NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The national average price for a gallon of gasoline rose for the ninth straight day on Sunday to $3.838. That is now only about 6.7% below the record high of $4.11 from July 2008.
The average price rose by three-tenths of a penny, according to the survey of gas stations conducted for the motorist group AAA. Gas prices are now up more than 17% this year.
The nationwide average was $3.52 a gallon a month ago and $3.76 a gallon on March 9 — the day that prices started rising again after a few days of slight declines.Gasoline averages more than $4 a gallon in seven states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New York and Washington. Gas prices are also above $4 a gallon in the District of Columbia, according to AAA. At nearly $4.48 a gallon, Hawaii ranks as the nation’s high. Prices are less than a dime away from $4 a gallon in Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin.
Showing posts tagged oil
AAA report: Gas prices up for 9th straight day - Mar. 18, 2012
Oil prices spike on Iran export halt. Is $4 gas next? - Feb. 20, 2012
The price of unleaded gasoline in the U.S. will likely hit a nationwide average of $4 by this summer, said Dan Dicker, oil trader and author of “Oil’s Endless Bid.” The last time prices topped $4 was 2008 and Dicker said there’s a one in three chance that gas could reach $5 a gallon.
If gas prices do head to those lofty levels, that could put a crimp in the economic recovery as consumers will likely cut down on spending if they have to pay more to fill up their cars.
Terror 2012: Be Very Afraid - War with Iran Update: Feb 2nd
Currently, if you believe the news, THERE IS A LOT TO BE AFRAID OF. Fear has been a constant in the US since 9/11 and the creation and manipulation of the fears of the average American has become a powerful tool that is used daily to justify a staggering number of atrocities and infringements on our rights.
Terrorists are old hat after Osama bit the dust, but we still have doubled the number of people on the no-fly lists in the past year.
The U.S. government’s list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to the United States or within its borders has more than doubled over the past year, a counterterrorism official told CNN Thursday.
The “no fly” list produced by the FBI now has approximately 21,000 names on it, according to the official, who has knowledge of the government’s figures. One year ago about 10,000 individuals were on it.
Only about 500 people currently on the no-fly list are Americans, the official said.
But we have even bigger Villains now! If you haven’t noticed Iran is in the news daily.
The latest annual US Intelligence community’s threat assessment report had this to say:
As for Iran, the report said it will attempt to “undermine any strategic partnership between the United States and Afghanistan” and it continues to play a destabilizing role across the globe. The report cites the plot last year to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and concern about “Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests.”
”The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials - probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,” the report said.
If you remember the supposed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador, then you should consider how bogus that whole scenario was and view it as more pretense to begin the move up to war with Iran.
Iran has the technical ability to build a nuclear weapon, Clapper said. But he, CIA Director David Petraeus and others reasserted their stance that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, [WTF??] in subtle contrast to Israeli officials’ statements that Iran could have nuclear capability within a year.
That was just the opening volley - the stories grow by the day.
Today the Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “believes there is strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June - before Iran enters what Israelis described as a ‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb.”
In fact Israel may very well do that. They are dying to get U.S. permission to do so, but they could decide to go at it on their own even if it risks hurting their ties with the US and the billions of dollars we give them.
This week Israel, in an effort to stoke the fear and pressure the US to take action, said that:
Iran is developing a missile capable of delivering payloads up to 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, Israel’s vice prime minister charged Thursday.
Speaking to Israel’s annual Herzliya national security conference, Moshe Ya’alon, who also serves as Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, suggested that an Iranian military compound that mysteriously blew up late last year was developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the United States.
Ya’alon said the project was “aimed at America, not us” and said it served as further argument that Iran posed a “military problem” that needed to be stopped.
Today Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Major General Aviv Kochavi said:
Iran has completed the development of a nuclear weapon and awaits nothing more than a sign from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to start assembling its first nuclear bomb.
by the end of 2012 or early 2013 Iran may have a single nuclear bomb, but by 2015 the figure would jump to four or five.
The officer was essentially amplifying the words of his predecessor, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who said on Jan. 26 that as long ago as 2007 or 2008, Iran had already passed the point of no return in developing nuclear weapons.
His comments coincided with the findings published Thursday by the Enterprise Institute, an American think tank, that Iran would be able to manufacture a 15-kiloton nuclear bomb as soon as August of this year, just seven months from now.
Along the same lines, responding to YET ANOTHER fucking think tank, the chairman of the House intelligence committee told CNN that the U.S. military needs to do more to “scare” Iran away from pursuing nuclear weapons.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, made the comment in response to a question about a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center that says the United States must put more teeth into its threat to use military power to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In an interview with CNN, Rogers said more needs to be done: “I’m not saying we ought to bomb Iran, but you almost have to scare them, you have to frighten them to get to the right place.”
In order to stop Iran’s nuclear clock, the report said, the United States “needs to make clear that Iran faces a choice: it can either abandon its nuclear program through a negotiated arrangement or have its program destroyed militarily, by the United States.”
Yesterday SHTFPlan reported on a DEBKAFile story about a large massing of US troops on several islands in the GULF.
President Barack Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered US air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands –Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.
Since 2010, the US has been quietly building giant air force and naval bases on Socotra with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for flying stealth drones, as part of a linked chain of strategic US military facilities in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.
Like any article that can’t name sources I take it with a grain of salt. If this is true, then another Middle Eastern Oil War is just around the corner.
Whether or not this is viable information, Iran is squarely in the cross-hairs of Israel and the U.S. right now.
I don’t pretend to understand all of the motivations and political interests at stake, I’m just watching the rhetoric and where it is leading. You know what happened the last time we went after WMD’s and what a crock of shit that turned out to be.
Question everything. Don’t believe the hype. Why would Iran be stupid enough to attack the US? They aren’t as crazy as Al Queda - we KNOW where they live and we DO have nuclear weapons. Lots of them.
Unrest pushes gas prices up further - CNN.com
Gas prices have jumped nearly seven cents a gallon over the past two weeks, reaching a level more than 75 cents higher than they were a year ago, according to a survey published Sunday.
The average price for a gallon of self-serve regular is $3.57, the Lundberg Survey found. That’s 6.65 cents higher than the price the same survey found two weeks earlier.
The new jump in prices at the pump comes despite a drop in crude oil prices over the past two weeks. Lundberg described that as “follow-through” from the previous spike in oil prices.
Food prices and a world in peril - Canada.com
Excerpts from the full article:
Higher costs in 2011 - is this a blip, or an omen of things to come?
Doomsayers have, for years, warned us of coming food shortages, gas shortages, and a much higher cost of living all around.
2011 is shaping up to give us a taste of what that might feel like. We start with a shortage of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
We are used to having access to almost any fruit or vegetable we can think of. But that access is a fragile thing. Vegetable crops in Florida, Texas and Mexico were all hit by winter frost at the same time - for the first time in 50 years. As a result, we are seeing historic shortages, along with historic price increases.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that wholesale prices for many fresh vegetables have doubled since January. This shortage is only a short-term problem.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is warning that a drought in China may destroy their winter wheat crop. They are suffering a winter drought. If it is followed by a dry spring, they will lose a lot of their wheat crop.
A drought in China will raise the global price of a staple grain. Over the last few years, wheat has hit all time high prices because of various weather issues around the world — Australia’s drought, Russia’s drought, etc.
The world’s food market sits in a fragile balance. A crisis always looms around the corner. Besides the weather, some of the factors pushing us into crisis are growing populations, the use of food crops for bio-fuels, fresh water shortages, rising meat and dairy consumption and soil erosion.
Let’s not leave out the effect of uncertainty in oil prices and supply.
So many factors coming into play produce a cascading effect. The high price of food is one force behind the social unrest in Egypt and Libya. The situation in Libya puts pressure on the world’s oil supply thanks to the fear factor alone, and prices inevitably rise.
The high price of oil has an impact that goes much deeper than the cost of gas at the pumps. A high oil price makes biofuels more viable, driving up corn and wheat prices even further. High oil prices mean higher costs for plastics manufacture.
Cotton prices doubled this past year, thanks to ‘supply disruptions.’ Weather issues in China, Pakistan and Texas combined with export restrictions in India to decrease the amount of cotton available in the marketplace. Prices skyrocketed. They are expected to fall back to more normal levels within a year as supply and demand balance out once again.
In every case, we see the effects of weather, of growing populations, and of the increasing wealth in countries such as China and India which naturally leads to growing consumption. Holding the supply-demand balance for our food supplies and our natural resources is not easy.
Oil soars to more than $100 on Libyan unrest
Crude oil prices climbed to a 29-month high in New York on Wednesday, settling at more than $100 for the first time since September 2008 as fighting near key oil ports in Libya fueled anxiety that instability there could be prolonged and might inspire unrest in another oil-exporting nation.
Many investors are worried about upheaval spreading to other oil exporters. In Algeria, the government has taken steps to protect its oil and gas infrastructure. On Wednesday, protesters blocked a road in Oman, two protesters were shot and killed in Yemen, and Web sites in Saudi Arabia called for national “day of rage” protests this month. In April, oil-rich Nigeria will hold presidential elections, often an occasion for sectarian and regional strife.
Rising Oil Prices Pose the Latest Threat To U.S. Economy - NYTimes.com
The outlook is cheery. lol
If the recent rise in oil prices sticks, it will most likely slow a growth rate that is already too sluggish to produce many jobs in this country. Some economists are predicting that oil prices, just above $97 a barrel on Thursday, could be sustained well above $100 a barrel, a benchmark.
Even if energy costs don’t rise higher, lingering uncertainty over the stability of the Middle East could drag down growth, not just in the United States but around the world.
But other sources of economic uncertainty besides oil prices have come into sharper focus in recent days. After a few false starts, housing prices have slid further. New-home sales dropped sharply in January, as did sales of big-ticket items like appliances, the government reported Thursday.
Though the initial panic from last year has faded, Europe’s deep debt problems remain, creating another wild card for the global economy. Protests turned violent in Greece this week in response to new austerity measures.
Budget and debt problems at all levels of American government also threaten to crimp the domestic recovery. Struggling state and local governments may dismiss more workers this year as many face their deepest shortfalls since the economic downturn began, and a Congressional stalemate over the country’s budget could even lead to a federal government shutdown.
Commodities and the Middle East: Protests and the pump | The Economist
Analysts at Goldman Sachs point out that countries in the region may feel the need to head off political instability by spending to stockpile grain. Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Jordan have all stepped up efforts to build stockpiles. This could raise the pressure on other countries to hoard wheat, pushing prices even higher. In the short term this might even result in lower oil prices if OPEC countries pump more out of the ground to raise cash to assuage uppity populations. Irrespective of events in the Middle East, however, the pressure on oil prices is likely to grow. The market has recovered very strongly from the lows of 2009 thanks to bumper growth in emerging markets and a decent recovery in America. As Francisco Blanch of Bank of America Merrill Lynch points out, OPEC has not yet responded with extra supply to tame prices. It regards oil, priced in dollars, as a currency that the Federal Reserve is debasing with its “quantitative easing” money-printing, and would rather leave it in the ground for now. Even if OPEC eventually makes use of its spare capacity the world’s thirst for oil could start to outpace supplies in the next two years. Then $100 a barrel could look like a bargain.
