• cm0002@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    So we should see a resurgence of those “I did that” Biden stickers at the pumps right? Lmao

    • Rapidcreek@lemmy.worldOP
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      10 months ago

      They blame him when prices are up. It’s only fair if he gets credit when they’re down.

        • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          The new talking point is how Biden is allowing genocide in Israel… because Trump wouldn’t have done the same exact thing…

          Manufactured outrage. It’s so boring but the older folks just love it I guess.

          We should just buy up cable channels and make a fictional reality that we can sequester them to. Fox News. CNN. MSNBC but all scripted.

          Don’t even hide it, just have it in the script that some Tucker Carlson type says, “that’s what the liberal media wants you to think.” Hell, hire Tucker and O’Reilly for all I care.

          Start broadcasting alternative dates, they wouldn’t notice losing a week. Then have fake elections where their “alt Trump” just barely wins. Just to keep tensions high.

          Hey, its a long shot but at least it has a chance at working. Unlike trying to change these assholes minds. Hell you don’t even have to convince all the MAGAs of the alternative reality. Just like 8-10% maybe and you’ve spun out the GOP platform.

          Q proves its possible.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        10 months ago

        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.

    • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Just the thought of some MAGA asshole feeling the need to peel the thing off is mildly satisfying.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Just wondering what sort of mental gymnastics the maga lurkers here are comforting themselves with when they see this.

    • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      “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!!!”

    • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Bannon rubbing his disheveled chin between sips of gin, “Hmmm… Okay, okay… This could work!”

      • lennybird@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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.

  • TalesFromTheKitchen@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    On one hand I’m very envious at your 0.72€ per liter as todays price here is 1.77€ in my little German town. On the other hand thats maybe not the right way to get people to choose fuel economic cars/EV/public transport.

    • Tosti@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      I think that is the whole point of the pricing strategy. Our fuel carries A LOT of taxes, theirs don’t.

        • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          There are a lot more people living paycheck to paycheck in the US than in Germany and other developed countries.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Agreed. Maybe they should call on the government to do something more productive and permanent than a temporary tax holiday.

            • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              Yeah, but every time the government tries to do something that could actually help people there are cries about “socialism” and “government overreach.” There’s no winning in American politics, so temporary tax holiday it is.

    • Captain Janeway@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Just got back from Germany. Your transit system is heaven to this American. Never let it die. Even the fact that two of my trains were heavily delayed and one was cancelled, I was still in awe of it all; it’s such an inspiring set of infrastructure.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Yet, people cry, moan, and bitch every time it goes up just a bit.

        • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          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.

          • RedFox@infosec.pub
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            10 months ago

            universal health care

            That sounds socialist… Everything in America is perfect, just the way it’s supposed to be without socialism…

          • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            So are those things we are allowed to complain about? I need to make a list

            • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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              10 months ago

              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.

  • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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

    • crashoverride@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The single reason that gas is sold cheap in the United States is because the government subsidizes the hell out of it

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • crashoverride@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          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

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      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

      • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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        10 months ago

        EVs still make up ~3% of new car sales and ~1% of cars on the road. Seems unlikely.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          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.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      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!

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          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

      • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        I’m sure I’m not the only one that doesn’t find being an absolute dick about stuff funny.

        • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          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.

          • IndoorParking@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            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.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              10 months ago

              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.

    • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I was wondering what would happen with those stickers. Thanks for beating me. I’ve not heard my conservative family thank Joe for this.

    • mean_bean279@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • doingless@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        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

        • doingless@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          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.

          • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Maybe if gas was a more reasonable price people wouldn’t live so far from bus stops?

  • boatsnhos931@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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

    • jaschen@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      You’re probably making money with that F650 so its just an expense. Unless you have a F650 because of the tiny pee pee.

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • 31337@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      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.