I had to get gasoline in my 2010 Ford F-150 yesterday evening, which worked out to $106.03 for 32.141 gallons; that was $3.299 per gallon, and that included 10¢ off per gallon with my Kroger points. Naturally, I took a picture of the numbers on the pump, and tweeted it out, saying that it was yet another reason to retire Joe Biden.
When I opened my Facebook account this morning, I saw that I had posted, on May 1, 2020, that 87 Octane regular unleaded gasoline was $1.479 per gallon in Estill County, Kentucky that day.
Then there was this:
Biden is facing political pressure to make gas more expensive
Calls to ramp up sanctions enforcement against Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have the president in a bind
By Melvin Backman | Tuesday, April 30, 2024Cheap gas is becoming politically expensive for President Joe Biden during a challenging election year. Pressure is building on Biden to ramp up sanctions enforcement against Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, Bloomberg reports — three major oil producers whose supplies have tamped down rising crude prices despite OPEC production cuts and a U.S. production glut.
The geopolitical issues that have ensnared them are:
- Russia invaded Ukraine.
- Iran retaliated against an Israeli airstrike on its Syrian consulate.
- And Venezuela isn’t conducting elections the way that the U.S. would like it to.
The International Energy Agency says that the three countries contribute about 13% of global supplies. If the U.S. — which has depleted almost half of its Strategic Petroleum Reserves since 2020 to help signal its willingness to keep prices down — were to move to restrict flows out Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, it would follow that prices would instead go up.
I don’t know about you, but I really don’t care about the elections in Venezuela. Yes, it’s true: President Nicolás Maduro will rig the elections, but why is that any of our business? Venezuela will remain a corrupt, “Bolivarian socialist” kleptocracy, but the solution to that is to close our southern border and expel the Venezuelan illegal immigrants who have already come here. The Biden Administration can hardly complain that the evil Russians tried to help Donald Trump in 2016 and will try again this year, if we are willing to interfere in another country’s elections. And Mr Biden has already let it be known that he’d like to see Israeli Prime Minister ousted.
A March poll from YouGov and the Economist suggests that inflation is far and away the most important issue to voters, with 24% of them considering it their top priority. A January poll from the Pew Research Center found that gas and energy prices had faded as an inflationary concern, but an April survey from Gallup suggests that rising gas prices this year have soured many voters’ economic outlooks.
Can we tell the truth here? The constant draining of our strategic petroleum reserve cannot be sustained, and once the election is over, a President who wants to push plug-in electric vehicles won’t have any reason to try to keep fuel prices down, and the global warming climate activists will be pushing for higher fuel prices anyway. Regardless of who wins in November, gasoline prices are going to rise, and that might well happen before the election. Really, anything which helps send the dummkopf from Delaware back to his home is a good thing.
Only slightly related to your point: I’ve gotten into the habit of filling my truck whenever it gets to half a tank. That reduces the sticker shock just a little bit when the bill is only about $60 or so (our gas is a little more expensive than yours). Of course, it’s purely psychological as it just means I have to fill up twice as often.
The actual reason I got in the habit is because my 4WD F250 is our “emergency escape vehicle” if it’s ever needed. The idea is that if I never let it get below half, if an emergency strikes and I can’t get gas locally, we can get at least a half-tank’s worth of distance between us and whatever is going on here before we run out.
It’s actually a bit funny…I’ve been doing that for so long that I start getting that “anxious” feeling like I’m afraid I might run out of gas whenever the gauge starts getting close to the 1/2 mark. Intellectually I know I’ve still got another 17 or so gallons in the tank, but emotionally I’m like “I’ve got to fill up soon or I could be in trouble”.
My F-150 has a 36 gallon tank, so it is a big hit when I have to refuel. Since I get fuel points from the grocery store, I am conscious of that, and have gotten as much as 80¢ off per gallon. Trouble is, that station is 21 miles away.
Other things drive the decision to refuel, at this time of year it’s whether my fuel cans for lawn equipment are empty; one 5-gallon can is empty, and the other perhaps ½ empty. I like filling them at a discount as well!
Same on the fuel capacity. Titan Tanks makes a 65 gallon replacement tank for the F250 and I’ve thought about it a few times but they’re pricey (~$2k) so I’ve never done it.
I have 2x 5 gallon cans that I keep ethanol free gas in for the generator. In a “get out of dodge” emergency the plan would be to throw those into the back of the truck as backup to whatever’s in the tank and extend our range that much more. Even if we’re down to 1/2 tank in the truck, with that extra 10 gallons, that should be enough to get us to our remote mountain retreat in an undisclosed location to ride out the emergency.
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