The ridiculous price of fuel

[Treehugger]

This is in a way linked to your previous thread Oola, so apologies if you think that it should be placed under that. The price of petrol at our local petrol station went up 2p a litre yesterday. I am astounded by this and utterly stumped when people just accept it as a fact of life and carry on regardless. The cost of living is increasing and yet we just stumble on like Lemmings. Why isn't the country up in arms? Why aren't we, as a nation, making our views known? If this was happening in France there would be marches etc by now, but the people of Britain just quietly go about their business as if everything were normal and we weren't being ripped off every time we go to buy something. Apologies if there is some deeper reason for rising prices that I am ignorant of, but I really do feel increasingly frustrated by the economy in this country.

[Oola]

I think because we feel powerless to do anything about it. If people striked, they'd lose their income, the economy would suffer even more and the problem would be compounded I think. People probably literally feel that the price of living is so high at the moment that they can't take time out to take action. Sad isn't it.

I for one think the government ought to reduce the tax on fuel to try and level the playing field out a bit. They must be making an absolute MINT at the moment from these hikes in fuel.

[sandybay]

The government may be making a mint from the fuel taxation but at least that goes into the public purse. We as individuals may not always agree with how that money is spent, but at least we can use our democratic vote in an election.

Far more insidious is the money being made by speculators in the finance markets. They gamble on oil price 'futures' and ruin peoples lives with the consequences as they drive the prices higher.

The Sunday Times named one dealer today who is estimated to have made £100 million. That is the real scandal but seems to be accepted as part of the so-called free market.

[Pippa]

Unfortunately, living in the country, fuel has to be bought no matter what, still have to travel to work. At least with heating oil, you spend about £600 buying a tankfull then it is up to you how you use it, ekeing it out but diesel for the vehicle seems to be going up apenny a day around here, so try to do everything either on the way to or back from work. I feel for pensioners on a fixed income, people who have worked and sav ed all their lives but cannot afford to go anywhere, most unfair.

[keepersdaughter]

I was astounded by the price of petrol back home. Over here (us), it's out of control too. They said on the news last night the price had jumped on average 10c in 3 days. It's a holiday weekend here too (Memorial Day), usually the start of the big summer exodus when people head out on holiday to the beach or lakes. This year people are having to stay home. My OH works for an airline and the airlines have had to raise prices and they are now charging for checked luggage, extra weight means extra fuel consumed. Unfortunately, you have to go sometimes great distances just to get anywhere here and in many cases, such as where I'm living there is no public transport so you have no option. I don't really understand why this has suddenly happened. I understand that countries like china are demanding more fuel as more people acquire vehicles there, but surely there is more to it. Gas companies are making record profits,
I'm really beginning to get concerned because the price of food is skyrocketing here and it will have a knock on effect on everything. People wont go on holiday - the travel industry will be impacted, my son has been looking for a summer job - no-ones hiring because people aren't spending as much because fuel and food are so expensive. The governments don't appear to be saying or doing anything. Makes you wonder doesn't it,
like you say someones making a mint, but just how far can this go on without people saying enough is enough.

[littlemiss]

just over four years ago i was in london and i lived for just over a year in mayfair, on my street was a number of embasys including the arabian embasy and alot of arabs lived in the area, one of the friends who owned and ran a hedge fund was a member of a private club (mayfair club, now since closed) so he signed us all in for the evening, it was a very exclusive club and cost a small fortune in annual membership so as you can guess the clientelle were all fairly affluent, i got talking to some of the members as the evening went on, amongst them were a group of businessmen and a fairly high retired army official who was fluent in a few arab languages, he was working as a translator in the arabian embassy at the time and was privvy on the most sensitive information, as my friend was trading on the oil futures market they all got talking, this is what they told us, there were talks between all the arab oil producers (opec) and they had put aside any of their historic differences amongst themselves and made an agreement, because of the constant interfearance by the USA and their refusal to stop meddling they decided to hoard their oil and limit the amount availiable to the west by 50%, it was agreed that they would do this until it did great damage the american economy and they were prepared to keep this up continually for the forseeable future, also, as britain stood by america as an ally they saw the affects on the british economy as an extra bonus, they are buying their own oil back on the futures markets, its complicated to explain but when you invest say a million quid with a hedge fund it gives you greater financial leverage (of about 3 million quid) and all investors are confidential and anonymous, if you think of the billions of $$$ and £££ that the arabs have then imagine them investing annonymously in funds around the world INCLUDING uk funds, tripling the amount of $ that they have invested and stockpileing their own oil pushing up the price for the rest of the world in a bid to bring america to its knees and with it britain! not long after this talk in mayfair, the government announced that it wanted to go greener and more self sufficient on its own energy and promised to invest millions in hydro and wind power etc etc, also at the same time a top businessman in charge of the russian oil producers was murdered... not long after he looked into providing more oil to the west and not doing a particular deal with opec! the government does not want to stand up and say, hey we are the ones responsible for rocketing oil prices due to our meddling, rather they cover it up and try and look like they give a **** about the environment, when all they care about are the elections and their own £££, since that evening in mayfair i have watched the politics surrounding oil quite closely over the last few years and it is all unravelling just as the embassy translator said it would, there will be no drop in the price of crude as far as i can see as the arabs can afford to sit back in their palaces for as long as it takes for the west to crumble, i have already looked into alternative means of living 'off the grid' as inevitably all areas of our lives will be affected from food prices to the cost of utilities, i know this all sounds just a wee bit 'orwellian' but politics is a scary and underhand business of which we the general public are kept in the dark, as long as they make empty promises, shake hands, cuddle babies and generally pull the wool over our eyes people will continue to be unaware of what really goes on. sorry if i am being miserable and depressing x

[keepersdaughter]

Littlemiss I was appalled to read what you wrote, but to be honest, not really surprised. I've been thinking for a while there has to be more going on on the political and finacial fronts. But surely the us and UK governments are aware of this and if so, other than lining their own pockets what can they hope to gain when their countries crumble and are in ruins?.

[littlemiss]

when i asked this very same question the reply was ' everyone has been buying property portfolios in neutral countries, especially switzerland and newzealand, when things go belly up over here, they retire, jump ship (just like rats!) and b****r off abroad!'

[emjay53]

Lttlemiss, what you say is very worrying but completely believable, I can see what you are saying is right. I wonder how much longer the western countries will be able to sustain what has been there lifestyle.

The trouble at ground level is that we need our fuel tanks full in order to go about our daily business in order to earn our livings and survive. We live in a remote village with no shop, no post office, no school etc. The nearest shop is five miles away, so thats a ten mile round trip. Maybe when I was younger I would have said ''Oh well, I'll use my bike''. but that isnt an option for me now, and I guess many other ppl are in the same boat. I also have to have very frequent trips to a hospital 40 miles away, and there is no bus which would take me there, so again I need my car.

I always admire the French for how they come out protesting and making their voices heard. We in the UK never do that, and I wish we did. However for the reasons I have listed above, it would be very difficult for me if that happened, and I guess probably even more difficult for many other ppl who need their vehicles on a daily basis to get to work. When we had the last fuel strikes I remember having to queue for 2 hours for petrol in order to enable me to get back and forward to work. If we dont work we dont earn money, and if we dont earn money we cant pay the mortgage or rent, cant pay the gas or electricity bills and cant eat. Maybe the French have a more unified approach to protesting but I would say that in this country it would soon become dog eat dog, and the weakest would go to the wall pretty quickly whilst those who were more able to survive would be ready and waiting to pick over the bones. As when house prices start generating more neg equity and repo's, there is always some greedy speculator ready to snap up someones home at a knock down price.

[littlemiss]

we have all grown so accustomed to our ways of life that to live any other way seems impossible and daunting, however sometimes our abilities to adapt when we have no choice is surprising, you only need to look at the wartime rationing!, there are so many ways that can reduce consumption of oil and other fuels that are commonly availiable to us now, if everyone took these measures then the demand for oil would be less and therefore would be cheaper! did you know you can run a deisel car on sunflower oil or cooking oil? there is a local man who drives a jeep that he fills up at the supermarket checkout not forecourt,he buys those extra large containers of tesco's own brand oil and fills up his 4x4 jeep so much cheaper than us diesel users and it runs just fine. we could all stick a small wind turbine on the side of our houses to run the basic electrical needs of a house, two if you wanted to go completely off grid. install efficient logburners instead of open fires and central heating, did you know, an open fire will take 80% of the heat up the chimney and only put 20% of the heat into the room, but an efficient log burner will do exactly the opposite... 80% heat into the house and only 20% up the chimney, and burns for 24 hours on the same amount of fuel that an open fire would use in one evening! AND they can heat your hot water too! (but be careful, a rubbish log burner is no different to an open fire!) insulate buildings, plan ahead to minimize the amount of trips to town you need. on fridays me, my mother and our local friends go into the local town for the market (to support local shops and producers not supermarkets), we take it in turns each week as to who drives, and if someone is too busy to go, we pick up their shopping for them, there are so many ways we can all cut down but it wouldnt work properly if only some of us do it and the rest carry on in ignorance, if the government really cared about energy consumption issues then the need for planning permission on small wind turbines would be lifted, vat on all energy saving products would be lifted, there would be initiatives nationwide for every household to be able to afford to do the most basic things such as compost and recycle to larger things such as install big water collection tanks, what is availiable to the public at the moment is just an empty gesture and a feeble effort at trying to look green.