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"The only thing that matters is the price of gas in California and New York," writes Bruce...

  • Sunday, February 26, 2012, 9:01 AM ET
    "The only thing that matters is the price of gas in California and New York," writes Bruce Krasting, and it's blowing out thanks to dependence on Louisiana crude (which tracks the world benchmark). Forget $4, $5 gas may be coming in states that have the majority of cars (and GDP).
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This news story has 86 comments:

  • Bruce Krasting is totally wrong here. Only thing that does not matter is the price of gas in California and New York. Lot of rich people live in these area and they do not care. Other states has poor people and few cents matters to them.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:06 AM Reply Like
  • Yes, lots of rich people live in the state known as the Welfare State.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:13 AM Reply Like
  • tigersam, You obviously don't live in either place.
    26 Feb 2012, 10:01 AM Reply Like
  • You guys do not know what your are talking about. If California is a country then it will be eight riches country in the world.
    26 Feb 2012, 02:04 PM Reply Like
  • I believe you mean it would have the 8th largest economy in the world. There are plenty of parts of Cali that are not wealthy. Also, in a state that has some of the busiest ports in the country, you cannot ignore the costs that rising fuel prices put on the goods. Every extra dollar spent loading and unloading ships is felt by American businesses in the form of reduced margin, or higher prices to consumers.
    26 Feb 2012, 02:19 PM Reply Like
  • I live in NY.
    I work in NY,( twenty-three years)
    I pay taxes in NY,way too much for far too long.
    I am not "rich." There are many NYers who are low and middle income. Plenty of folks hurt by the economy in WNY.
    I do care about the price of gasoline.
    There is a rather large area of NY that is not NY City. Please don't confuse the two areas.
    Just my two cents on lumping entire state populations into one category.
    26 Feb 2012, 03:41 PM Reply Like
  • deercreekvols
    Right on. Too many think New York City IS New York State. WRONG
    26 Feb 2012, 04:07 PM Reply Like
  • i think that new york city (metro area) should become it's own state - it would probably help make things better for urbanites and people hundreds of miles away in western NY
    26 Feb 2012, 04:14 PM Reply Like
  • I don't think Albany would be happy if the most wealthy part of the state left, it'd be a huge hit to tax revenues for the state that was left.
    26 Feb 2012, 04:40 PM Reply Like
  • Thank you wyostocks.
    Too many folks think that when one says they are from NY, that they are from NYC.
    Upstaters, downstaters, when it is all said and done we are NYers.
    Now if the Jets and Giants would just play in the state like the Bills, all would be good.
    26 Feb 2012, 07:09 PM Reply Like
  • I came from a small farm town in upstate. When I went to Oswego State, I was a bit surprised how many guys from the same town of Long Island lived on my dorm floor. This hic had always pictured LI as 15 miles of sand dunes.
    26 Feb 2012, 08:54 PM Reply Like
  • Again I am going to stress the point here. Higher prices will hurt more other states than New York and California. People from these state are better off than other states. I am not advocating higher prices are good for New York or California.
    27 Feb 2012, 01:56 PM Reply Like
  • Please tell me how I am better off than my family in NC, TX, GA, and FL.
    I need ammunition for the next time someone asks me about the taxes in NY!
    FYI- The declining population in NY suggest that there are many people who missed the information on how much better off they were in New York State.
    27 Feb 2012, 04:16 PM Reply Like
  • 24/7 Wall St compiled a list of the richest and poorest states based on census data, and NY and Cali are both not in the top 10 wealthiest states. People in those states may be better off, on average, then people in Mississippi, on average. but that doesn't mean either state is some haven of rich people who don't care about gas prices. Seeing as NYC probably has the most extensive public transportation system in the US, I am willing to concede that because of the higher use of mass transit in and around NYC, the effects of higher gas prices will be less than on someone living in the Midwest. However, statewide, the effects of higher national prices are going to be largely the same as in the rest of the country.

    http://bit.ly/zyeCvy
    27 Feb 2012, 05:55 PM Reply Like
  • I told my local gas station attendant yesterday, here upstate NY that we'll see $6 a gallon for regular gas this summer. Demand needs to be crushed to rebuilds stocks in my judgement.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:12 AM Reply Like
  • The folks at the gas station I go to are too busy changing the price signs everyday to talk!
    Prices in WNY, the part of the state that most "downstaters" forget about, are $3.89/gallon.
    Not sure where all the "rich" people reside, but it isn't Allegany County, that is for sure.
    Have a good Sunday everyone.
    26 Feb 2012, 03:13 PM Reply Like
  • Gas supply inventories are near their 10-year highs, what stocks would you rebuild?
    27 Feb 2012, 11:17 AM Reply Like
  • Our President simply won't let gas prices get out of hand like that. Unlike his predecessor, who was in the pocket of Big Oil, and who drove up prices just to please them, President Obama will protect the ordinary citizen from being harmed by the crony capitalists. You'll see.

    All he has to do is let a little bit of oil out of the SPR and oil prices will collapse like a house of cards. Just like what he did last spring.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:22 AM Reply Like
  • Obama is in the pocket of environmentalists. The pipeline from Canada to Louisiana would have reduced our dependence on foreign oil.
    Also the oil lobbyists wont let T. Boone Pickens ' Natural Gas Bill through Congress.
    Just like the Gas Guzzler trade in, if we required all Truckers to convert to Natural Gas we wouldn't need to import ANY oil.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:46 AM Reply Like
  • You're funny. You were joking right?
    26 Feb 2012, 09:46 AM Reply Like
  • Interesting Lake! What your comment about SPR suggests is that more supply will lower costs. So we do agree on general market principles. Given this, I wish the Administration would accept reality instead of trying to reinvent it, something in which they or anyone else will fail to do.

    Supply can and eventually will place a damper on these things. Unfortunately, this Administration only relies on proven principles when it absolutely and positively has to - release of SPR is a
    perfect example. The problem is that this move is unequivocally not strategic, and its use for this purpose absolutely undermines it's nominal purpose.

    26 Feb 2012, 09:53 AM Reply Like
  • lakeaffect
    The great one can't help you son. Better get used to putting sunshine in your car.
    26 Feb 2012, 10:03 AM Reply Like
  • Exactly right Lake!

    I like Phil from philstockworld.com approach: Obama should direct the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to sell it's oil at current price, and put in buy orders at 70, and send the word out to the speculator community that they will be crushed every time they try to run the prices up, plus make a few bucks for that mad deficit he's creating. Perhaps a pipeline or two being built in the US might be helpful.

    Could CNG conversion be far behind? Is that why these MLPs are getting into "premium" territory?

    Also,everything I'm reading lately says demand is falling through the floor, what am I missing here, if so, this is this pure spec on the front month gas/oil contracts once again.
    26 Feb 2012, 10:22 AM Reply Like
  • I guess you have been a trucker and know everything about that industry....that is why you are qualified to place requirements on them right??
    26 Feb 2012, 10:40 AM Reply Like
  • Lakeaffect
    you need to lay off the cool-aid
    26 Feb 2012, 10:51 AM Reply Like
  • Is that a joke? Last time I looked, Obama had little, if any, influence over worldwide market prices, much less US prices.

    Letting go of some of the SPR would do nothing. The problem is not lack of supply, it is the fact that producers can sell gasoline for more overseas.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:27 AM Reply Like
  • hmm yeah, OK. Like the natural gas folks don't also have lobbyists, and none of the oil companies have any of the gas either.

    Even if the pipeline was approved, it would not be online for years.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:29 AM Reply Like
  • gigbenorr
    "if we required all Truckers"

    That is the liberal way. They know everything and the sheep like us must be "required" or "forced" to do it their way because we are too stupid to figure it out for ourselves. And if we don't go along with them, I am sure they have the "appropriate" punishment figured out for us.

    Nothing but elitist master jailkeepers do they want to be.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:29 AM Reply Like
  • Lake

    If prices get up in the $4's and $5's then let's have Obama resign as an idiot. Sounds like a fair deal to me.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:49 AM Reply Like
  • Lakeaffect,
    I want to be sure that I understand the thinking of your "King" in the white house. It is my understanding that he states it is only a bumper sticker to want to drill for more oil to increase supply. But magically, by releasing a few barrel's from the SPR our world supply and demand balance is solved? The forces of the past are long gone and may never return. The forces I am mentioning are that of which the impact of the economy of the USA as being the driving force of the price of oil in regards to supply and demand and prices.
    26 Feb 2012, 12:25 PM Reply Like
  • do you happen to be this interviewee?

    http://bit.ly/z9jMMC
    26 Feb 2012, 12:25 PM Reply Like
  • Surely you jest.
    26 Feb 2012, 12:32 PM Reply Like
  • I thought the SPR was suppose to be used in the event of emergencies, not as a lever to try to control the price of oil. The prices of gasoline and diesel are increasing in the US for several reasons, none of which anyone can change by election day, if at all.

    1) Emerging markets are using more oil and refined products, driving up prices.
    2) Threats of war with Iran, as well as violence in Nigeria are pushing up oil prices.
    3) Saudi Arabia just came out and said they do not think that they need to produce more oil to drive prices down.
    4) Refineries in the US are closing (several outside Philadelphia, PA, for example) Less supply and stable demand means prices increase.
    5) The North American oil and refined products infrastructure is probably 5 years behind in building out to support the shifting energy production and consumption landscape in the US. Gluts of oil in the Midwest and in Texas are causing prices to fall there, but only because there is no infrastructure to get that oil out of there to the world markets. The US needs new pipelines flowing from places like the Bakken to export markets on the Gulf Coast, and needs more refined products pipelines to get products to the East and West coast.

    Despite what most Americans want to believe, no one in the US is controlling the price of oil. Even the next president, who ever he is, will have to deal with high oil prices causing higher prices at the pump. Even a switch no natural gas, which is completely logical given the price differences, would take 3-5 years in the US, so that would not be some magic bullet to slash prices.
    26 Feb 2012, 12:41 PM Reply Like
  • Not to mention the fact that US petro inventories are at a 10-year high - so much so that some areas are running out of storage for gasoline.
    26 Feb 2012, 01:36 PM Reply Like
  • VeroMike is both right and wrong. I am in the trucking biz, and the one variable that kills my profit is the price of fuel. We can't move to NG/LP because of the lack of refilling centers. Right now we use HHO boosters to "smooth out" the CPM. And although we get a 25%+ advantage in bidding, at 4.25/gl it's still killing my chance for a little profit. He is totally wrong on Keystone. Oil and other hydrocarbons were the US's biggest exports last year. We are up to our ears in hydrocarbons/fuel stock. Keystone would have added a net 40 jobs after completion. And those 2500 people in construction would be back on the streets. VeroMike, think ahead! The problem is not the source, it's the use.
    26 Feb 2012, 02:10 PM Reply Like
  • Just the threat of it would make a tremendous difference in the futures market.

    And Krasting is right, if it's so painful that the president loses either CA or NY, he's lost the election.
    26 Feb 2012, 03:11 PM Reply Like
  • I'm an environmentalist, and I didn't have an opinion one way or another on Keystone. I want to make something perfectly clear, however. One thing Obama definitely ISN"T is an environmentalist, despite Santorum's absurd charge. He has been nothing but a disappointment in that regard, starting with putting a rancher (Salazar) in charge of the Dept of the Interior. I suspect he vetoed Keystone so as to throw a rare bone to environmentalists before the end-of-year elections.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:30 PM Reply Like
  • Totally right. Just Iran stating they are out of the threat business would cause oil to drop. The price is now based on fear. Oil production has gone up every year Obama has been in office, despite his policies. He can't win, anyway. Economy improves and oil goes up, oil goes up and screams of the economy going to hell erupt.

    There will be no magic bullet once a billion more Chinese and Indians decide to drive.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:31 PM Reply Like
  • vireoman
    please define the word you have chosen to define yourself as: "environmentalist". I have no clue what that word means.
    26 Feb 2012, 07:23 PM Reply Like
  • If you think Owebama is interested in protecting the ordinary citizen you are clinically delusional. Hope Ocare covers you, as it doesn't do sh!t for me. And he's Your President, not Ours.
    26 Feb 2012, 08:18 PM Reply Like
  • Good comment - tags are black or white. I consider myself nervous about the condition of our planet, yet pragmatic as to what we need to do to keep the poor fed (the rich can always handle themselves)
    26 Feb 2012, 09:03 PM Reply Like
  • Covered my kids until they got jobs. Covered the girl down the road who has Crohns, couldn't even get covered by her university because of her "previous" condition, but her dad's insurance was "made" to cover her until she found a decent job. Myself, had company insurance from the day I landed my first job (feels like eons ago). You are right, more has to be figured out on the healthcare front - too many of our citizens are getting much too fat.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:14 PM Reply Like
  • Yes
    28 Feb 2012, 03:45 PM Reply Like
  • If we increased production by a whopping 20%, it would still be a drop in the bucket, world consumption is outpacing the ability to produce.
    28 Feb 2012, 09:36 PM Reply Like
  • My daughter has Crohn's, is a college professor in N.C. and they are covering her. She even went to the Duke Medical School for some test treatments.
    I grew up in England and the National Health program is a joke if you have anything worse than a cold requiring a visit to a GP.
    Insurance companies will figure out how to make/ steal money from Obamacare just like they do from Medicare.
    3 Mar 2012, 07:05 PM Reply Like
  • The girl I was talking about was a student, off her dad's insurance and on her own. The university wouldn't pick her up. Wife worked for a dentist who is looking is moving to Ecuador. He cannot get coverage in the states because of a serious neck injury.
    4 Mar 2012, 09:09 PM Reply Like
  • Hi Tiger and Jason,

    Did either of you actually take the time to read Krasting's article?

    I did and it seems to me that his point is that instead of using a "National Average" gas price, that the price in NY and California is more likely going to reflect the overall economic impact.

    By inference, he is suggesting that it is the price per gallon multiplied by the number of gallons bought at that price (on a state by state basis) that is the real indicator. Not simply an average of the prices.

    Makes a lot of sense to me.
    26 Feb 2012, 09:29 AM Reply Like
  • reek Ken
    "By inference, he is suggesting that it is the price per gallon multiplied by the number of gallons bought at that price (on a state by state basis) that is the real indicator. Not simply an average of the prices."

    The problem with this simple analysis is that it omits the multiplier effect on everything else, like groceries for example, that will be priced higher because of the higher energy costs imbedded in the cost structure of the product.

    Fear not though. the LBS and the FED will not use these higher costs in the inflation calculations.
    26 Feb 2012, 10:07 AM Reply Like
  • I think the word you're looking for is "weighted average"
    26 Feb 2012, 10:12 AM Reply Like
  • Hi wyo,

    The author is simply making a point that a "weighted average" (thanks johnybutts) gas price is more representative than an average price.

    This is not a hard concept to understand. In fact, it probably makes any other analysis (such as a multiplier effect) more reliable.

    I always find it interesting (if not disappointing) that a simple article like this then gets discussed at depth with political, social and other non-relevant spin. It really shows that many people are unable to discuss information in a rational manner, but, instead, use it as a platform. Sad, very sad.
    26 Feb 2012, 12:40 PM Reply Like
  • Well I think it matters everywhere what the price of gas is. Its simple math that every dollar spent at the pump isn't spent in stores, restaurants, or invested in local businesses.

    Our government has the ability to secure another major supply of oil far into the future...... from the non-Middle East country of..... CANADA!!
    26 Feb 2012, 10:15 AM Reply Like
  • Yeah! Why don't we send in a force to look for WMD in Canada (they have uranium mines, don't they?). Then we will "occupy" Canada for a while, and bring our kind of "democracy" to that country (non-represented voters as in DC, senate filibusters so that nothing gets done in government, superPacs so that money overrides voters on corporate and right-wing issues, private healthcare coverage that has to choose between paying claims and making exorbitant profits). We'll take over the Canadian oil industry to pay for our invasion, which will also solve the problem of our dependence on foreign oil. Then we can really show how macho we are by continuing to intimidate everyone on the highway by driving our ridiculous Hummers and Escalades.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:25 AM Reply Like
  • charliezap,

    Congratulations on the stupidest comment on S.A. and there is a lot of competition.
    26 Feb 2012, 01:45 PM Reply Like
  • Actually, I'm quite proud of my comment. Hits where it hurts, doesn't it?
    27 Feb 2012, 11:52 AM Reply Like
  • Quote from a blog on Yahoo:
    ----------------------...
    """ [Romney made the] statement that "I'll get us that oil from Canada that we deserve"[, which] was the most quoted sentence of the night on Twitter. For example, Michigan native son Michael Moore responded: "Canadians, in case you missed it tonight: Romney: "I'll get us that oil from Canada we deserve!" Don't worry, our drones attack swiftly." Joan Walsh of Salon.com chimed in that "Romney's saving the soul of America - so he doesn't have to baptize it later." """
    ----------------------...
    Canada, watch out! The USA wants your oil! Now!!!!
    2 Mar 2012, 01:32 PM Reply Like
  • Everyone should be issued a Chevy Volt with free plug in privileges paid for by the insurance companies. The added cost of electricity will be offset by the reduction in pregnancies because the Volt's backseat is not conducive to teenage commingling.
    26 Feb 2012, 10:21 AM Reply Like
  • hilarious!
    26 Feb 2012, 03:30 PM Reply Like
  • A billion more Chinese and Indians driving. Ha!! Just try and bring down the price by pumping more. If they agree to pay more for the oil than we here in the US - do we sell to them or disavow free enterprise?
    26 Feb 2012, 10:47 AM Reply Like
  • "If they agree to pay more for the oil than we here in the US - do we sell to them or disavow free enterprise?"

    We establish tariffs or some other stupid thing to make the situation worse.
    26 Feb 2012, 01:47 PM Reply Like
  • Sticky situation if they constantly outbid us. Very sticky.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:34 PM Reply Like
  • One thing you guys forgot is that Obama only worries about his re-election chances, CA and NY are Obama territory anyways so he wont care about the price of energy in these states only in the states (PA., OH., FL., CO., etc) that chances are they wont re-elect him, and that will get him scared.
    BTW, NY and many other states do not allow fracking and production of shale gas drilling, if these states would allow drilling, & real production would resume in the Gulf of Mexico, and other energy production would be allowed then the US would be energy independent and our economy would turn around, but alas the government is the pallbearer for the enviromentalist waccos that control energy poicy in the the US.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:00 AM Reply Like
  • shild
    you are spot. Liberals will vote for liberals if gas hits $20 and unemployment goes to 39%.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:25 AM Reply Like
  • I wouldn't vote for 'Bummer if he was the Second Coming...hmm, let me rethink that one. He isn't is he?
    26 Feb 2012, 01:35 PM Reply Like
  • Drilling has been going on in NY before I left the state in '88. People in upstate are very worried about their water - wells are very expensive to drill.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:40 PM Reply Like
  • Is it just me, or is anyone else willing to pay an extra $.50/gal just for the comedic effect of the topic?

    BTW Lakeeffect, the SPR was tapped in concert with the Europeans to counter the Libyan production lost. Obama is not as omnipotent as some would like to believe.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:48 AM Reply Like
  • It must just be coincidence that the states with the highest gas prices have the highest gas taxes.
    26 Feb 2012, 11:52 AM Reply Like
  • 5 year oil prices have hardly moved the current blip is not sustainable

    Demand is hardly growing and supply is expanding.

    E
    26 Feb 2012, 12:32 PM Reply Like
  • True, but price is driven by fear and the saber rattling gives plenty of reason to speculate long. It seems like Iraq redux.
    26 Feb 2012, 02:05 PM Reply Like
  • all temporary so you can discount it - this is not the same as 2008 - with Europe in slow motion and with the oil boom in the US accelerating.
    26 Feb 2012, 04:02 PM Reply Like
  • Correct, petrol usage in western countries has been going down. Want to lower prices at the pump? Outlaw speculation. Too bad our brightest follow the money and enter the world of finance rather than the world of science.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:45 PM Reply Like
  • love the sheeple on this thread not seeing the big picture of keeping prices high enough to push CHina into recession


    think like a crook!
    why does US install 1/10 of Germany for solar
    why has nat gas bill been shelved for four years?
    why do China and Europe destroy US in terms of public mass transit
    hell even in bicycle usage...
    26 Feb 2012, 12:33 PM Reply Like
  • Ah, a conspiracy theorist. Care to elaborate? Aren't you afraid the Illuminati or the Jews will come for you?
    26 Feb 2012, 02:08 PM Reply Like
  • If gas gets much higher I will not be able to afford my mortgage.
    26 Feb 2012, 01:57 PM Reply Like
  • No problem. Obama will have a new program to pay for it.
    If he can't bring down the price of gas that is the least he can do.
    26 Feb 2012, 04:11 PM Reply Like
  • We have no choice but to stop using oil. We need nat gas/electric cars and infrastructure. Why isn't Obama doing more here? The lower and middle classes are getting killed here!
    26 Feb 2012, 02:12 PM Reply Like
  • I hope you are setting the example. No fuel for you.
    Nah, I doubt it.
    26 Feb 2012, 04:12 PM Reply Like
  • " Why isn't Obama doing more here? The lower and middle classes are getting killed here!"
    The Neanderthals wondered why their leader wasn't doing more to protect them from Homo Sapiens. Evolution is a bitch.
    26 Feb 2012, 04:23 PM Reply Like
  • Blame it on politics, blame it on speculators, blame it on big oil, blame it on supply and demand. It doesn't matter, none of those factors are going away. We're simply in a new trading range. Using the SPR will accomplish nothing. Maybe a minor drop for a day or two. When Obama did it late spring oil was already heading down and don't forget, we have to buy it back to replenish the stockpile. I believe the only way to reduce the price of oil is through demand destruction. And we can't build windmills, solar panels and electric cars fast enought to accomplish that. Right here it seems oil has little resistance and the move higher appears to be gaining momentum. I think our economic recovery is still fragile and I think someday very soon oil will get expensive enough that investors will get nervous about economic growth and equities will move SHARPLY lower. That is when you'll see the uptrend in oil reverse. I have no idea at what price that happens but like everything else these days, it will happen quickly. It's really just a question of when.
    26 Feb 2012, 02:49 PM Reply Like
  • Good news Tclark, $5ish oil will indeed "destroy" demand although not as quickly or perhaps as much as we would like.
    26 Feb 2012, 03:38 PM Reply Like
  • So we can never have an economic recovery because that would drive oil prices up which in turn will cause a recession which will bring prices down which will cause the economy to recover that will push prices higher.........

    Speculation.
    26 Feb 2012, 05:51 PM Reply Like
  • I don't think that's the case all the time, Optionmaniac. I was merely speculating on what will ultimately break oil prices this time.
    26 Feb 2012, 06:10 PM Reply Like
  • Yes, of course. Only a recovery coupled with wage inflation will mitigate the effects of higher gas prices. Our new economy (created by economic evolution more than public policy) will create those wages for those who have the right skills, and possibly (and unfortunately), it will not take the participation of every worker for the economy to keep improving.
    26 Feb 2012, 06:41 PM Reply Like
  • Like low (nat) gas prices fix low gas prices; high gasoline prices will fix high gasoline prices. Unfortunately, it hurts.
    26 Feb 2012, 07:44 PM Reply Like
  • What nobody has mentioned here is that gasoline prices are probably in a bubble, and will not hold at these high prices much longer.
    27 Feb 2012, 03:08 PM Reply Like
  • I disagree, prices can hold here. They may flucuate lower with daily new events. But prices will remain in a tight trading range until summer. At which point they will rise, especially if you live in a state like myself where summer reformulated blends must be sold. These summer blends come at a higher price.
    27 Feb 2012, 03:23 PM Reply Like
  • There are so many smart guys here, I got the question. When price of the crude goes down it take one month to reflect the pump but when price of the crude goes up it take one second to reflect the pump, why? My gas station guy has one person listing to the radio and as soon as price goes up it changes the prices on the board.
    2 Mar 2012, 02:55 PM Reply Like
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