Hey New Yorkers...

[Reign in Acai]

is this fucking true:
$4.26

The price of a gallon of regular self-serve gas
"I had no other options," said Carey Macaleer, 29, as she paid a whopping $49.16 to fill up her navy blue Subaru Outback. "I'm virtually empty and I'm going to Westchester."

Why didn't she just put in a gallon or two, and drive to the next nearest gas station?

 

[cthulufhtagn]

@ lizard's article

Why didn't she just put in a gallon or two, and drive to the next nearest gas station?

haha my thoughts exactly

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

2.95 here. bullshit! It makes me wanna blow up a really important building.... I mean, blow men, yeah blow men...

 

[lizard]

Careful, dude, blogs are monitored by the NSA and FBI, it stands to reason boards are too, looking for key words.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

na, they know im kidding.

 

[lizard]

So thought that guy in the ninja costome who ended up with the ATF boot on his neck

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

yeah that sucks.

 

[lizard]

wow, CNN is doing a story about how NYC hasn't been hit by a major hurricane since the "30s but if it was, it would be catastrophic, and Allstate is beginning to cancel flood insurance policies in the area! Wallstreet would be under seven feet of water!

 

[lurch70]

oddly enough, a real estate guy I know who deals mostly with Manhattan was talking "water disasters" yesterday ... and how Manhattan would be fucked ... I mean most the island IS landfill, espacially the outer edges ... it is however pretty landlocked.

Brooklyn and Queens (where I live) are on an island as well ... and are more exposed to the elements ...

 

[MFJ]

$3.30 here

 

[lizard]

what, gas per gallon??

 

[NAD]

It's been around $3.50 for a month or longer now. Hooray for not having to pay for gas! Boo for paying for paying for everything else on a "company" car.

 

[NAD]

FTC: Some Gas Price Gouging After Katrina

By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer 42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Federal Trade Commission on Monday said it found 15 examples of gasoline price gouging after Hurricane Katrina, though the agency said it has not identified any widespread effort by the oil industry to illegally manipulate the marketplace.

The agency sought to downplay the instances of price gouging by seven refiners, two wholesalers and six retailers, chalking up their soaring prices in September 2005 to "regional or local market trends."

For the purpose of the report, and as mandated by Congress, the FTC defined price gouging as "any finding" that the average price of gasoline in designated disaster areas in September 2005 was higher than in August 2005 for reasons other than rising production or transportation costs, or national or international market trends.

The FTC was first directed by the energy law passed last August — before Katrina — to investigate whether oil companies manipulated the price of gasoline in any way, including whether they intentionally held back refining capacity to keep supplies artificially tight. This part of the agency's probe found "no instances of illegal market manipulation."

Congress demanded separate investigations into the industry's pricing activities — as well as its enormous profits — after Hurricane Katrina, which severely disrupted the flow of oil and natural-gas in the Gulf of Mexico and also caused the shutdown of onshore refineries and pipelines.

In the week after the hurricane, retail gasoline prices leapt 46 cents to a record nationwide average of $3.07 per gallon.

The team of FTC lawyers and economists who conducted the investigation found no evidence of malicious intent in 14 of the 15 instances of price gouging. Rather, they concluded that local market conditions, ranging from pipeline outages to panic buying, created confusion among retailers about how to price their fuel. At the refinery level, the so-called gouging resulted from the fact that refiners whose plants were shut down by the storms were forced to buy gasoline on the open market and then re-sell it, which created higher-than-normal pricing.

One retailer was determined to be taking advantage of the catastrophe for personal gain, according to Phill Broyles, assistant director of the agency's bureau of competition. None of the companies were named in the report.

"What we found ought to give people confidence that while prices might be higher than they like, it isn't the result of anything nefarious by the oil companies," Broyles said in an interview.

In 2005, the country's three largest integrated oil companies — Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips — earned more than $63 billion. They made an additional $16 billion in the first quarter of 2006 amid soaring prices for oil, natural gas and gasoline.

At the moment, pump prices for regular unleaded average $2.89 a gallon nationwide.

Facing criticism from the public and Congress over persistently high fuel prices, President Bush earlier this spring vowed to pursue any collusion or price gouging and directed the Justice Department to help states pursue allegations of such behavior. But the White House said it opposed additional federal laws to address price gouging or strengthen antitrust laws as they pertain to oil companies, as some members of Congress have proposed.

The FTC does not have jurisdiction to prosecute cases of criminal violations of federal antitrust laws, though it can refer those cases to agencies that do.

.