BlueSPI02 wrote:
Gas PRICES ARE REDICULOUS HERE LIKE 4.20 a gal!

Very funny, jackass. According to www.washingtondcgasprices.com as of 9-9-2005, gas prices there are $2.97-2.99 for regular.

BlueSPI02 wrote:
Gas PRICES ARE REDICULOUS HERE LIKE 4.20 a gal!
ok... perhaps a little more intelligence in your future posts? if you try this on 90% of the car forums (well, 90% of the ones i've read parts of), you will get banned quickly, you're lucky jim is lenient

I too drove around when I made the deposits at the bank to see what others were charging, and I would match Holiday/Freedom/SA. No rocket science to it or anything.

An aquaintance that runs a small gas station, when I talked to him a week or so ago, he said he was trying to match Holiday down the road, and that was at like 2.79/gal. With what he pays for his merchant account fees (credit cards), he was losing money with each credit card sale on fuel unless they bought something else. Tough times for gas stations right now.

CCr wrote:
Fleet farm does. as do many others.

Doubtful, very very doubtful. It costs more to refine higher octane fuels. Guess what happens when it cost more to make something? It costs more when they sell it too...crazy concept I know.

krzydrftr93 wrote:
one of my mom's said that her friend went down to the cities and gas is 2.49/gallon but in St.Cloud there is a station that is selling gas for 1.59/gallon. YES 1.59/gallon. The guy said he is sick of stations rippin every one off so he is trying to help get gas prices down. he is only loosing 25 cents per gallon. Why do we have to pay fricken 3.00/gallon. No need to make a 1.25/gallon. Hope it works

I think I said that someone should do that here, they would make a killing.

It turned out to be a national average of $2.95 a gallon...

But anyways, about the comment about gas getting higher and the effect on the economy, well, I think there would be some changes to help absorb that cost.

First of all, I think companies will move away from the just-in-time inventory system they have in place now, and we would see a return to warehousing. After all, if it costs less to store inventory than to transport it more frequently, the cost accountants will insist on storing it.

Second of all, I think we would see a change in the way inventory is aquired, distributed, and transported. I bet local manufacturers would be used more frequently, and the price of goods from a distance would go up, making the scope of comparable goods increase from a price standpoint. Look at it this way. At the grocery store, corn would not increase too much in price at all, but oranges would. Instead of eating an orange, someone might decide to have corn instead (I know, terrible analogy). Furthermore, for the transportation of that good, the trucking distributors might be overlooked for, say, rail.

It is interesting to ponder what would happen if the prices were to remain this high or get higher for the long run. However, since there is so much uncertainty about it, companies are reluctant to change their distribution networks quite yet.