Remember 1999 - The Era of $1.31 Gasoline. And We Complained Then!

[kutthroatkilla]

Written back in 1999. Look how far we've come...I mean, digressed.

BY PHILLIP PINA

The Cincinnati Enquirer
Before heading to the mall for some holiday shopping, save some of that money for the trip. Gasoline prices have risen to their highest pre-Christmas level since 1990. According to AAA's monthly fuel gauge report, the price for a gallon of self-serve, regular unleaded gasoline is up 28.7 cents since last year, and up 2.8 cents the past three weeks. The average nationwide price this month was $1.31 a gallon.

The increase can put a squeeze on the pocketbook. “It's taken a bite out of our wallet,” said Richard Thomas, owner of Mr. T's Pizza Place in Price Hill. The holidays bring more business, but also more traffic to burn fuel in. His restaurant owns four delivery vehicles. Every day, they fill each with a full tank of gasoline. The average fill-up has risen from about $8 to $12 per car, he said. “There's not much you can do but absorb the cost,” Mr. Thomas said. The increase has increased delivery expenses. But because gasoline prices fluctuate, he doesn't want it to affect pizza prices.The December national average is the highest for the month since 1990, when the average gallon of unleaded gasoline cost $1.37. In 1998, the figure was $1.02 a gallon. The price increase is blamed on the rapid increase in crude oil prices, at their highest level since the Persian Gulf War. There has been a decrease in U.S. oil supplies as major oil producing nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have cut back production, all while demand for oil has increased.

Hmm...it seemed like just yesterday I was in drivers ed with gas around $1.25. The era of the SUV's. How not so long ago that was...

[kutthroatkilla]

Look where we're going, kind of looks like the stock market in the late 90's before the "big crash." But only this time I don't see any big crash. China is here. And they're serious. Gas prices need to:

[Coastfishin]

I can remember when gas hit a dollar a gallon. People were dumping there big cars and buying Pintos and Vegas. The pumps couldn't handle the 3 digit numbers so you had to double what the pump read. Then there was a five dollar limit on gas a some stations.
Now we just do what we can and pay the price. Buy the way, when I was in drivers ed gas was 48 cents a gallon.

[skimpy]

Damn near have to take out a loan to fill the tank up.

[SPARKY101]

I remember bustin earthmover tires for good year in fife,Ilived in morton driving a 86 toyota SR5 4X4 $0.86 cents a gallon,now i drive a dodge megacab 1500 4X4 oh i feel the difference,but im not giving in to them hybrids just cant doit no safety in those,plus im not gonna sell my manwear for one.Hay if you own one thats cool but i just dont see myself rolling up to a jobsite in a prius,5 different times to get my gear there,oh and whats the HP or torque on those for towing an 18'bass boat:cheers:

[Coastfishin]

Damn near have to take out a loan to fill the tank up.

I hear you. Had a quarter tank in my Tacoma and it took almost $54.00 to fill it today.
It's gonna be a while before I fill the GMC

[Marc Martyn]

I enjoy telling this story to the younger people because of the look I get from them:-s :

While in high school, I drove a 1965 VW convertible. It had a 10 gal. tank with a 1 gal reserve tank. Some of the gas stations in Spokane were having a "gas war". I was going out for the evening and needed gas and my needle was in reserve. I stopped at the Exxon station on north Wall and filled up my tank. I walked in and gave the attendant $1.00 and he replied, "Thank You, have a nice day". The average price of regular for a long time during the 60's was $0.28/gallon. Ethal (high octane) was selling for $.032/gallon. During that gas war, they were selling regular for $0.10/gal.

[Lotech Joe]

I remember those days Marc. You could fill up a 20 gallon tank for less than $6.00. You could buy 5 hamburgers at the Panda (now called Dick's)for $1.00 and get a penny back. Wages were $1.25 an hour though. And, you could buy a gallon of milk for .40 if you brought your own gallon jug. I fear it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I heard my boss talking yesterday about some countries in Europe where gas is over $9.00 a gallon.

[Gisteppo]

Does anyone notice a correlation with gas prices and the Bush administration taking office in 2000? Could the oil companies and OPEC (whom Bush Sr has much contact via the Bin Laden family) have some sort of toehold? Strange that 25 years of steady gas price percentage increases spikes so suddenly.

E

[kutthroatkilla]

Does anyone notice a correlation with gas prices and the Bush administration taking office in 2000? Could the oil companies and OPEC (whom Bush Sr has much contact via the Bin Laden family) have some sort of toehold? Strange that 25 years of steady gas price percentage increases spikes so suddenly.

E

Interesting point E. Here is what I could find and feel free to add to this. Good story Marc! That spike in the chart really takes on full steam from 2000 to 2008 -- interesting...

"While spikes in energy prices, like that suffered by poor Jimmy Carter, can doom a presidency, no occupant of the White House has ever seen his popularity so closely tied to the price of gas as Mr. W. In fact, more than three-quarters of the variation in W's approval rating since he took office in January 2001 can be explained by movements in the numbers diplayed on pumps nationwide. Here are two charts that make this point. First is a simple history of the gas price (from the EIA — here's the long-term history and here's the update) plotted with Bush's approval rating, according to Gallup (here's the link, but you have to be a subscriber to get the data). The gas price is inverted, so that higher values are plotted below lower values, so as to match the trajectory of the approval rating. The last part of the gas line, the dashed segment, plots a projected value for October of $2.50, which is where it probably will be based on a NYMEX crude oil price of just under $65, which is where it was on the afternoon of September 15...and now here's a chart that shows the actual approval rating along with the approval rating predicted by a simple linear regression on the log of the nominal gasoline price. The results are pretty similar if you use the actual gas price rather than the log, and the real price instead of the nominal price; this is just the best fit. The notation that "r2=.78" means that 78% of the variation in the approval rating can be explained by movements in the price of gas. The last segment of the (purplish) projection line is dashed because it uses the estimated October price of $2.50 to predict October's approval rating of 40%. (Gallup's actual approval rating, as of September 10, was 40%.) Note that Bush's actual approval rating has been running a little over projection in recent months, so it wouldn't be surprising to see his approval numbers rise into the mid-40s in the coming weeks.There's no precedent for this tight relationship. Approval ratings for Clinton and Reagan were mildly influenced by gas prices but Bush 41's seems not to have been at all. That may mean that the gas-dependency of W's popularity may actually be a reflection of other things: the war in Iraq has driven up gas prices, as did Hurricane Katrina. So the approval rating, rather than being "caused" by gas itself, may just be reflecting growing public dissatisfaction with the war and the stunning incompetence in handling Katrina. But it's remarkable how closely the approval line follows almost every quiver in the price of gas. So if Bush wants to keep from matching Carter's 30% and Nixon's 25% lows (the worst approval ratings of the past 50 years), he'd better get Cheney to make sure that gas prices keep falling" -Business Observer

Just think if this chart extended out to 2008 today! That'd be even more down, as in a huge lunge downward to $4.00-$4.25!!!

[beerman1981]

I remember those days. I had only been driving a few years, and working part time at shopKo. Needless to say, it was all I could do back then to afford gas to keep my 79 Ford Ranger on the road. If the current prices are what they were then, I would probably have been using that old truck as a giant paperweight in my parents driveway. It could be worse though. Check out this list of prices from around the world. It's scary to know that we may be heading to the top of the list before too long. I got these statistics from CNN's website. Wouldn't be nice to have our prices be the same as the bottom of the list!:-({|= Perhaps it would be cheaper to drive to Venezuala and, fill up and drive back to the states, hahaha.


Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08
Estonia Tallinn $3.62
Bulgaria Sofia $3.52
Brazil Brasilia $3.12
Cuba Havana $3.03
Taiwan Taipei $2.84
Lebanon Beirut $2.63
South Africa Johannesburg $2.62
Nicaragua Managua $2.61
Panama Panama City $2.19
Russia Moscow $2.10
Puerto Rico San Juan $1.74
Saudi Arabia Riyadh $0.91
Kuwait Kuwait City $0.78
Egypt Cairo $0.65
Nigeria Lagos $0.38
Venezuela Caracas $0.12

And now for some humer in wake of the gas prices: Enjoy:cheers:

[SPARKY101]

I was reading in the olympian this morning in my porceline office that france was nearing $10,and turkey was over $11#-o

[kutthroatkilla]

that's just too good..."assume the position" LMAO!! Shell right by my place is $4.22/gal.

[ReelFisher]

It will get much worse before it gets better, that you can be sure of. You would think ga would be a lot cheaper down here on Ft. Lewis but its not. I'm not sure what it is up in and around the Seattle area but it's $3.99 down here for now.

[raffensg64]

Don't plan on prices coming down, fellas....it ain't gonna happen. I see nothing but a steady increase until we, as a nation, revise our habits and/or develop plausible alternatives. You can point all kinds of fingers and develop possible conspiracy theories if you wish, but it comes down to simple supply and demand. Our days of being the world's only highly developed nation are over. China, Russia and India are now gobbling up fuel at record rates. Dozens of smaller countries are coming on line, too. And we haven't built a new refinery in the US in 30 years or so from what I understand.

In 2000, while stationed at Ft. Carson, CO in Colorado Springs, CO, I read an article where that county (El Paso) registered 30,000 more vehicles than the prior year. Now, let's wrap our heads around that....Colo. Springs is not a large city nor is El Paso a large county compared to others in the nation. But, if it happened there then what happened nationally in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle and thousands of cities and towns across America? Get my drift? And in those days folks were buying up a lot of large SUVs and pickups.

Just as the southwest US is running out of water due to simple supply vs. demand and will eventually be looking towards us, the world is draining it's fuel supply. We are beginning to feel the pain and it's only going to get more painful.

My theory? We haven't drilled in Alaska because we're keeping it available as our own private reserve! It would be nice, though, if we'd prep it and get it more readily available!!! It'll be one helluva mess if the Russians decide they want it, too.

[fishaholictaz]

I think it is time for a fossil fuel alternative That is if the oil companies don't buy the patt.

[beerman1981]

I one hundred percent agree with you. It is time for a serious change!

I think it is time for a fossil fuel alternative That is if the oil companies don't buy the patt.

[kutthroatkilla]

I one hundred percent agree with you. It is time for a serious change!

I think it is time for a fossil fuel alternative That is if the oil companies don't buy the patt.

All this talk about a change, but what's the change? Do we change our lifestyle choices, and decisions, or leave it to government to figure it out? I think the prior...

[Fisherman_max]

i am not sure if anybody has brought this up but, we are just now paying the actual production/distrobution cost of gasoline, we have actually been paying less for our gas then we should. europeans have been paying the equivelent of 4.00$ a gallon for decades. i do not know the exact reason for this or anything but that is what my science teacher ranted about in our class the other day. (i am not sure if it is correct)

in case nobody knew, The united states has one of the largest oil fields in the world sitting under north/south dakota. our government just does not have the amount of money needed to tap this exellent resource. imagine what the price for gasoline would be if we were not in so much debt.

and one more thing, oil is made naturally through the decaying and whatever of algea. scientists have found a way to make oil in a lab artificially in a very short time, and the cost of making and refining the oil this way is almost exactly half of the cost of drilling and refining oil out of the ground.


just wanted to throw that out there, feel free to correct my statistics if you guys/gals would like

[iPodrodder]

Ahhhh!!! The 70's and early 80's all over again!

And that Brinks one is great for those of you who get it. That was a little fiasco. The government spent about 10 times as much money trying to catch those guys than was actually stolen from the Brink's place.