought about this morning’s increase for a while, going up a half hour later than normal at 11 a.m. and only going up to $4.199. I’m thinking Speedway is leaving room for another increase later in the week.
Gasoline futures are currently up another 8.53¢ from yesterday’s close to $3.3637.
The price of a barrel of oil is right around $103 which hardly calls for prices to be in the $4.00 a gallon range at all. The last time we had prices around here as high as they have been a barrel of oil was close to $150 and it is no where near that high so gas prices are severely over inflated and all the so called reasons like refinery issues and the was in Libya etc are nothing more than smoke screens for the continued greed of Wall Street and oil companies to rake in more profits than they know what to do with. Gordon Gecko said Greed is good. Well greed is a sin and no sin is good.
I was wondering if this was enough of an increase to warrant a Meijer alert. They just sent their alert at 11:46 a.m.:
“Meijer Gas Alert! Mrkt cond. are rapidly changing fuel cost. Fill up @ Meijer as we expect gas prices to go up this afternoon.”
As of this moment, the Speedway website still has not updated to reflect the new prices.
In a free market (one free from unnecessary government regulation and government barriers to entry), greed is indeed good. While individuals are pursuing their own self-interest (maximum profits), they create and produce products and services demanded by the economy.
Here are two videos that agree with this idea:
Milton Friedman – Greed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
Greed With John Stossel part 1 of 6 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0VHiONkot8
What does this have to do with gas prices? There is no doubt there are tremendous government regulations and restrictions on the domestic oil industry. Oil companies have to spend a lot of money getting the thousands of government permits necessary to conduct their activities and even then still fail in accessing the resources they seek. The companies are pursuing their self interest (making money) and the result is more resource for you. When government prevents them from accessing these resources, there is less supply and higher prices for you. Certainly, there are environmental concerns from the activities of the energy companies, but the biggest polluter is the federal government itself, which is immune from any requirement to clean up their messes.
Anyway, a blanket statement assaulting the pursuit of profit is ignorant. There are certainly some faults with this system, but it is better than any alternative.
Do you expect them to be on an overall downward trend, though, even after this spike? I know all the news stations are reporting that gas should be down at least for the summer, and I’m just wondering what you think about that. I’m sure it’s hard to say, especially with events that could happen (more unrest in the middle east, natural disasters, refineries unexpectedly going down, etc.), but I am just wondering. I was starting to see SOME hope after the drop this last week, but now I’m kind of wondering.
I understand that most experts expect long-term trends to be going up, but I was just mostly wondering about this summer. I am a strict budgeter, so if gas prices are going to be higher than they are figuring (around $3.50 is what they said), I would just like to be setting aside extra money just in case. As it is, I am setting aside for gas prices to be around $4.00 for the summer, but if I should expect higher, it would be nice to know 🙂
Tom:
The big run up in price in this area has to do with refinery issues. Hopefully they correct them soon, but news on it is scarce at the moment, other than some talk about certain companies who are reported as having outages buying up gas on the market.
Jessie:
After last week’s fall, I was thinking we would finally see a steady decline. It’s still possible. Some of the increase this week is flooding in Louisiana causing refinery issues, and driving up price, and some computer buying of oil going unchecked. We could still see that decline, especially if refinery issues have been resolved. But there are conflicting reports right now on where oil is headed.
We’re on quite the roller coaster right now. Gasoline futures settled today at $3.1228, down 25.69¢ from yesterday’s $3.3797.
The really important number, Chicago spot, closed down 27.69¢ today.