Price of GAS

Seinfeld went to Tuscany, just to see if the maestro was right.

 

That makes sense and sounds fun till I try to figure out where to put and use my drill press, welder, grinder, 6'X8' tool box, air compressor, etc., etc.

 

Hey Jerry, if you live on board of cruise ship year-round, you won't be needing to keep any of the tools you own. eBay is a good place to get rid of your material possessions. Or... you can take a part-time job as a maintenance guy on board, in which case, I am sure they will provide you will all the tools you will need!

BTW, I think one of the quotes of mine you put in your comment belongs to another thread.

 

In the USN you get a sea service ribbon for every year you spend aboard a seagoing command.

I have nine of them.

No thanks.
Besides….where would I ride my bike?
I’m thinking that they normally do not have pistol and rifle ranges aboard cruise ships, and it would be hard to fly my UAV.
I’m guessing also that they’re not big on churches on Sunday morning and although I’m fine enough without close neighbors all around me the idea of knowing NOBODY in town sounds a little depressing.

Might be heaven on earth to some, but I’ve already done my time on the pond and in the pond.
I’ll finish out the back nine ashore.

 

Sounds lime a 'freakonomics' tale.

Bob Wilson

 

That would be horrible!!! Yeah, I'd have to ask if they need help in engineering.

I saw that. Wonder how I managed that.

Good point. But I remember seeing skeet shooting on cruise ships in old movies. But that was before they destroyed our mental health system and let out all the people who should be in mental health care facilities.

It sure does now that you mention it. I guess that you might get to know the crews if you do repeat cruises.

 

I have a cousin who was an entertainer aboard one of those.
Their crews rotate out fairly regularly except for the housekeeping and food services.

There's three things that the Caribbean has in abundance.
Cruise Ships.
Tourist Traps.
NATO Submarines.

The US Navy operates the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in Andros Town, Bahamas. One of the public things that they do there is operate a torpedo firing range at which all submarines are required to qualify periodically.
I was there three times in 10 patrols.
Subs offload some of their (green) warshots at Port Canaveral and load a certain number of (Orange) practice torpedoes, and then they transit down to the AUTEC range.

What do they do on the way down?

Practice!

if you're on a Cruise ship and you see a submarine it will usually be doing one of three things:
*Swim call.
*Routine periscope depth-type stuff. You'll see a bunch of masts and antennae and perhaps faint smoke if they're snorkeling.
*Practicing the art of sinking surface ships on the way to the AUTEC range!

If you only see a periscope, that kinda narrows it down.
Use binos.
The attack periscope is made to be hard to see, and they'll probably be quite a ways off.

I've often speculated that one day a fatigue addled sub crew will screw up the tube lineup and, despite the safeties, accidently launch a warshot instead of a water slug at a big fat cruise ship plodding along in the Bahamas.
Of course....they'd be able to shut down the weapon.....maybe.....if the wire or fiber is good.


Enjoy the cruise.

 

Or stay home, and look for torpedos in your garage.

Just last week, oddly enough.

 

Funny how premium used to be 2% more expensive

 

It hasn't been 2% for quite some time here.

Part of that pricing is the alcohol free premium. I've seen $2 more for that in the past.

 

I wonder if the price of premium gas has altered people's behavior who insisted on putting Premium gas in cars that only required regular gas.

 

In group travel situations, most people can make new friends very quickly. Though I should admit that with our usual niche vendor, usually we already know several people from prior adventures.

For those who aren't yet practiced at making new friends quickly, age related dementia may eventually provide opportunity to practice every day.

I remember doing it several times myself. Though that is now far enough back to qualify as 'old movies' times.

I wasn't any good at it, and am competitive only at drilling stationary targets.

 

and golf balls

 

If I'm remembering those old days right, the illustrated premium was for leaded, not unleaded. For a given octane, unleaded was more expensive, which was part of the reason numerous people would punch out their cats and unleaded filler hole restriction, and run the cheaper leaded.

I'm usually not seeing enough spread between regular and premium E10 to alter very many people's behaviors. Larger spreads are usually a marker of E0 on the higher octane offering, as in the picture above.

 

Given we have one station charging $6 for 93 premium I would say no because premium really doesn’t cost more to produce, great profit center.

Also funny how the price gouging laws don’t apply to premium

Then we have this

Gasoline, Diesel, Jet Fuel Refining Capacity Is Too Low in the US to Meet Demand - Bloomberg

Places like BP were operating refineries built in the 50’s and 60’s without maintenance just paying for it when there was a release or spill, now they refuse to repair and re open many of the refineries and have no desire to build new either.

Those of us noticing big differences between crude vrs per gallon gas prices compared to historical knew something stinks.

The reality is we have allowed our refining capacity to drop too far below our pumping capacity , so supply no longer matters because we can’t produce gasoline

Looks like a case that the government should immenint domain any shuttered refineries and put them under US military ownership and operation as a national security matter

Might also need to produce methanol and ethanol near term to make up the shortfall

Nothing like $10/gallon gas

unrelated but 2017 bolts seem to sell for the same price as new

Around here the smallest spread I’ve seen in the last 15 years is $0.80

Actual premium in the 80/90’s was usually only a nickel more which is about 5%
A popular tactic was to sell rug and midgrade for the same price in the 80s/90s even had one station where premium and rug were the same price

 

what price gauging laws?

 

I guess Wisconsin doesn’t let you increase the price twice in a day but they are ruthless if a station is a penny or two cheaper than anyone else. All our independent Marathon stations were put out of business 20 years ago for violating minimum markup laws.

During specific shock events many years ago the government fined stations for price gouging, can’t even remember which disasters pinged price gouging

 

$0.33-0.35 spread at my nearest Costcos this morning, according to GasBuddy.

I seem to remember plenty of $0.30 spreads around here in the past half year, and not all that long since a few $0.20 spreads. $0.40-0.50 isn't abnormal, but anything as large as the $0.80 you see is very rare here.

 

I might have actually bought Premium for the Volt if the price spreads were only $0.20-$0.30

As was Kwik Trip 88 was my fuel of choice during my entire ownership

 

The compounds used as octane boosters generally have value on their own.

The oil companies just get higher profits with reduced refining capacity, and will likely use a supply crisis to get regulation exemptions for those shuttered plants. Some were shut down for not meeting current environmental laws.

$0.40-0.50 here last time I paid attention, or twice the amount for using premium in the turbo Sonic to break even with using regular.

Station signs only display the price of regular and diesel here.