bill to allow feds to cap gas prices at 2.49!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by joepythons

Wholly crackers you are OLD :O :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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You got that right. :(

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Originally Posted by dsirkle

You got that right. :(

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Its ok :P

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Originally Posted by dsirkle

Pat, I can remember when I used to pay 30 cents per gallon.

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But back then 30 cents was like $6, right!?? :-)

JonV

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Originally Posted by dsirkle

I meant naive to the extent of not realizing that you guys have plenty of problems of your own. Many Americans seem to think that the world exists only in North America.

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Gotcha! :D

In regards to our National Health Service, yes, it's funded by taxes, but not by the fuel duty that we currently pay. It comes from our National Insurance which we pay out of our wages each payday. We also have income tax, which I'm sure you guys do aswell?

My typical wage slip has my monthly salary, with deductions for PAYE tax (Pay As You Earn) and National insurance. An old wage slip I have with me now, shows monthly earnings of £1541.67. PAYE tax - £217.60, and National Insurance is - £119.57, leaving me with £1204.50 going into my bank account. So I basically work a week out of every month to pay for whatever the government decides to do with our money. We also have to pay council tax which is about £120 per month (this depends on your house and where it is, so rises and falls according to the size of your house, and it's location).

Currently, our government is taking approximately 90-95p in fuel duty for the £1.20 we're paying at the pumps, which is what's angering many motorists, when other European countries are paying a hell of a lot less. A report came out yesterday saying that our government gained £1.7billion in revenue from the fuel duty they put on, only a week after Gordon Brown said he can do nothing about our fuel prices. :mad:

Either way, we all seem to be in the same boat with the petrol prices at the minute. I can understand your prices being lower however, as your octane is a lot less than ours, as technically, we have a slightly better quality of fuel. Do you guys have super unleaded over there? If so, what's it's octane? :)

This really fascinates me at the minute, seeing how your economy is working with first hand views from the people themselves. So sorry if I'm waffling on a bit! :oops:

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Originally Posted by V1L3 DiaL3cT

I remember when Clinton was in office paying 1.26... yeah... bring that back!:)

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Yes, if Clinton would have allowed drilling in Alaska, we'd still be there, but he said "even if we begin drilling now it will be 10 years before we see any type of impact" He said that in 1994, we would have been seeing better prices at the pump for the last 4 years. Rather than smoking raunchy cigars, he should have had some foresight....

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Originally Posted by nevohraalnavnoj

But back then 30 cents was like $6, right!?? :-)

JonV

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:) Does this work like dog-years? :P

Gas was considered to be very cheap back then. Water was virtually free.

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Originally Posted by EvilDes

Either way, we all seem to be in the same boat with the petrol prices at the minute. I can understand your prices being lower however, as your octane is a lot less than ours, as technically, we have a slightly better quality of fuel. Do you guys have super unleaded over there? If so, what's it's octane? :)

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Regular grade petrol = 87. midgrade = 89. premium = 91 or 92 octane.

Ahh right. That's quite a difference to us then, as I said our lowest is 95 (normal), 97 (super) and 99 (premium). Thanks for the little insight into American petrol anyway :D

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Originally Posted by dsirkle

Regular grade petrol = 87. midgrade = 89. premium = 91 or 92 octane.

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Originally Posted by EvilDes

Ahh right. That's quite a difference to us then, as I said our lowest is 95 (normal), 97 (super) and 99 (premium). Thanks for the little insight into American petrol anyway :D

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But we can go to the race track and get octanes up to 110 at some tracks! :D Even though that was like $7.00 last time I had a chance to go to the track. You add a little alcohol injection system with it and we are talking clean burning! :D:D I should add that most cars that run on this stuff in no way shape or form come close to meeting the national average for fuel consumption.

Yeah, we have race fuel aswell at some of our racetracks, and some of the petrol stations near the racetracks have started selling 105 octane to try and cash in on people coming out of a day at the track and wanting to "improve" their cars performance.

I use 99 all the time as mine's a Jap import and mapped to run on 100ron, and averaging 19mpg, doing 40 miles a day for work, it soon drinks whatever I put in it :rolleyes: But still, 0-60 in 4.8 seconds will do me ;)

Sorry, off on a totally different tangent again. :oops:

I'll let you guys carry on and discuss your fuel crisis without butting in now. :)

You aren't butting in at all. You are as entitled and welcome to participate in this thread as any of us colonials are.

Thanks very much, just didn't want to distract from the original thread title and post too much! :8:

Well they probably wouldn't call it the "off topic cafe" if they didn't allow for you to stray off topic now and then.

The cheapest I ever paid for gas was 98 cents a gallon. That was in the late 90's...of course I also lived in OK at the time.

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Originally Posted by FIREball

They would never agree to cap it, even at 4.49

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i agree with fireball Its a natural resource it will keep depleting theres no way it can be at a constant price

Hey guys/gals,

I watched a House of Representatives meeting last night on C-span that totally changed my view of how this whole gas thing works.

So, here's the jist of what I got: Most big banks/investment firms trade on margins. This is nothing new. Trading on margins means buying way more stocks/commodities than you currently have funds for. As long as the exchange you are buying with doesn't "margin call" (meaning you have to pony up the dough NOW) you can get away with this to some extent. They do have fees and limits on how much you can do though.

BUT....

I heard on this report how US commodities are traded on foreign markets which have little to NO regulations and NO MARGIN CALLS. Which means, provided that exchange likes you...you can call up and say "I want 3,000,000 barrels of oil" and front little to no money for it.

They pointed out that Valero Energy Corp and Goldman Sachs Investment firms are buying up TONS of oil in such a way and then announcing "Crude will hit $200 a barrel".

Yeah, with this kind of bizarre demand affecting supply it will. I don't understand how US commodities can be traded so willy nilly on foreign markets.

It would be like me buying up ALL ball pythons in the US through a European market and fronting no money for it, and driving up prices as a result.

JonV