Well, Should i give up the dream of a Bus..

[superpickle]

Jeeeeez, if these Morons in Washington are going to let the Life blodd of this country get over $5.00 a gallon.. How the hell are we going to Afford FOOD, let alone Fuel... 

and, is that going to Effect the price of Vasoline 

Bend over Amireeeka.. Your getting  a Huge Dry **** !!!!!!

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

YUP!,

The mighty Dollar is is almost not worth the paper it's printed on.... Hope they don't make us start using the Euro!

If you work for someone, you will have to ask for a raise. Im my case, I have now added a $4 fuel surcharge to every service call along with all the equipment

increases I have recieved in the past few months forced me to raise prices again... As a busisness owner, I'm have to pass the savings onto the customer!

Nick-

[NJT5047]

And now our morons in DC want to tack on .40 cents per gallon to fuel so that they can repair the bridges.  This is actually being kicked around in La-La land.  They got game!   
JR

[HighTechRedneck]

And now our morons in DC want to tack on .40 cents per gallon to fuel so that they can repair the bridges.  This is actually being kicked around in La-La land.  They got game!   
JR

Too bad voters don't vote with vengeance enough.  The perfect way to get a control on taxation would be to not reelect any politician that votes for ANY tax or fee increase.  One round of that and they would figure it out real quick.  Oh, you mean NO new taxes, now I get it. 

[4106-123]

everybody should get on the fair tax band wagon. it gets rid of the irs and gives the control back to the people. http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer

[Jeremy]

I'm sure it's no consolation, but I heard an interesting piece on the radio the other day that explained that the current increases in the price of fuel are effectively 'paper' increases caused by the current weakness of the dollar, as opposed to real changes in the supply & demand for oil.

Because of all the naughty American banks that have been lending money out irresponsibly there is this worldwide so called 'credit crunch', which means that the inter-bank lending market has slowed right down. To try to get it going again the Fed keeps reducing interest rates (another 1% drop tomorrow apparently), which makes the holding dollars a very poor investment (low interest rates mean low income). Accordingly no-one want dollars, so the dollar exchange rate becomes very weak against other currencies. For historical reasons many commodities such as oil are priced in dollars, so you now need more dollars to buy the same amount of oil, so the 'price' of oil goes up on paper. If oil were prices in UK Pounds, Euros, Yen or any other currency then fuel would actually be getting cheaper now.

Because the world oil market uses dollars the effect is of course worldwide, although it is perhaps hurting more in the US because fuel has historically been so cheap - even at $5.00 a gallon fuel in America would be 40% cheaper than current British prices for example.

Obviously economics is a very complex thing and the exchange rate issue is only one factor, but it does sound like at least some of your blame should be directed at the actions of greedy / badly managed / poorly regulated American banks over the last few years.

Jeremy

[4106-123]

wait untill the oil producing countrys dump the dollar and go to euros. also china is bypassing the newyork exchange and cutting deal staight with the oil producing countrys so in effect there cutting us out of the loop!

[ceieio]

Superpickle - things will stabilize once again.  The only thing we don't know is how many miles of bad economic road we have to pass over before that happens.  The high price of fuel may drive a favorable buying market for you if you do not yet own a bus.

For us, we have looked at the trips we are planning and sometimes the nature of the trip pencils out OK for the bus and sometimes it doesn't.  If we are running a long distance from home but not staying long, the car and a hotel may be the right answer for us (or air travel); other trips where there are more nights spent away from home, the bus still comes out as a good choice.

If you have more time to spend at a location, the bus really starts to pay off.

We all know that this is not a dress rehearsal, this is our shot at life, so if travel around the country is what you want to experience, stick with it and find a way to reshape things so that it works / makes sense for you.

Good luck and pleasant journeys!

Craig - MC7 Oregon

[belfert]

Another big issue with the run up in oil prices is investors putting money into oil since they aren't making any money in the stock market.  The price will keep going up as long as investors are willing to keep putting money into oil.

Supply and demand is no longer driving the oil market for the moment.

[HighTechRedneck]

Another big issue with the run up in oil prices is investors putting money into oil since they aren't making any money in the stock market.  The price will keep going up as long as investors are willing to keep putting money into oil.

Supply and demand is no longer driving the oil market for the moment.

That's the simplest and most logical explanation of what's going on that I have seen.  If that's it, the Chinese have it right, buy direct.

[Green-Hornet]

wait untill the oil producing countrys dump the dollar and go to euros. also china is bypassing the newyork exchange and cutting deal staight with the oil producing countrys so in effect there cutting us out of the loop!

I think they alreay are making that move. I read another story on the relationship between oil and gold. It seems the cost for a barrel of oil, if bought in ounces of gold, hasn't changed since 1945! They have not changed a penny..It is the dollar that is worth less.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Turk/turk_mar142008.html

[zimtok]

The fuel prices are affecting everything...

The owner of the restaurant/bar for one of our regular summer gigs was talking about cutting the amount he can pay for live entertainment.
At the same time we (the band) are needing to raise our prices to help cover the higher fuel costs.

We settled on a price he could live with and only booked a few Sundays but we cut the band down to just Ed on acoustic with the occasional musician sitting in with him.

I'm just glad warmer weather is on its way so I can ride my motorcyle to my day job more often.

.

[Jeremy]

The high price of fuel may drive a favorable buying market for you if you do not yet own a bus.

That's a very nice point, and a good way of looking positively at the situation. Now is also probably a very good time to buy a house, or for someone like me to buy an American vehicle and import it to the UK. I wish I could afford to do either!

By all accounts the Chinese have effectively taken over the running of some cash-poor but oil-rich African states - but remember that China is fundamentally in an extremely poor strategic position in terms of natural resources - apart from coal and cheap labour they have practically nothing of their own, and have to import almost all their energy and raw materials from abroad - which actually means they are in a very weak long-term position. India and Russia will make the economic running over the next 30 years - India because they have a large workforce that is extremely well educated compared to China and even some western countries, and Russia because they have limitless supplies of energy and materials

Jeremy

[Len Silva]

I wonder what would happen to the price of oil, or anything else for that matter, if the entire world lived as we do in America.  I wonder if mother earth could even sustain that kind of consumption for very long.

Len

[HighTechRedneck]

I wonder what would happen to the price of oil, or anything else for that matter, if the entire world lived as we do in America.  I wonder if mother earth could even sustain that kind of consumption for very long.

Len

No, it definitely would not.  The U.S. has only 4.5% of the Earth's population.  If the other 95.5% lived as we do, it would be a disaster.  But the other side of that question is, what should we do about it, reduce ourselves to a third world lifestyle?