How much did you pay for gas today?

Went up from 3.59 to 3.99 in two days here in central Illinois. Absolutely sucks.

 

Well, I had a choice to buy brakes or gas, and I went with brakes. I can safely stop the car, but pretty soon, I won't be able to get it started.

 

This is where the free market devotees have some 'splainin' to do.

There is not one single reason in the market that should cause a 40-cent spike in gas prices. None. I know crude went up, but not to the point where gas should rise by nearly half-a-dollar.

It's all a bullshit shell game.

 

Gas went up 30 cents here after the news of the euro breakthrough in July coupled with ongoing Syria unrest and some saber-rattling by a lost tourist from Detroit, but it's backed off a dime since.

 

It's gone up 45 cents in the last month here after briefly slipping below the $3 threshold.

 

About 35 cents more here since July 4

 

$4.09 in Marquette, Mich., has been for a few days.

 

It was down to 3.30-something around here, but jumped 40 cents -- in some places, 50 -- in the last few days. It's absolute bullshit.

 

The free-market explanation is that people are willing to pay $3.99 in central illinois.

 

I'm afraid Rick is right.

 

or it's called price fixing and people have to get to work in the morning ... one of the two, i'm sure.

 

:

That's such horseshit ... and you know it.

The customers of the "free market" didn't suddenly decide overnight that they'd be OK with paying 40 cents more for gas in the span of 24 hours. They didn't have a choice.

They woke up, had to go to work, and suddenly, gas is 40 cents higher. I'm sure everyone was whistling Zipidee-Do-Da out of their assholes thanking the free market for forcing them to be "willing" to pay $3.99 per gallon.

And don't give me a bunch of bullshit about how "everyone has a choice as to whether to try a car or buy gas", etc.

That might be true over the long haul. You can make decisions in your life as to how to minimize the impact of gas prices -- I live a mile from my office and I drive a fuel-efficient car to name a few I've done.

But those "choices" can't be made in a 24-hour period in which the market decides to fuck people in the ass with an extremely dubious 40-cent gas hike.

There's no free market reason for a 40-cent spike ... short of someone dropping a nuke on Saudi Arabia or a hurricane taking out an oil refinery. None.

(This spike turned out to be total garbage as the price went up to a pipeline that was disrupted for a day or two tops. Yeah, that "supply problem" = 40 cents at the pump. My ass.)

I'll buy it that oil/gas prices are a total free market bit of phenomena when the price spikes the other way when crude oil goes down.

Oh wait! It never does!