What's your gas limit?

People seem to grumble at $3.55/gal over here. Grumble, but not get angry. I wonder what peoples breaking points are for the stuff. Is it 4.00? will it be 5.00? What's yours?

I don't drive a lot since I work at home so I might put 20-30.00 in per month. I ask this question to kind of gauge when people will start releasing the pent up pressure. I've always held that it won't be politics directly that breaks this country.. it will be an economic catastrophe that sends people over the edge, mostly revolving around food and fuel.

 

The price of gas is already cutting into the quality of life around here. Weekend road trips are now very limited.I recently bought a motorcycle to extend my mobility while reducing consumption. $10.00 a gallon would still find me bitching but still playing. I got places to go and people to see; this will just eat more disposable income and put more potatoes than steak on the table.

 

Food and Fuel

I am sure the .gov (or whoever is pulling the strings to it) are carefully gauging the public limit of patience in the arena of "food and fuel". The .gov wants to know so it will be able to cause (in some cases) and then prevent (in other cases) violent outbreaks, all along a time table established by too many seemingly unrelated factors for us to completely grasp.

They've "wargamed" this "food and fuel" debacle in order to manipulate it to increase .gov control, maximize rationing power, and docile compliance by the general populace at the "proper" moment in history. It's not a perfect science for .gov, but they've been studying this society and what makes it tick for generations. They won't let a "good crisis go to waste."

What do I think will be the fuel breaking point?---Probably somewhere between $7 and $8 per gallon.
What's my guess for food costs?---I can't even guess, but is it true that already 20% of the U.S. population qualifies for food stamps? Most of us have already made daily life-style food cost adjustments to keep prepping capabilities peaked.
Just my two zinc, copper washed cents worth....

 

Hate to be a smartass but is there a limit as to what we'll pay. Unless you are independently wealthy and can afford to not work, then you are gonna have to pay whatever it cost.

I'm wondering how high fuel prices need to get before the whole country shuts down.

 

Yep, if we have to get to work and back, we buy the danged over-priced go-juice and drive. IF the traffic reduces by a good bit, I MIGHT be able to ride a pedalbike into work - now would simply be too dangerous - half the ride is highway. I have a bike rider friend who's been hit and hospitalized TWICE, after being hit by moron drivers.
I'll ride my motorcycle more, but even that has it's downsides.

 

There probably isn't a limit. I would pay 500 FRNs/gallon for enough fuel to run my garden tiller and chainsaws, since both of those would provide a lot of food and fuel. But that is ALSO why I have hundreds of gallons of gas/diesel in storage.....so I don't HAVE to pay that, or in a total SHTF situation, it isn't available at all.

But in practical terms, I think society will tend to shut down around 5-6 bucks/gal. Face it, consumer spending drives our economy. You zap enough spending spent on other stuff and move it to spending on fuel, and 25-30% of the economy will die.

Then you take the number of people working for minimum wage, and when it costs them more to go to work than they get in return, and they won't go.....the dishes won't get washed, the burger's won't get flipped, and so on....

Gas prices are actually self limiting in the amount they can go up, assuming supply isn't an issue, because demand will fall off. I read somewhere the best thing for high gas price was high gas price. As long as oil doesn't get TOO tight, gas prices will solve themself.

 

$6.00 is what I was thinking.. for some reason $5.00 has some, basic, psychological "rounding" to it that people seem to think is normal or "cheap".

Good point. I believe people will do what they need to do to get the gas to run their equipment. Whether that be paying for it, or by some other unscrupulous means.

 

Me i'm looking at $6.oo dollar's a gallon before i have to stop and rethink the work and other thing's My company give's me a gas card and as long i'm not running wide on it they will pay for the gas i use for i use my own personal car as a company car driveing around the area i need to do ..

The problem is where i'm at is the talk about shuting down the office in La moveing back to Hawaii or keeping it open that the question that is on everyone mind right now is the office going to be open here next month if the gas price's goes higher than $6.oo dollar's a gallon

Plus i have notice now that i drive a smart car is the question of how is the gas mileage on the car not you know that car is a death trap right

 

Gents and ladies, when it costs you 75.00 FRNs to fill your tank once a week @ current local pricing, unless you get a pay raise, you are going to start feeling the squeeze. Food and fuel are irrevocably tied together, whether we like it or not. The current local price of guzzoline averages 3.59/gal. This is at 104.00/barrel crude for April delivery. Once that bad boy pegs $5.00 a gal (I think at 130/barrel crude), folks will really pull back on all driving/fuel use. It *will* hit 150/barrel and 6-7.00 FRN/gal guzzoline if the Mideast heats up any more. Oh wait...that is scheduled for this Friday...it will be an interesting week. My limit? hard to say. At 5.00/gal the family car-pools. $6-7/gal? Well, food prices will be so astronomical that we will be eating preps.

 

I think 7-8 a gallon will send the suburbs over the edge. The inner cities will go a little higher as they have tax subsidized transportation to fall back on and many of them still dont have cars anyway. We will see a tax increase as fuel taxes drop due to lack of sales and to subsidize the increase in transit use. I think for many where one wage earner starts costing more than the benefit of their wages will stop working take funemployment and help over load the system Everything is connected.

 

I have to agree with that but think about what that means and why;nothing happens by accident

 

Obviously, people will pay whatever they have to to keep getting to work, but...

I'd say that by $4 there will be fewer people working. By $5, there will be a lot fewer people working. We may see $6 before the next big leg down, but I don't think so. Why? Because as gas goes up, all other spending is curtailed. The rest of the economy will easily die off before we get to $6, and it will probably die before we get to $5.

Of course, all bets are off if Saudi Arabia disintegrates this weekend! In that case, we could see $20 next week, just before the lights go out. (I remember when I said this kind of thing in jest. Must be getting old..)