Are the normies noticing rising gas prices yet? Gas is at a multi-year high price.

[Xist]

For some reason I have craved late-night snacks lately, but I guess that it is okay because I kind of eat breakfast at lunchtime.

Last night I put sriracha sauce and mustard on green beans.

Yeah, do not serve that to anyone that is not an enemy of the state...

I still finished it, though...

[acparker]

Crude oil prices may be stalling due to oversupply, for now. US production appears to be the major culprit.

Countering that trend are fears of the US backing out of the Iran deal, and the IMF banning Venezuela. Realistically, neither should effect global oil supplies, as China will step in where the IMF fears to tread, and Iran needs cash, so they will produce and sell to anyone. Still, if you need an excuse for pushing pump prices up, they are as good as any I have seen. Smoke and mirrors.

[Fat Charlie]

Gas prices and EM traffic remind me of what my kids' swim team coach said when I commented once that the team was bigger: "Lots of new kids after every summer Olympics."

New people coming, so knock it off, guys. We need to be polite, constructive and put on our helpful hats.

[19bonestock88]

Indeed we need to try and help the people... on a side note, I’m paying either 2.69 or 2.79 for 87 octane... I remember it being up above $4 a while ago (2011-12)so it’s not scaring me... yet...

[MetroMPG]

So far, there's no bump in forum traffic. That won't happen until it becomes an issue to the typical American driver.

That said, there's yet another gas price headline in the Canadian national news this morning, but the takeaway is drivers aren't changing their behavior.

Unsurprisingly, one of the country's biggest fuel suppliers is also watching the situation very closely:

Even with drivers griping about ever-increasing fuel bills, they show no sign of cutting back on their travels. "We're not seeing it. We're not seeing it at the moment. Demand from customers continues to be robust."

At some point, customers will react when prices climb too high, just as they usually drive more when prices fall significantly. But [the company spokesperson] doesn't seem to think current prices will impact sales.

Also notable from the article:

When drivers do decide to change their behaviour, it's usually only for a short period of time before they return to their normal travel patterns. That explains why between 2012 and 2016, when oil prices spiked and then crashed dramatically, gasoline sales in Canada were relatively unchanged.

So, demand is inelastic? What about the idea that cheap fuel and/or increasing efficiency causes people to drive more?

Someone even says there's no real effect from high prices on vehicle choices:

"One of the things we have found in our research is that consumers change their buying behaviour for about three months when gas prices rise," said Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst with Kelley Blue Book.

"So they will go to a smaller vehicle but then after about three months, people start buying bigger cars again.

April sales of the Mirage in the States and the Micra in Canada were down vs. April last year.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by acparker

The US did not supply Saddam Hussein with chemical or biological weapons. While he was a puppet of the USSR (from whom he acquired the bulk of his weaponry) he also acquired training and expertise in chemical and biological warfare. He had highly skilled and knowledgeable scientists who excelled in developing chemical and biological weapons. He produced most, if not all, of his chemical arsenal. Mustard agent is quite simple and relatively inexpensive to manufacture and Iraq used it in large amounts against Iran. He would essentially slime an area in the same way you would plant mines -- for area denial.

He used the nerve agent Sarin against domestic targets. From a cynical standpoint, Sarin is not persistent, therefore it makes an effective agent to remove an unwanted population without rendering the area uninhabitable.

Orly?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...l-weapons.html

"With remarkable speed, Iraq built a program with equipment and precursor purchases from companies in an extraordinary array of countries, eventually including the United States, according to its confidential declarations.

German construction firms helped create a sprawling manufacturing complex in the desert south of Samarra and three plants in Falluja that made precursor ingredients for chemical weapons. The complex near Samarra, later renamed Al Muthanna State Establishment, included research labs, production lines, testing areas and storage bunkers.

Iraq produced 10 metric tons of mustard blister agent in 1981; by 1987 its production had grown 90-fold, with late-war output aided by two American companies that provided hundreds of tons of thiodiglycol, a mustard agent precursor. Production of nerve agents also took off."

Sorry to continue the threadjack, but this kind of misinformation has to be corrected.

[MetroMPG]

Oh, come on.

[Vman455]

CNN article I saw this morning: $3 gas coming to a station near you

$2.749 at the station across the street today.

[MetroMPG]

Canadians registered about 3,560 plug-in electric vehicles in March, about 50 percent more than the prior record of roughly 2,340 in September

Coincidence, surely.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ch-2018/page-2

[Xist]

Well it's a well-known fact, sonny-jim, that there's a secret society of the 5 wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually in a secret country mansion in Colorado known as The Meadows. (So who's in this Pentavirate?) The Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds...and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up! Ooh I hated the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes and that smug look on his face! Ohh you're gonna buy my chicken! Ooh!