Price of Gas At The Pump

cleanex wrote: Don"t blame Ken, even the experts have no idea why we are in the mess we are in right now.

Actually oil is very close to moving back to where it was last summer. In the fall the usage of gasoline was down 7% year over year. Now it is only down 2% year over year. The lower prices are working to increase consuption again. IMO the usage will be higher year over year again by February. When that happens gasoline will rapidly return to over $2/gal again in the USA and to over $1/litre again in Canada.

BTW Kenny, how is that $5k you purchased in GM doing?

That would be good.  Too bad your optimism is not shared by companies like Enterprise car rental who is their number one customer who buys all of the models GM makes and having prepaid for one year's purchases is so concerned that they will ever see the cars and due to bankruptcy rules will not see the cash back, they were going so far as to have their 75000 employees write to their congressmen, providing them with the text to do so, increasing the chances that their lack of foresight in making purchases won't blow up in the face of the Enterprise executive staff.  Now with the band aid given to GM the car rental company is just praying they get all of their cars before the anticipated BK in March or April.  National and Alamo lease their cars from GM and in fact it has much to do with how they are able to do their one-way rentals.  Without the survival of the big three at least three large car rental companies will become a mere whisper of their current size and they could join rental companies like Ugly Duckling and Rent-A-Wreck with aging inventory they can't sell without taking a loss.

I have family and friends at Enterprise (they employ about as many as Walmart) who tell me about the convulsions that company is experiencing as it begins to shrink down to 60% of it's current size.  That is the only way you can get the info on Enterprise since it is privately held.

Keep your fingers crossed Kenny that you don't lose all of that $39000.  You do know the plants they are shutting down are the SUV/Truck producing plants, right?  As long as they keep on making buses and cities have great tax revenue to purchase those buses with - oh wait -- cities are in need of a bailout too.  Wonder how this is all going to sort itself out.

If the back of the unions is broken in America, the buying power of the common man goes away.  Fat rich cats who will be left with the money won't be buying all the cars made to keep any car manufacturers going.  We really need global involvement in another "War to End All Wars".  The US Govt will then come to the rescue as the biggest consumer with the deepest pockets and put some to work and unfortunately some to death as sacrifices to the God of War.  Barbarism - we never outgrew it.  The poor, they have no bread.  Let them eat cake.


Edited by duckcountry - 10/January/2009 at 1:32am