this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
240 points (96.5% liked)

World News

38968 readers
2911 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Haven't we had oil at $100 a barrel before, and not that many years ago? And yet fuel and energy prices were lower.

It's almost as if the price the consumer pays has absolutely nothing to do with cost.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but how are they supposed to keep record profits when their costs are so high. /s

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't forget, next year they need to hit 104% the amount they did this year. Crank up the prices!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Capitalism, working exactly as intended!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s actually pretty well correlated once you remove state taxes, which have increased significantly in some states like California. Mississippi gas, for example, is cheaper now than 2010, with respect to crude prices and discounted for inflation.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Gas was $100 a barrel under Bush. It was like $2 a gallon.

Dad said "Jesus criminey were not going anywhere for a week!"

V.V I paid 3.75 a gallon 3 days ago.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember seeing $5/gal under Bush. His last year had an average of $3.30 and peaked over $4... https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/gasoline-prices-fared-under-last-190000869.html

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yeah gas hasn't been $2 a gallon for quite a long time in the United States

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was under $2/gal during the first summer with covid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

$2.17 briefly, when no one was driving

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

In the small rural town I was in it was literally a dollar a gallon. People went to buy gas just to get out of the house since everything else was being closed down.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which state? $2 in 2001 is worth $3.46 today thanks to inflation.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But gas tax isn't tied to inflation and it's a fixed dollar amount per gallon (not a percentage), so $100/barrel should be relatively close to the same as it was in in the mid-2000s, yet it's doubled.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why do you think gas isn’t affected by inflation? Costs go up with inflation. This increases the price. Remember that the cost of the commodity itself is effectively zero. The cost is all in exploration, extraction, refinement, transport, and sale. All of that goes up with inflation.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The price per barrel includes almost all those expenses, so inflation should be reflected there.

The rest is offset by a gas tax that's deflationary. The federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't changed since 1993.

The price at the pump should be correlated much more strongly with the price of a barrel than with inflation, and the price per barrel was similar or higher during the Bush administration.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The price per barrel includes almost all those expenses, so inflation should be reflected there.

Right, which means that the inflation adjusted price of oil today is significantly lower than it was in 2008.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, but the price at the pump isn't reflective of the current price of oil, which is the whole point of what I'm saying. The price of oil hasn't kept up with inflation while the price at the pump has outpaced inflation.

There's some fuckery there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

UK prices are currently around $7/gallon (US). You guys have it good!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

From a European pov, petrol has been almost free for the longest time in the US.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

this user gets it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I imagine everything else became more expensive too, labor, shipping, processing, etc

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

labor

Wages haven't been going up that much though. Not as much as inflation, not as much as prices. Shipping and processing costs, too, haven't actually gone up significantly - there's no particular reason for it to cost more to do the things we've already been doing.