how are gas prices,and the current economy,

[pastortom1]

In Zephyrhills Florida this morning, we just paid $3.89 for 87 octane at Sunoco...........We're lucky to be so close to a major port.........

A lot of you guys must be payin' a lot more..............So far, it hasn't affected the local monthly cruise/shows much, but the ones out at a distance are being hit with a bit less attendance.............

I'm sure it will get worse.............If I have to travel 20 or 30 miles for a good show, I'll still get there........much farther than that will start to really hurt the wallet.............Don't drive the classic much during the week anymore, but still get in the garage to work on the details..........

I'l tell you this...............If I use the time I WOULD have cruised to actually DETAIL the car more, it's gonna be one classy act in a few months time!

Guess I'll have to cruise in the garage more..........(I'll have to put the old 32" TV up on the ceiling and pretend it's the Drive-In !) :toothy10:

 

[crackedback]

I know that on a recent trip to Lake Havasu, there was about 50% of the normal boat traffic floating around.

Local truck stop has about 20 big rig fueling stations and is full all the time.... not any more. Every time I've been by to fill up, there have been maybe 5 trucks. The gasoline pumps had no line. This was particularly interesting on the Friday of Memorial day weekend. The place is a mad house in years past. Areas on the highway that usually are a parking lots on the way home... nope smooth sailing.

IMHO, the clusterf*ck that is Iraq is the biggest reason for the rise in fuel prices and it has NOTHING to do with supply/demand curves. You have the dancing monkey and heart attack boy to thank for that one. Who currently controls congress has nothing to do with the recent run up.

I'll say this, those that are so blinded by political party loyalty are really missing the boat. If Satan was the candidate for either party, I know people on both sides that would vote for Satan out of blind loyalty. How stupid is that.

I don't like either party, they are the same wolf dressed in different clothes. Republicans borrow and spend, Dems tax and spend. One just defers the cost to future generations. All the people complaining about getting taxed too much, then supporting the war or other wasteful ventures need to think about just who is supposed to pay for that stuff. It's just like the 30K millionaires that borrow more than they can pay back to get stuff because they "WANT IT NOW!"

Way rougher time are just around the corner, IMHO.

 

[68 Sedan]

Thanks redness. I knew someone with the facts would chime in and debunk that ****. I guess he probably believes our own government took down the twin towers too

 

[CudaChick1968]

Great discussion Toby!

Since what I do isn't required -- doesn't make your car faster or help it get better mileage, just makes it prettier -- I've seen a steady decline almost since the day I opened my doors. Despite reasonable prices and monthly specials, I had ONE customer in all of May (a $30 bracket for a '69 Camaro hood scoop wooooooooo boy) and haven't had any so far this month. Obviously, "disposable income" on anyone's part is a thing of the past ... we're all just trying to keep food on the table and pay the bills let alone have any fun or participate in the hobby we all know and love so much.

My Cuda hasn't seen any progress since January of last year (and even then it was a trade for some new rims). Billy just traded his '67 Camaro for a beautiful '48 Fiat Altered ... when it will be ready to hit the track is anyone's guess since it needs a race PowerGlide and obviously fuel to run it. In the meantime, I'm going to powder coat everything I can on the beast and hopefully eventually use it to showcase my work when I can afford to get to a few shows again. With business this bad, honestly I'm lucky to have electricity to type this reply!!! LOL Had to swallow what's left of my pride and go apply for food stamps. Makes me feel about an inch tall. Like the rest of you, I'd rather earn the money through honest work instead of through government assistance programs. But what can ya do?

There's GOTTA be an end to this soon, but I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

 

[RedFish]

The wife is out of work and drawing unemployment. Although gas is only 3.74 per gal. here today everything else is up too. Our little road trips to car related events or even a vacation not happening this year.
I'm forced to sell a set of bucket seats that I would rather keep.
Not so much for bill money but to continue funding a project that may show a little profit eventually. Only other option would be place that project on hold. Thing is I already have money invested in it and have my mind wrapped around it fairly tight right now. LOL
Mans gotta do whata mans gotta do. I just hope there are some deeper pockets lurking around ebay and I dont loose money on the seats.

 

[AdamR]

I moved in to a smaller place April and took a second job in March so we would have some extra money. Were still struggling to keep up with bills.

The Dart has sat untouched since around February.

 

[ab7fh]

ab7fh, I'll forgive you for trying to foist that tripe on the rest of us. I just noticed you're located in Arizona. The heat tends to cook your melon.

Don't forget - This is where McCain calls home:angry7:

 

[ab7fh]

Thanks redness. I knew someone with the facts would chime in and debunk that ****. I guess he probably believes our own government took down the twin towers too

No sir, no tin foil here. I'm reality based.

This graph is reality...

Fuel prices have never before rose at a rate like we've seen since big oil Bush and his buddy Dick took control of the Whitehouse.

Bush said back in 2003 that we needed more refining capacity. He claimed all his tax breaks for the rich would come back to us by way of improvements to our nations infrastructure. So where are the new refineries, or old refineries with improved capacity? Where was Bush's big push to get them built? He wouldn't shut up about ANWR, which incidentally is a place McCain is against drilling in, but he hardly said anything to "entice" his friends who own the oil companies to start pushing paper to get new plants built.

Even Bill O'Reilly can't say enough bad things about the oil company execs and their lack of empathy for the American public. They care about themselves and their share holders. Our country could be sold off to China lock stock and barrel, and those bastards would still only care about their dividends. Sure that's capitalism in action, but at the same time it's freakin' anti-American:spiderma:

 

[68 Sedan]

It's the liberal democrat's idea to not drill ANWR or off the coast. And I suppose you think it's a good idea to raise taxes which Yomamma and the Murder's wife BOTH said they want to do. Good idea.

Next thing you're gonna try to convince us of it bush personally made the economy dip before he was even sworn in. Check it out. All you pinko liberal faglovers started freakin out even before he was sworn in. All that had to happen for nothing to happen was....for nothing to happen.

OMG...A Republican was elected!! Lets pull all our money out of the market (etc) and bury our heads in the sand! IT'S the end of everything.

Total bullshit. IF people hadn't freaked, then nothing, NOTHING would have happened after he was declared the winner.

I'm not a republican OR a democrat, but the liberal left is at the heart of a LOT of bad things happening to this country. It is they who are at the center of our moral decline. And had Mr.Stiffy been in the white house after 911 we'd still be having attacks on U.S. soil. Cause he/they don't have the BALLS to stand up and say **** YOU. YOU AIN'T DOIN THAT HERE

my apologies to the FABO at large

 

[CudaChick1968]

Here's one for ya all. Muahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPch2k63uj4

 

[ab7fh]

I'm not a republican OR a democrat, but the liberal left is at the heart of a LOT of bad things happening to this country.

Bush had a four year honeymoon with a Republican House and Senate... Why do you think that honeymoon ended?

Moral decline? The Republican's have had their share of closet homosexuals, those who cheat on their spouses, and a Vice President who dropped the "F" bomb. In it's current form, it's hardly the party of morality and virtue....

I'm still hoping for a viable third party candidate. I don't like ANY of our current choices and believe that a vote for either a mainstream "D" or "R" will most likely be another nail in our coffin

Both McCain and Obama have the ability to really mess things up. However, McCain scares me more than Obama since he's so embedded in the political machine. Obama doesn't have the "machine" behind him so it would be very difficult for him to institute any drastic changes. Of the two, I believe Obama would cause the least harm and has the potential to do the most good.

However, I'm still hoping for that third party candidate who will change my mind;)

 

[ab7fh]

It's the liberal democrat's idea to not drill ANWR or off the coast.

http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworkn...delphia-mccain-sees-tough-road-in-big-cities/
"McCain played up the fact that his views differ from the Bush administration’s. He told the crowd he doesn’t want to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska"

Next thing you're gonna try to convince us of it bush personally made the economy dip before he was even sworn in. Check it out. All you pinko liberal faglovers started freakin out even before he was sworn in. All that had to happen for nothing to happen was....for nothing to happen.

Ahh, so the minority of the country, those who didn't vote for Bush, had enough power to destroy our economy in 7 years. It had nothing to do with a war which has cost about a trillion dollars? A trillion dollars couldn't have been spent in our own country, modernizing our schools, power plants, refineries, etc? Or the mishandling of a natural disaster which allocated billions of dollars to the relief effort, much wasted and unaccounted for? Nice theory, but I don't buy it.

OMG...A Republican was elected!! Lets pull all our money out of the market (etc) and bury our heads in the sand! IT'S the end of everything.

That's pretty much what the right is saying these days about Obama or Hillary taking power. They have been labled Socialist, Marxist, Communist, even terrorist, according to the right if either were to be elected "it would be the end of everything".

Total bullshit. IF people hadn't freaked, then nothing, NOTHING would have happened after he was declared the winner.

Ahh really, so 9/11 wouldn't have happened, we never would have went into Iraq and a hurricane would never had hit New Orleans. Geez, those liberals have a LOT of power!

Bush is a big boy and all of those messes were his to deal with. While I was right with him when we went into Afghanistan, I knew Iraq was wrong from the start. Wrong because he went about it the wrong way, like a cowboy, instead of like a diplomat who was looking at all angles of the situation BEFORE he jumped in. Bush was told by PLENTY of advisor's that we needed to plan for security after we liberated Iraq. Bush believed his "gut" which told him that the Iraqi's would just bend over and greet us with open arms, taking care of their own security, blah, blah... For that blunder alone, he should never have been re-elected. For the blunder of sitting in a kindergarten class stupid faced for 10 minutes while the nation was under attack should have been enough of a reason for him to not be elected, but no, we got him for 8 years instead of just 4.

I'm not a republican OR a democrat, but the liberal left is at the heart of a LOT of bad things happening to this country.

I am also an independent voter. In fact I voted for Bush in 2000. I disagree that it's the "liberals" fault that bad things are happening in this country. We have to ALL look at ourselves regardless of party affiliation... We've allowed our nation to become this way through complacency. We complain about the government, but we keep electing the same people to represent us, what kind of schizophrenic attitude is that? Not enough people stand up and make noise about what they believe in. If they did, the government couldn't get away with half of what they do. We have also let the far ends of BOTH parties define the parties, when in fact each party is made up of many more moderates than extremes. That I blame on our lousy media.

 

[AdamR]

Lets get back on to the original subject please.

You can use the "gas hit $4.50 a gallon" thread to talk about the political aspect of it.

 

[whitey]

Please remember this really rapid rise in gas prices etc happened after "we" elected a democratic congress

Doesn't matter the party, they are ALL crooked as a dogs hind leg!

 

[grimreaper]

What few parts I can still afford to buy I can't afford to ship! And, I sure don't drive as much. Walk when I can, ride bike when I can.