View Full Version : My little experience of gasoline shortages.
Vessol
02-25-2011, 12:15 AM
As many probably have noticed and expected for a good while, gas prices shot up quite high today, at least they did where I live.
I work at a gas station, it's a decent job. I was coming into work today when I heard that gas prices were increasing all day and they finally settled at 3.40$ a gallon, an increase of 25 cents from this morning.
As expected, people freaked the fuck out. Our station was the only station that did not raise its prices from 3.13$ a gallon this morning. I'm not sure why, but word started spreading that we had the old price of gasoline.
After 30 minutes, we had lines stretching down the highway. They didn't subside for 6 hours. Horns were blaring. People were shouting. There was at least 3 rear-endings that I heard of. There was lots of yelling, I ended up having to break up a fight between two men when one was accusing the other of not moving up after he was finished pumping. One guy was actually arrested after he rear ended someone and tried driving off.
The police actually did something useful for once and started directing traffic outside the store, I'll admit that they helped me a lot with rowdy customers because I was the only one working that night.
We actually ended up running out of regular unleaded, people were pissed at me for that.
I got accused of hiding gasoline, told that I was greedy and it is us in the gas station business who artificially raise prices to make money. When I had a chance I tried explaining how a lot of it has to do with what is going on in Libya at the moment, trying to bring up non-interventionism and stuff. Most people just told me that we should nuke the whole god damned middle east, because the stupid muslims are ruining our economy.
Even though we ran out of unleaded regular fuel(I had to give directions to the police to inform people we were out) our plus fuel still was selling extremely fast and we almost ran out before we finally closed.
Long story short, I learned an important lesson today. This was the reaction of people wanting to get fuel at a cheaper price by 25 cents. People were willing to get worked up that much over this.
If an economic collapse or any shortage of goods really happen, people will freak out. It will be literal chaos. I can't imagine what people would be doing if gasoline was any higher than that, or if the dollar would collapse.
Texan4Life
02-25-2011, 04:41 AM
wow what state was this in?
hazek
02-25-2011, 05:03 AM
I can't imagine what people would be doing if gasoline was any higher than that, or if the dollar would collapse.
Scary thought.
MN Patriot
02-25-2011, 05:12 AM
I remember 1974 (I was just a kid) when gas went from 30 cents to 55 cents a gallon. People committed suicide.
Being independently mobile is terribly important for people. That is why mass transmit is such a failure and the liberals can't comprehend it. They think people are just cattle to be moved from point A to point B by government.
Our whole lifestyle revolves around automobiles. The Establishment knows our weakness and are using this crisis to push for more control.
Interesting how people are such fascists. Nuke them and take their oil. Such sentiments plays perfectly into the hands of the Establishment for more war.
CableNewsJunkie
02-25-2011, 05:21 AM
As many probably have noticed and expected for a good while, gas prices shot up quite high today, at least they did where I live.
I work at a gas station, it's a decent job. I was coming into work today when I heard that gas prices were increasing all day and they finally settled at 3.40$ a gallon, an increase of 25 cents from this morning.
As expected, people freaked the fuck out. Our station was the only station that did not raise its prices from 3.13$ a gallon this morning. I'm not sure why, but word started spreading that we had the old price of gasoline.
After 30 minutes, we had lines stretching down the highway. They didn't subside for 6 hours. Horns were blaring. People were shouting. There was at least 3 rear-endings that I heard of. There was lots of yelling, I ended up having to break up a fight between two men when one was accusing the other of not moving up after he was finished pumping. One guy was actually arrested after he rear ended someone and tried driving off.
The police actually did something useful for once and started directing traffic outside the store, I'll admit that they helped me a lot with rowdy customers because I was the only one working that night.
We actually ended up running out of regular unleaded, people were pissed at me for that.
I got accused of hiding gasoline, told that I was greedy and it is us in the gas station business who artificially raise prices to make money. When I had a chance I tried explaining how a lot of it has to do with what is going on in Libya at the moment, trying to bring up non-interventionism and stuff. Most people just told me that we should nuke the whole god damned middle east, because the stupid muslims are ruining our economy.
Even though we ran out of unleaded regular fuel(I had to give directions to the police to inform people we were out) our plus fuel still was selling extremely fast and we almost ran out before we finally closed.
Long story short, I learned an important lesson today. This was the reaction of people wanting to get fuel at a cheaper price by 25 cents. People were willing to get worked up that much over this.
If an economic collapse or any shortage of goods really happen, people will freak out. It will be literal chaos. I can't imagine what people would be doing if gasoline was any higher than that, or if the dollar would collapse.
Sounds like a lot of them are primed and ready to go rapture themselves for the banksters.
MozoVote
02-25-2011, 06:51 AM
Western NC went about 4 days without fuel deliveries after hurricane Ike shut down the colonial pipeine. Then gas was available, but spotty, for several more days at $4 a gallon. It does make you nervous and realize how quickly we could descend into 3rd world anarchy if fuel was shut off completely for a few weeks.
Austrian Econ Disciple
02-25-2011, 07:48 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed6Yr81jZ6g
Kurt is awesome :p
hugolp
02-25-2011, 07:50 AM
Long story short, I learned an important lesson today.
Second lesson. Rise prices sooner.
CableNewsJunkie
02-25-2011, 08:31 AM
I was driving home from work one day a couple years back, and as I came to a traffic light (which was green), I had to stop before passing through it, otherwise I would have blocked the intersection.
Traffic was backed up in both lanes on a road that is busy, but NEVER bumper-to-bumper.
I assumed there must be a wreck up ahead.
I made it through the traffic light slowly and then switched to the inside lane which was going slightly faster. We kept inching along and then it started to loosen up and I could pick up speed, but the outside lane was still bogged down.
Turns out, everyone was trying to get into a gas station off to the right. And as I drove by the gas station, the radio station I was listening to mentioned some kind of promotion for $0.50 cents off per gallon at that gas station.
I laughed and laughed and laughed all the way home thinking about how people were probably getting REALLY, REALLY MAD waiting in this line just to save a little bit on gas (when there was another gas station right across the road).
My time is more valuable than that, but to each his own.
HOLLYWOOD
02-25-2011, 08:43 AM
It's not GAS shortages per se, but gas restrictions and controls.
I come a family of many Oil/Gas careerists... Atlantic Richfield(ARCO), Exxon, Chevron, CITGO.
in the 1970's it was government restrictions that caused the shortages, not the Saudis. At one moment during the so-called gas shortage, my father and others were very concerned about the huge shortage tank farms at ARCO/TEXACO/SUNOCO in the northeast of rupturing and exploding because the tanks where so full to capacity during a heat wave. All Oil co's scrambled to fill their tanker trucks to allow enough breathing room in the huge tanks for expansion. There never was a shortage, it was imposed by government to restrict the amount of fuel distributed across the country to the people.
That was the first time and didn't realize until later government propaganda and control in "Price Fixing, Commodities Regulating, and Restrictions" imposed on the people.
Long story short, I learned an important lesson today. This was the reaction of people wanting to get fuel at a cheaper price by 25 cents. People were willing to get worked up that much over this.
If an economic collapse or any shortage of goods really happen, people will freak out. It will be literal chaos. I can't imagine what people would be doing if gasoline was any higher than that, or if the dollar would collapse.
This is what I have been telling people for perhaps 15 years or more. Generally speaking, they do not listen. I remember the "energy crisis" of 1973 - the same things you describe were happening on a national scale. Lines for 1/4 mile down the roads of Manhattan, people waiting for hours for a rationed amount of fuel, and fights breaking out over the same issues you mention here.
And just as you point out, this isn't even about non-availability, but of mere cost savings. What do we think will happen if availability is affected seriously? What about fertilizers, plastics, and pharmaceuticals? Just wait until food becomes less than easy to come by. You will then start seeing some interesting times.
The situation into which we have painted ourselves reminds me of that old sermon, "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God", wherein we are each described as spiders hanging by the merest thread above the fiery pit - hanging by the deign of a God who could sever that gossamer fiber at will. Thus is our predicament today. We have become utterly dependent on technologies that, were they to be removed from availability, we would almost every one of us die within a year or two. By what cause they are removed is irrelevant. It matters not that they were choked off by conspirators or simply ran out. The results are the same, and in the case of the former, if there is nothing that we can do to stop such people from acting, we are still screwed.
We were seduced by shiny stuff - no sin in itself, but that it was all founded on what now appears to be a non-sustainable basis has placed us squarely behind a great big 8-ball. I have no idea what the answers are, beyond getting the hell away from cities and trying to develop some basic abilities in self-sufficiency, but I suspect that even these will avail us little if things go seriously south.
In any event, I suspect some quantum alteration in attitude is probably in order. If a petroleum-based world economy is not sustainable in the longer term, and it appears that this may be the case, then we had better get our asses in gear to find other means. This is, of course, old news and yet I see little evidence that we are pursuing any realistic avenues. Hydrogen? Are you kidding? Solar? Wind? Wave? All studies in pissing up ropes as far as I can see.
And to those wondering what relevancy this all has to freedom, I will say "everything". It has been governmental stifling of freedom that is at least partially responsible for heading the ship into an iceberg. It would seem to me that the freedom to think and act such that people are able to let their creativity run wild may be our only hope to avoid a catastrophe that stands to consume a huge proportion of us and leaving those who remain in a state of envy for the dead. Sadly, I see no such loosing of the collars happening. The worse things get, the tighter becomes the choke on freedom, driving us ever more resolutely into the death-spiral. The saddest part is that on the whole all we do is sit by and watch it happen. It reminds me of a line from that horrible remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with Keanu Reeves where it was observed that we seem to sense our own doom yet are unable to do anything about it. That is how things seem to me. Either circumstances are driving us there, or malice. I cannot tell which it is. Anyone?
There is a rock.
There is a hard place.
We appear to be tightly wedged between them.
enoch150
02-25-2011, 09:52 AM
A few months ago I was at a gas station that was ringing up the gas wrong. It advertised $2.85, but was ringing up at $2.05. I emailed about 400 people when I got home. I don't know what the results were, but I thought it was funny.
I was accused of being an anarcho-capitalist...
YumYum
02-25-2011, 10:08 AM
So, my question is this: If we are to live (not die) through the insanity that will all be upon us, do we get caught up in it, or do we watch from a distance? If a person was sent back in a time machine to a French town square when they were chopping heads off, would that person jump in with the crowd and start cheering, or try to lay low while figuring a way to get the hell out of there? Our revolution will make the French Revolution look like a Boy Scout convention.
madengr
02-25-2011, 11:35 AM
Idiots probably burned more gas from idling their cars in line than they saved.
Idiots probably burned more gas from idling their cars in line than they saved.
Now STOP that. Truth is dirty dirty dirty!
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