The fact that gas prices are somehow representative of how well the President is doing makes no sense at all.
In fact, if they were doing well they'd start weaning the US off the enormous oil subsidies and those prices would skyrocket and people would think harder about other forms of transportation.
There are no alternatives to cars in a lot of places.
You know there are cars that don't use gasoline?
Yes but electric vehicles don't meet my usage needs. Yet
They suddenly would if gas prices were $6/gallon.
No, it would just be more expensive. I do tons of remote travel and the range and lack of charging infrastructure are prohibitive until that improves.
Doubt it.
Dude I take people on wilderness adventures all over the US, but that's only a side gig. I've definitely never seen an EV on rough mountain 4x4 trails though. I'm sure they've gone many of those places but out there they bring generators to recharge. How many superchargers per square mile are there in Wyoming, Montana, South/North Dakota? Hell even Kansas which isn't so remote? Even on major highways where charging is easier to find, I sometimes drive 1200 miles/day. It just isn't ready yet.
Pointing out conservative hypocrisy is a waste of time and energy.
Just wondering what sort of mental gymnastics the maga lurkers here are comforting themselves with when they see this.
"Sleepy Joe Biden is lowering gas prices in a partisan attempt to win reelection. The second the election is over, he'll raise gas prices to $5 a gallon and require all new cars to be electric! I know this is true because I saw a post on Facebook about it!!!"
Fuck I hate how plausible that actually is. Not what you just said ofc, I’m not an idiot, but that people will actually say that unironically
I mean, he's a career politician, you really think he ever does anything out of the sheer goodness of his heart?
If he did, his one remaining son probably wouldn't be a crack addict.
I mean...I'm definitely left-leaning but it's kind of nonsense that the president affects gas prices in the short term to begin with.
I'd grant he has maybe 10% influence at best considering foreign policy deals, global (in)stability, and control of the SPR but I'm generally in agreement.
I just like to use what Republicans always (wrongfully) cry about against them.
Gas was expensive because the big bad democrats (very weak, sad!) put all their green new deals on it. Something about a hunting laptop too, whatever that is. This is also the market reacting early to that one former president's expected return to office. If he doesn't end up getting back in, then it was a delayed response to all of his efforts in office before.
Can't let small matters like truth and reality get in the way of an agenda.
Bannon rubbing his disheveled chin between sips of gin, "Hmmm.. Okay, okay... This could work!"
puts on tinfoil hat
EVs are starting to make a dent in the market place and oil producing countries don't like that so they lower oil prices to keep people driving ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) vehicles.
takes off tinfoil hat
I'm sure it's more complicated than that
Prices are always lower in the winter. It'll be back to $4.00 in the summer.
The single reason that gas is sold cheap in the United States is because the government subsidizes the hell out of it
I'd like to see real, not falsely deflated, gas prices in the US. Ideally, it would create a pissed off nation that would force governance to actually take the concept of public transport seriously for the first time in over a century.
The reality is, it would just harm so many people in such a terrible way. Exactly because our transport infrastructure is so terrible, people would literally be stranded, unable to afford fuel to carry out the basics of their daily lives.
Big oil dug us a big terrible hole to get out of.
We'd be priced more similarly to the UK. People really don't know how much gas costs. They just see that x amount of dollars per barrel of oil cost and think that's it
puts on plastic wrap hat
EVs are starting to make a dent in the market place and oil demand is dropping because there are fewer cars on the road that use it, combined with the fact that the holiday travel season and its predictable effect on demand have ended
EVs still make up ~3% of new car sales and ~1% of cars on the road. Seems unlikely.
But it's possibly a factor in the minds of executives who decide if it's a good time to squeeze for more profit. They might have decided higher gas prices will push more people into buying ev which will fuel further infrastructure spending leading to a steeper adoption curve thus lower long term profits for oil companies.
Congratulations on discovering the radical fact that, in the face of declining demand, businesses generally drop prices.
You're never gonna guess what happens when demand increases or if supply drops!
This is a real “I took microeconomics and got a B” energy right here.
I'VE GOT A DEMAND CURVE GRAPH AND I THINK THAT I CAN SOLVE ALL THE WORLD'S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS BECAUSE I'M THE FIRST PERSON TO REALLY THINK ABOUT IT
Macroeconomics
Part of the comment was the implication they had not even gotten that far, but thank you either way.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that doesn’t find being an absolute dick about stuff funny.
I could have admittedly been less crass about it, but my point is that it's more than a little disheartening to see people engage with a basic principle that's as foundational and indisputable to economics as evolution is to biology and still feel the need to label it as tinfoil hat conspiracy.
Yes, oil companies lower prices in response to decreased oil demand, because they think that that will make them more money. This is not meaningfully different than old VHS tapes being cheap, or on the opposite end, someone leaving for a higher paying job after gaining more experience or more specialized skills. Prices are not randomly pulled out of hat; there's a reason that you can't sell an avocado for $10,000, nor can (most) workers charge $10,000 an hour for their time, and that if you instead sell avocados for $0.10 each, you'll have a line of people around the block (and soon be either out of stock or bankrupt).
That aside, if some dry sarcasm is your bar for "being an absolute dick", you must be surrounded by literal angels.
oil companies lower prices in response to decreased oil demand
Well, yes, but no. In oil, it IS meaningfully different than other products like VHS. I'm glad you took macroeconomics 101 but this is different.
OPEC can cut production to meet demand and maintain a stable price at any time. They don't need to "lower prices to increase demand". EVs have NO impact on the cost of fuel at the moment. There aren't enough EVs and the demand for fuel far outweighs the savings.
Several OPEC+ countries agreed to voluntarily cut oil production by a total of 2.2 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 202
So don't expect the price to stay low or get lower. They fluctuate which is normal but not due to EVs as the top poster assumed. Demand went down and price dropped. It'll go back up end of February.
When COVID hit and demand dropped DRASTICALLY the prices plunged (shipping stopped, cars stopped, oil production didn't stop in time). But that was an exceptional situation. OPEC doesn't want barrel prices to drop.
This illustrates exactly why we make fun people who bleat about demand curve graphs from their econ 101 classes. Yes, this all works for commodities and zero barriers to entry in the market and perfect information and no collusion and no subsidies and no externalities and free of transaction costs. Take out just one of those assumptions for a given market and now you have the basis for a masters thesis.
Thanks, my friends are pretty cool!
Maybe this person's acerbic humor will cause this lesson to register and people here can stop blaming "greed" for price increases but not for price decreases, since both are "greed"
A man can dream.
No no, the increase was Biden’s fault, but this drop is because oil companies are so nice.
You joke but people really do think that
usa fuel has always been obscenely cheap
Heavier taxation in other countries. Plus, we pump our own oil these days.
Yet, people cry, moan, and bitch every time it goes up just a bit.
What else are we supposed to complain about?
How about the fact that you have no universal healthcare, no universal pre-k, no parental or family leave, no universal vacation time regulations, school shootings galore? Just to mention a few things.
So are those things we are allowed to complain about? I need to make a list
You can complain about whatever you'd like. Just suggestions for things that seem quite a bit more worthy of complaint over fluctuating gas prices that US politicians have little to no control over anyway.
Well it’s possible to multitask as well and complain about multiple things. Did you ever think about that?
Sure. Knock yourself out.
universal health care
That sounds socialist... Everything in America is perfect, just the way it's supposed to be without socialism...
"I did that!"
I'm sure the front page of fox News is thanking Biden for that
crickets.
God damn sleepy Joe lowering gas prices, just who does he think he is??
All those 'I did this' stickers are really paying off now.
I torment a couple of my coworkers over that
I've no shit heard my Republican family talking about how it's going to tank the economy.
Thank Obama!
Even Sleepy Joe knows elections are coming up soon
I was wondering what would happen with those stickers. Thanks for beating me. I've not heard my conservative family thank Joe for this.
:cries in California:
As a Californian our gas prices suck, but when compared to minimum wage it’s not bad at all. Minimum wage is $16 an hour and $20 an hour for fast food workers by April. That means gas at $4 here is either 1/4 or 1/5 of your hourly pay per gallon. Vs a state where gas’s is 2.75 but your minimum wage is $7.25… that’s about 1/3. I always try to look at it from that perspective, especially for the poorest/minimum wage worker in California. They’re the ones that really notice and deal with high gas prices.
But also imagine that every thing else is also more expensive.
Prices are (generally) higher across the board but gas here is even higher than that.
But 4 and 5 > 3 so 1/4 and 1/5 > 1/3 it’s actually more expensive
I'm gonna start putting them out just to piss off magats
So so cheap. Need higher taxes.
I remember paying $0.699/gal in the early 2000s. My fuel taxes are now $0.719/gal so I'll definitely never see that price again. Taxes are high enough. Especially when there are no non-car options available.
True cost of something should be included in the price
Maybe more people will use the bus if prices go up. Also more money to fund those busses
I live on the edge of a 2+mil population metro, there are no buses. I could drive four miles to a bus stop that goes nowhere useful for me.
Maybe if gas was a more reasonable price people wouldn't live so far from bus stops?
You listen here God damnit, when I fill up my f650 truck boat truck I want to take out a payday loan it hurts so bad!! Wait until my mutant oompa loompa gets back in office and he's going to show you what's what MEOW!!!11
You're probably making money with that F650 so its just an expense. Unless you have a F650 because of the tiny pee pee.
Tiny pp but I just got out of the pool
Shrinkage!
I'm surprised that the attacks off of Yemen aren't causing oil tankers to go the long way around Africa and raising prices. Though I guess America has become a net gas exporter, so maybe we are finally insulated from supply problems on the other side of the word.
Oil price is determined by the global market, so it's nearly the same everywhere. If for some reason oil was much cheaper in the U.S., the oil companies would have tankers export it to other places, simultaneously increasing the price in the U.S., and lowering the price globally until it's about the same everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's actually more abstract and instantaneous than that though, using the futures markets to set the price, which is why gas stations change their prices so often. I.e. we will never be insulated from oil supply problems.
Still $3.34 here in PA.
I went past one in our suburbs at $3.99 tonight. We're just special here in E WA.
Came down here to say this, fuck PAs gas tax. Also has the highest tolls by like, double.
Ha, I'd love to talk more shit about how I hate the East Coast and all the stupid toll roads, but there's one way up north here.
Cries in 93 octane tune
Definitely not here, where regular is still 3.89 and diesel is still 4.99
Be quiet or Saudi Arabia will cut production right before the election again.
Meanwhile Australians are paying ~$2 per litre! ... No dinosaurs died here, apparently.
Hmmmmm, do we trust the news article linked with more than one expert quoted and a bunch of actual figures, or some random person on Lemmy with no data to back their claim? What a puzzler...
To be fair, the article said MOST, not all, and you've pointed out one of the only examples I can find of the price rising at one location in the last month.. though prices were already low in KC it seems.
Eh, it's capitalism. It's a mystery to everyone.
Just for the future, this is one of the shittiest ways to argue your point. One data point out of a huge data set doesn't mean shit.
Weird, almost as if there's a major election coming up later this year...
President pressing that big red button labelled "lower gas prices". Tut.
So we should see a resurgence of those "I did that" Biden stickers at the pumps right? Lmao
They blame him when prices are up. It's only fair if he gets credit when they're down.
My sweet summer child, that is not how this works!! Silly you
The fact that gas prices are somehow representative of how well the President is doing makes no sense at all.
In fact, if they were doing well they'd start weaning the US off the enormous oil subsidies and those prices would skyrocket and people would think harder about other forms of transportation.
There are no alternatives to cars in a lot of places.
You know there are cars that don't use gasoline?
Yes but electric vehicles don't meet my usage needs. Yet
They suddenly would if gas prices were $6/gallon.
No, it would just be more expensive. I do tons of remote travel and the range and lack of charging infrastructure are prohibitive until that improves.
Doubt it.
Dude I take people on wilderness adventures all over the US, but that's only a side gig. I've definitely never seen an EV on rough mountain 4x4 trails though. I'm sure they've gone many of those places but out there they bring generators to recharge. How many superchargers per square mile are there in Wyoming, Montana, South/North Dakota? Hell even Kansas which isn't so remote? Even on major highways where charging is easier to find, I sometimes drive 1200 miles/day. It just isn't ready yet.
Pointing out conservative hypocrisy is a waste of time and energy.
But it's so much fun.
I agree with both of you.
If the Biden campaign was smart they'd have "I did that" stickers on his website
Wouldn't surprise me if they did. The "dark Brandon" marketing is sheer genius.
Looks like it's just Dark Brandon stuff still. I do not know if this is his official website or something someone just runs out of their basement.
https://shop.joebiden.com/
Just wondering what sort of mental gymnastics the maga lurkers here are comforting themselves with when they see this.
"Sleepy Joe Biden is lowering gas prices in a partisan attempt to win reelection. The second the election is over, he'll raise gas prices to $5 a gallon and require all new cars to be electric! I know this is true because I saw a post on Facebook about it!!!"
Fuck I hate how plausible that actually is. Not what you just said ofc, I’m not an idiot, but that people will actually say that unironically
I mean, he's a career politician, you really think he ever does anything out of the sheer goodness of his heart?
If he did, his one remaining son probably wouldn't be a crack addict.
I mean...I'm definitely left-leaning but it's kind of nonsense that the president affects gas prices in the short term to begin with.
I'd grant he has maybe 10% influence at best considering foreign policy deals, global (in)stability, and control of the SPR but I'm generally in agreement.
I just like to use what Republicans always (wrongfully) cry about against them.
Gas was expensive because the big bad democrats (very weak, sad!) put all their green new deals on it. Something about a hunting laptop too, whatever that is. This is also the market reacting early to that one former president's expected return to office. If he doesn't end up getting back in, then it was a delayed response to all of his efforts in office before.
Can't let small matters like truth and reality get in the way of an agenda.
Bannon rubbing his disheveled chin between sips of gin, "Hmmm.. Okay, okay... This could work!"
puts on tinfoil hat
EVs are starting to make a dent in the market place and oil producing countries don't like that so they lower oil prices to keep people driving ICE (Internal Combustion Engines) vehicles.
takes off tinfoil hat
I'm sure it's more complicated than that
Prices are always lower in the winter. It'll be back to $4.00 in the summer.
The single reason that gas is sold cheap in the United States is because the government subsidizes the hell out of it
I'd like to see real, not falsely deflated, gas prices in the US. Ideally, it would create a pissed off nation that would force governance to actually take the concept of public transport seriously for the first time in over a century.
The reality is, it would just harm so many people in such a terrible way. Exactly because our transport infrastructure is so terrible, people would literally be stranded, unable to afford fuel to carry out the basics of their daily lives.
Big oil dug us a big terrible hole to get out of.
We'd be priced more similarly to the UK. People really don't know how much gas costs. They just see that x amount of dollars per barrel of oil cost and think that's it
puts on plastic wrap hat
EVs are starting to make a dent in the market place and oil demand is dropping because there are fewer cars on the road that use it, combined with the fact that the holiday travel season and its predictable effect on demand have ended
EVs still make up ~3% of new car sales and ~1% of cars on the road. Seems unlikely.
But it's possibly a factor in the minds of executives who decide if it's a good time to squeeze for more profit. They might have decided higher gas prices will push more people into buying ev which will fuel further infrastructure spending leading to a steeper adoption curve thus lower long term profits for oil companies.
Congratulations on discovering the radical fact that, in the face of declining demand, businesses generally drop prices.
You're never gonna guess what happens when demand increases or if supply drops!
This is a real “I took microeconomics and got a B” energy right here.
I'VE GOT A DEMAND CURVE GRAPH AND I THINK THAT I CAN SOLVE ALL THE WORLD'S ECONOMIC PROBLEMS BECAUSE I'M THE FIRST PERSON TO REALLY THINK ABOUT IT
Macroeconomics
Part of the comment was the implication they had not even gotten that far, but thank you either way.
I’m sure I’m not the only one that doesn’t find being an absolute dick about stuff funny.
I could have admittedly been less crass about it, but my point is that it's more than a little disheartening to see people engage with a basic principle that's as foundational and indisputable to economics as evolution is to biology and still feel the need to label it as tinfoil hat conspiracy.
Yes, oil companies lower prices in response to decreased oil demand, because they think that that will make them more money. This is not meaningfully different than old VHS tapes being cheap, or on the opposite end, someone leaving for a higher paying job after gaining more experience or more specialized skills. Prices are not randomly pulled out of hat; there's a reason that you can't sell an avocado for $10,000, nor can (most) workers charge $10,000 an hour for their time, and that if you instead sell avocados for $0.10 each, you'll have a line of people around the block (and soon be either out of stock or bankrupt).
That aside, if some dry sarcasm is your bar for "being an absolute dick", you must be surrounded by literal angels.
Well, yes, but no. In oil, it IS meaningfully different than other products like VHS. I'm glad you took macroeconomics 101 but this is different.
OPEC can cut production to meet demand and maintain a stable price at any time. They don't need to "lower prices to increase demand". EVs have NO impact on the cost of fuel at the moment. There aren't enough EVs and the demand for fuel far outweighs the savings.
Several OPEC+ countries agreed to voluntarily cut oil production by a total of 2.2 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 202
So don't expect the price to stay low or get lower. They fluctuate which is normal but not due to EVs as the top poster assumed. Demand went down and price dropped. It'll go back up end of February.
When COVID hit and demand dropped DRASTICALLY the prices plunged (shipping stopped, cars stopped, oil production didn't stop in time). But that was an exceptional situation. OPEC doesn't want barrel prices to drop.
This illustrates exactly why we make fun people who bleat about demand curve graphs from their econ 101 classes. Yes, this all works for commodities and zero barriers to entry in the market and perfect information and no collusion and no subsidies and no externalities and free of transaction costs. Take out just one of those assumptions for a given market and now you have the basis for a masters thesis.
Thanks, my friends are pretty cool!
Maybe this person's acerbic humor will cause this lesson to register and people here can stop blaming "greed" for price increases but not for price decreases, since both are "greed"
A man can dream.
No no, the increase was Biden’s fault, but this drop is because oil companies are so nice.
You joke but people really do think that
usa fuel has always been obscenely cheap
Heavier taxation in other countries. Plus, we pump our own oil these days.
Yet, people cry, moan, and bitch every time it goes up just a bit.
What else are we supposed to complain about?
How about the fact that you have no universal healthcare, no universal pre-k, no parental or family leave, no universal vacation time regulations, school shootings galore? Just to mention a few things.
So are those things we are allowed to complain about? I need to make a list
You can complain about whatever you'd like. Just suggestions for things that seem quite a bit more worthy of complaint over fluctuating gas prices that US politicians have little to no control over anyway.
Well it’s possible to multitask as well and complain about multiple things. Did you ever think about that?
Sure. Knock yourself out.
That sounds socialist... Everything in America is perfect, just the way it's supposed to be without socialism...
"I did that!"
I'm sure the front page of fox News is thanking Biden for that
crickets.
God damn sleepy Joe lowering gas prices, just who does he think he is??
All those 'I did this' stickers are really paying off now.
I torment a couple of my coworkers over that
I've no shit heard my Republican family talking about how it's going to tank the economy.
Thank Obama!
Even Sleepy Joe knows elections are coming up soon
I was wondering what would happen with those stickers. Thanks for beating me. I've not heard my conservative family thank Joe for this.
:cries in California:
As a Californian our gas prices suck, but when compared to minimum wage it’s not bad at all. Minimum wage is $16 an hour and $20 an hour for fast food workers by April. That means gas at $4 here is either 1/4 or 1/5 of your hourly pay per gallon. Vs a state where gas’s is 2.75 but your minimum wage is $7.25… that’s about 1/3. I always try to look at it from that perspective, especially for the poorest/minimum wage worker in California. They’re the ones that really notice and deal with high gas prices.
But also imagine that every thing else is also more expensive.
Prices are (generally) higher across the board but gas here is even higher than that.
But 4 and 5 > 3 so 1/4 and 1/5 > 1/3 it’s actually more expensive
/s
Not seeing a lot of these around.
I'm gonna start putting them out just to piss off magats
So so cheap. Need higher taxes.
I remember paying $0.699/gal in the early 2000s. My fuel taxes are now $0.719/gal so I'll definitely never see that price again. Taxes are high enough. Especially when there are no non-car options available.
True cost of something should be included in the price
Maybe more people will use the bus if prices go up. Also more money to fund those busses
I live on the edge of a 2+mil population metro, there are no buses. I could drive four miles to a bus stop that goes nowhere useful for me.
Maybe if gas was a more reasonable price people wouldn't live so far from bus stops?
You listen here God damnit, when I fill up my f650 truck boat truck I want to take out a payday loan it hurts so bad!! Wait until my mutant oompa loompa gets back in office and he's going to show you what's what MEOW!!!11
You're probably making money with that F650 so its just an expense. Unless you have a F650 because of the tiny pee pee.
Tiny pp but I just got out of the pool
Shrinkage!
I'm surprised that the attacks off of Yemen aren't causing oil tankers to go the long way around Africa and raising prices. Though I guess America has become a net gas exporter, so maybe we are finally insulated from supply problems on the other side of the word.
Oil price is determined by the global market, so it's nearly the same everywhere. If for some reason oil was much cheaper in the U.S., the oil companies would have tankers export it to other places, simultaneously increasing the price in the U.S., and lowering the price globally until it's about the same everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's actually more abstract and instantaneous than that though, using the futures markets to set the price, which is why gas stations change their prices so often. I.e. we will never be insulated from oil supply problems.
Still $3.34 here in PA.
I went past one in our suburbs at $3.99 tonight. We're just special here in E WA.
Came down here to say this, fuck PAs gas tax. Also has the highest tolls by like, double.
Ha, I'd love to talk more shit about how I hate the East Coast and all the stupid toll roads, but there's one way up north here.
Cries in 93 octane tune
Definitely not here, where regular is still 3.89 and diesel is still 4.99
Be quiet or Saudi Arabia will cut production right before the election again.
Meanwhile Australians are paying ~$2 per litre! ... No dinosaurs died here, apparently.
Prehistoric Fauna is where oil comes from.
Try again
https://www.sciencenorway.no/dinosaurs-oil-and-gas/no-oil-does-not-come-from-dinosaurs/2024040 They're right
Fauna means animals
Damn, you're right. I always miss the Flora-Fauna distinction
It's easy if you remember that "Flora = Flower" and "Fauna = Not Flower". ^/s^
Not in Washington State.
And then there's California.
https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=38.822395&lng=-96.591588&z=4
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-12-11/four-charts-explain-why-californian-gas-prices-are-so-high
Cries in western NY
They've actually been going up since Christmas.
Hmmmmm, do we trust the news article linked with more than one expert quoted and a bunch of actual figures, or some random person on Lemmy with no data to back their claim? What a puzzler...
https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=MO
Open the Kansas City tab.
Price go up.
To be fair, the article said MOST, not all, and you've pointed out one of the only examples I can find of the price rising at one location in the last month.. though prices were already low in KC it seems.
Eh, it's capitalism. It's a mystery to everyone.
Just for the future, this is one of the shittiest ways to argue your point. One data point out of a huge data set doesn't mean shit.
Weird, almost as if there's a major election coming up later this year...
President pressing that big red button labelled "lower gas prices". Tut.