Gas prices spike, may threaten record high

Gas prices spike, may threaten record high

Terry McCarthy
CBS News
April 10, 2011

If you've filled up your tank in recent days, the numbers should come as no surprise.

The latest Lundberg survey out tonight puts the average price of regular nationwide at $3.77 a gallon, up 19 cents in just three weeks and 91 cents in a year. In many cities, gas prices are higher still.

CBS News correspondent Terry McCarthy reports that in California, drivers are already used to paying a premium for fuel. On Sunday in Los Angeles, however, drivers are seeing sky-high prices, leaving many scrambling all over for the cheapest gas stations.

In Los Angeles, the cost of gas now averages $4.14 per gallon. It hasn't been that expensive since 2008. With prices climbing all across the country, drivers are getting fed up with filling up. At one gas station in New York, prices increased 10 cents overnight.

"If I fill up it's like $90 dollars," said New Yorker John Dematos. "It's a lot of money."

Dematos is not alone in feeling the pain at the pump.

"I remember when I was a kid it was twenty three cents a gallon!" exclaimed Helen Lopez.

In just the past few weeks, prices have shot up by 12 cents per gallon in California ($4.14 per gallon), 12 cents in New Jersey ($3.56 per gallon), and a whopping 23 cents in Oklahoma ($3.62). The national average is now $3.74 per gallon, according to AAA.

The bad news is, there is no good news. With no end to the unrest in the Middle East in sight, prices are expected to keep rising. Experts say the average cost of gas could exceed 2008's all-time record of $4.11 cents.

The current spike started back in February when the rebellion in Libya's oil fields put a stop to the country's daily exports of 1.5 million barrels of crude. That has caused oil speculators to push up the price. At the same time, here at home, refineries are switching to their summer blend, which also increases the cost.

Paradoxically, as the overall U.S. economy improves, that further increases the demand for gas, which puts even more upward pressure on prices at the pump. So any which way you look, be prepared to pay more to fill up.

That darned George W. Bush. Why doesn't he do something? Oh. Wait a minute.........




Watch this make the economy here take a bigger dump in coming months. That's what happened in 2008. Then the bank crisis came and fucked it all up.

You remember all those headlines and lead evening news stories back when Bush was President and gas prices were skyrocketing screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it?

Don't ya kind of wonder where those headlines and lead stories are demonizing and blaming Obama?

Just sayin....

Yeah, I remember that. T'was funny then and funny now. The prices aren't.

dblboggie wrote:You remember all those headlines and lead evening news stories back when Bush was President and gas prices were skyrocketing screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it?

No.

Examples?

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:You remember all those headlines and lead evening news stories back when Bush was President and gas prices were skyrocketing screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it?

No.

Examples?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-22-dems-gas-prices_x.htm

http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/How%20Did%20Oil%20Prices%20Get%20so%20High.htm

http://freedomslighthouse.net/2011/03/10/in-2008-pelosi-blamed-bush-for-high-gas-prices-whose-fault-is-it-now-video/

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2007/05/24/oil_companies

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-3941035-502443.html




Personally, I didn't blame Bush then and I don't blame Obama now. Doing either is silly. Presidents can't control this.

Who's blaming Obama for high gas prices?

Larry Elder
Dec 30 2010

Five dollars per gallon of gas by 2012! A former president of Shell Oil considers this likely.

The average price on Christmas Day for a gallon of regular gas reached $3.28 in Los Angeles County, the highest price since October 2008. In one month, the price rose 13 cents, up 35 cents year to year.

Where are the calls to sic Obama's Justice Department on Big Oil to hold the oil companies accountable for "market manipulation"? Why aren't we hunting down the amoral "oil speculators" responsible for repealing the law of supply-and-demand in order to line their pockets?

During President George W. Bush's administration, we constantly heard demands to hold the President accountable for "Big Oil's price gouging." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., just two years ago, knew exactly whom to blame for "skyrocketing" oil prices:

"The price of oil is at the doorstep; $4-plus per gallon for oil is attributed to two oilmen in the White House and their protectors in the United States Senate."

In 2007, when the average national price ranged from $2.17 to $3.22, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., demanded that the Federal Trade Commission investigate Big Oil for "price manipulation." In 2008, presidential candidate Obama urged the Justice Department "to open an investigation into whether energy traders have been engaged in illegal activities that have helped drive up the price of oil and food."

Obama also called for "a windfall profits penalty on oil selling at or over $80 per barrel." As of Christmas 2010, a barrel of oil sold at slightly above $90. What happened to the windfall profits tax?

Yes, back then the average price per gallon was four bucks. But blaming "oilman" Bush for high prices began when the average price was well below today's $3.05 national average.

The average price was $1.72 on March 5, 2003, when CBS News posted a story online with this headline: "Dems Blame Bush For High Oil Prices." It referred to an investigative report by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Levin blamed Bush's post-9/11 decision to increase the amount of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 40 million barrels in 2002 -- bringing the total to 600 million.

Levin said, "We're confident this had a significant impact on the price of oil in 2002." Never mind that the Bush administration called the amount of oil diverted too small to matter.

The average price was $2.80 on April 22, 2006, when USAToday.com posted an article with the headline "Democrats blame Bush for high gas prices": "Consumer gasoline prices continue to soar as the Bush administration places too much emphasis on drilling reserves and not enough on alternative fuels, Democrats said."

The article quoted Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who praised Brazil's "energy independence." "In Brazil," Nelson said, "drivers are filling up their cars with ethanol instead of gasoline."

Not exactly, Sen. Nelson.

Brazil may be "energy independent" in that it imports only a small percentage -- 649,000 barrels per day in 2009 -- of the oil it consumes. But that makes Brazil the 19th-highest oil-importing country in the world. Its economy relies heavily on oil that is domestically produced and consumed. Brazil is the seventh-largest consumer of oil in the world and the ninth-largest producer. Its famous -- and heavily government-subsidized -- sugar cane-based ethanol fuel is actually a blend that uses approximately 75 percent gasoline.

As for U.S. ethanol, which is made from corn, Nobel laureate environmentalist Al Gore recently called it a bad deal:

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol. First-generation ethanol, I think, was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small. ... The size, the percentage of corn particularly, which is now being (used for) first-generation ethanol definitely has an impact on food prices. The competition with food prices is real."

Why did he once support ethanol? He admitted that he'd wanted to help farmers in Iowa, site of the nation's first caucus, since he "was about to run for president."

The silence over the recent price run-up is yet the latest example of left-wing hypocrisy. It was always about bludgeoning Bush rather than a sincere conviction that Big Oil was cheating. How else to explain the absence of demands for investigations?

America could achieve "energy independence" if producers were allowed to drill in Alaska, the lower 48 and offshore, where substantial amounts of untapped oil remain off-limits. Obama, who currently squanders hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars by "investing" in alternative energy, possesses no more control over the law of supply-and-demand than did "evil" Oilman Bush.

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:You remember all those headlines and lead evening news stories back when Bush was President and gas prices were skyrocketing screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it?

No.

Examples?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-22-dems-gas-prices_x.htm

http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/How%20Did%20Oil%20Prices%20Get%20so%20High.htm

http://freedomslighthouse.net/2011/03/10/in-2008-pelosi-blamed-bush-for-high-gas-prices-whose-fault-is-it-now-video/

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2007/05/24/oil_companies

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-3941035-502443.html




Personally, I didn't blame Bush then and I don't blame Obama now. Doing either is silly. Presidents can't control this.

No, those aren't headlines "screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it." Those stories are just reporting what other people (various democrats, and oil execs) said. It's not the same thing at all.

There is one article in there (the Yurica report) that seemed to outright blame Bush, but that's not news, it's "news intelligence analysis."

I remember 2008. I followed the soaring oil prices closely. I don't recall switching on the TV and hearing the newscasters blaming Bush, as dbl's phrase "lead evening news stories" suggests. Though I certainly didn't get the chance to consume every bit of media pertaining to the situation, so I may have missed something. But I don't personally recall seeing Bush blamed anywhere other than on message boards, bathroom graffiti, and fliers stuck on telephone poles. Where I did see Bush blamed, I thought the blamers were idiots, because as you correctly point out, the POTUS does not and cannot control oil prices.

CBS and USA Today are major media. Salon is a major news web site. I consider that telling.

I was just countering what you replied to Dbl about. I couldn't resist, that's why I posted. I considered just passing it up.

But that fact that major politicians were tooting the blame on Bush is telling also. There's many people in this country that can't think for themselves. They blame the president for anything and everything. I personally get tired of it.... no matter who's in the WH. The reason I get tired of it is because it always comes back to the other party sooner or later. Then the other side gets to say, "Well? What about your guy? Why didn't he do anything?"

Its a game of gotcha and that gets old after awhile.

TexasBlue wrote:CBS and USA Today are major media. Salon is a major news web site. I consider that telling.

Like I said: The CBS and USA Today stories weren't saying it was Bush's fault. They were saying other people were saying it was Bush's fault. Which they were. Ergo, the story was true.

Salon is not straight news. It's analysis and opinion journalism.

I know I didn't limit my request for examples to "objective" news (or whatever the opposite of opinion journalism is called), so fair enough, your example is noted. But I got the clear sense from dbl's post that he was talking about supposedly objective news outlets blaming Bush.

TexasBlue wrote:I was just countering what you replied to Dbl about. I couldn't resist, that's why I posted. I considered just passing it up.

No need to explain.

TexasBlue wrote:But that fact that major politicians were tooting the blame on Bush is telling also. There's many people in this country that can't think for themselves. They blame the president for anything and everything. I personally get tired of it.... no matter who's in the WH. The reason I get tired of it is because it always comes back to the other party sooner or later. Then the other side gets to say, "Well? What about your guy? Why didn't he do anything?"

Its a game of gotcha and that gets old after awhile.

^This.

btw, Obama is already being blamed even as we speak, by none other than Donald Trump; possibly others. I haven't had time to investigate how widespread this phenomenon is.

kronos wrote:Like I said: The CBS and USA Today stories weren't saying it was Bush's fault. They were saying other people were saying it was Bush's fault. Which they were. Ergo, the story was true.

They were reporting it. That says a lot to me because of the nature of the beast. When the media goes after someone for something and then an almost exact same scenario arises and they remain silent, it pisses me off to no end.

I distrust our media quite a bit.

kronos wrote:Salon is not straight news. It's analysis and opinion journalism.

Stipulated.

kronos wrote:I know I didn't limit my request for examples to "objective" news (or whatever the opposite of opinion journalism is called), so fair enough, your example is noted. But I got the clear sense from dbl's post that he was talking about supposedly objective news outlets blaming Bush.

We won't know till Dbl pokes his head in and let's us know.

kronos wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:But that fact that major politicians were tooting the blame on Bush is telling also. There's many people in this country that can't think for themselves. They blame the president for anything and everything. I personally get tired of it.... no matter who's in the WH. The reason I get tired of it is because it always comes back to the other party sooner or later. Then the other side gets to say, "Well? What about your guy? Why didn't he do anything?"

Its a game of gotcha and that gets old after awhile.

^This.

btw, Obama is already being blamed even as we speak, by none other than Donald Trump; possibly others. I haven't had time to investigate how widespread this phenomenon is.

Trump is a goober. He brings up good points and then blows it 3 minutes later with his Jesse Ventura conspiracy shit.

kronos wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:

dblboggie wrote:You remember all those headlines and lead evening news stories back when Bush was President and gas prices were skyrocketing screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it?

No.

Examples?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-22-dems-gas-prices_x.htm

http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/How%20Did%20Oil%20Prices%20Get%20so%20High.htm

http://freedomslighthouse.net/2011/03/10/in-2008-pelosi-blamed-bush-for-high-gas-prices-whose-fault-is-it-now-video/

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2007/05/24/oil_companies

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-502443_162-3941035-502443.html




Personally, I didn't blame Bush then and I don't blame Obama now. Doing either is silly. Presidents can't control this.

No, those aren't headlines "screaming that Bush needed to do something and demonizing and blaming Bush for it." Those stories are just reporting what other people (various democrats, and oil execs) said. It's not the same thing at all.

There is one article in there (the Yurica report) that seemed to outright blame Bush, but that's not news, it's "news intelligence analysis."

I remember 2008. I followed the soaring oil prices closely. I don't recall switching on the TV and hearing the newscasters blaming Bush, as dbl's phrase "lead evening news stories" suggests. Though I certainly didn't get the chance to consume every bit of media pertaining to the situation, so I may have missed something. But I don't personally recall seeing Bush blamed anywhere other than on message boards, bathroom graffiti, and fliers stuck on telephone poles. Where I did see Bush blamed, I thought the blamers were idiots, because as you correctly point out, the POTUS does not and cannot control oil prices.

Of course the mainstream media aren't coming out and blaming Bush directly, they ALWAYS use proxies. The point you are missing here is that they give these Democrat proxies actual coverage while ignoring Republicans who are saying that Obama's energy policies (ie banning oil drilling in the Gulf, etc), are responsible for the spike in gas prices.

I thought you understood how this worked, so my statement above could create the impression you got - my bad. The media, never, ever come out and personally take a position because they are supposed to be objective observers who merely "report" the news. But they expose their bias by selecting what "news" to "report" and what news to ignore. Hence the dearth of headlines on Republicans blaming Obama, but the plethora of headlines of Democrats blaming Bush.

Does that clear it up?

Yeah, that clears it up. This concept of "proxies" is not unknown to me, I just didn't realize that's what you meant. I guess I was reading you too literally.

kronos wrote:Yeah, that clears it up. This concept of "proxies" is not unknown to me, I just didn't realize that's what you meant. I guess I was reading you too literally.

That's okay, I could have made that clearer.