Amateur Economics with Oil Prices

Because my day is generally pretty slow, I like to follow the economy via Yahoo Finance. The most common thing I like to follow is the price of crude oil, because damn it, I'm getting tired of gas prices, so I decided to do a little bit of math here to figure when gas prices will get down into range, ladies and gents, Amateur Economics:

(Disclaimer: My history with Economics is the course I took to graduate High School and then a Macro-Economic Principles class I took my second semester of college, so really, don't debate using the information you see here)

So without further adieu, here goes nothing:

Date	Price of Oil	Price of Gas	Percentage
4-Sep	75	2.94	3.920%
1-Jan	100	3.3	3.300%
10-Mar	110	3.33	3.027%
5-May	120	3.8	3.167%
25-May	130	4.15	3.192%
3-Jul	147	4.39	2.986%
20-Jul	130	4.24	3.262%
10-Aug	120	4.09	3.408%
1-Sep	110	3.8	3.455%
5-Sep	106	3.78	3.566%

From this math, I've concluded that the price of gas is usually around 3% the price of oil. The scary thing is the fact that the lower the price of oil is, there more the gas costs per $, when gas was at it's highest in July, it only made up of 2.9% the price of oil, but when gas gets lower it's more case in point Sep 2007, it made up just shy of 4% the cost of oil. Sure, there are plenty of extenuating circumstances that make this up, but it's something to watch. People are so pleased to see the price of gas go down, they may not realize that its actually THEN and not BEFORE, the oil companies are taking advantage of us. Imagine if it's always a flat 3%, never up, never down, the price of gas could be at 3.18 right now with $106 oil.

Sure you COULD, but you SHOULDN'T

People make stupid mistakes, it's part of our nature. Also part of our nature is to insist that we are right, no matter who tells us otherwise. I just recently got back from a vacation in San Diego with family and friends(sorry for the lack of posting) and boy do I know a few morons.

Driving from Phoenix to San Diego is a very simple drive, I10 to I8, voila. In this drive you will pass the cities of Gila Bend, Yuma, and El Centro, in that order.

Driving out, we're taking a Honda Civic Hybrid, which during this drive will get near 50 MPG due to sustained speed and all that fun stuff. Which means, we'll be able to do the 350 mile drive on one tank of gas no problem. The other car in our caravan is driving a Ford F150, gets about 400 miles on a tank of gas, so it could make the drive no problem.

Here's where the fun begins, we hit Yuma(which is right on the border of Arizona/California) and we stop at the last gas station before heading out of town to top off and make a call to the other car to do the same, the conversation goes something like this:

"Hey guys, we just hit Yuma, how far are you guys back?"

"About 20 miles, we should be there soon"

"Ok, we're about to head out, make sure to fill up before finishing the drive"

"Don't Worry about it, we've still got more than half a tank left"

"No Really, you should fill up"

"Nah, we know what we're doing, we'll meet you there"

Now don't worry ladies and gents, they made it to the hotel no problem, but if you haven't figured out their moron decision yet, here you go.

To fill up an F150, you will need around 30 gallons of fuel, to fill up a Honda Civic Hybrid you will need around 11 gallons. Lets do the math, shall we.

If the f150 stopped for gas in Arizona, the price of gas would have been $4.09, which would have cost them $122.70(ish), and that's if they completely emptied their tank, which I might add, is what they did driving all the way into San Diego. The price of gas in San Diego is around $4.46, so their gas tab ended up at 133.80 vs the Civic fueling up for $45 in Yuma, and not needing to fill up until they hit Yuma going the other way.

Sure, you may be sitting there thinking, "Oh wow, $10, the world is going to end." all sarcastic like, but think about that, it's only 1 tank of gas, it could be higher if they keep doing it. Also, think of all the other morons who are likely to make the same mistake.

It Doesn't Need to Explode!

Okay, I need to air this because it's getting out of control. Yesterday I filled my gas tank for my little Toyota Yaris, maybe a 12 gallon tank at best. Cost me $40! Luckily I get around 42 mpg in my car so I don't feel it, except I drive 75 miles a day so I need to fill up at least once a week, that gets expensive still.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a tree hugging hippy, but it's time to move away from gasoline. It's outdated, we're still using(albiet a modified version) the same crap we used to power our cars 80 years ago, it's time to move on.

"Hybrid!" You hear people screaming, "Bio Diesel" is another one you hear tossed around, but frankly, it's the same ole shit, pardon my French, but this really irks me. We complain about gas prices because of oil prices, hybrid wont fix that, we still need gas. Bio Diesel wont change anything, because when it becomes popular, the price of corn goes up. It's the same vicious cycle people, and it has no end in sight. We need something drastic.

Electric is a perfect way to go, if only it wasn't a pain. The last thing I want is to get ready to go in the morning and realize that I forgot to plug my car in last night. All the money car companies can bring in if they can find something else, and all the bright people they can recruit, and we still have nothing. Why? because up until now, the combustion engine worked, why change it when we can just modify it. Get over yourself, it doesn't need to explode to power a car.

Now is the time for someone to come up with the next great idea. The world needs it.