It has been at least four days now since any one person has made any new comments. I hate to be the one to break the ice! Has the Thanksgiving feasts taken that much of a toll on everybody...including this poster? Well, after recovering from the feast and the leftover cold sandwiches and miscellaneous hot plates, I decided to take my four vehicles, separately, one at a time, of course, to our local Shell service station in Tumauini to fill up their tanks. The two cars and the two motorcycles all take Super Premium, 98+ octane. The price for this high-test gas here is averaging about P37.00 pesos per liter. One gallon is equaling 3.7854 liters (liquid measure). For about 1 gallon of Super Premium gasoline here, averages to be P140.06 pesos per gallon. We are at an exchange rate of 47:1 ($1.00 US = 47 Philippine pesos); so, Super Premium cost me $2.98 per gallon. Still expensive. I just took a look at the gasoline prices in the Fillmore area, and the Shell (highest among the polls or other stations like Chevron, USA, etc), averaged about $2.20; and this pricing fluctuates. Not everybody is driving around here because their gasoline prices are still very high to these indigenous people on the local economy level. In the US, it is another story. I could live with the Super Premium gas going at about $2.20 cents a gallon. But, ever notice the pre-heating season, pre-shopping season, the pre-holiday travel season, and the pre-summer vacation travel seasons gasoline price panics? It sems obvious that we all panic, but when these "seasons" actually come, so strange as it is, how the gasoline and heating fuel prices suddenly subside to levels that we "can live with?" The part I don't understand is when the prices suddenly go up, say, at summer vacation travel season, Christmas holiday season, etc. Even the airlines and rail system passenger services are affected. The shock and awe of it is when the gasoline prices reach double the now $2.20...to $4,40 or even higher for our cars, trucks and cycles! The US has advantages. There is the Atlantic coast to the east, the west coast has the Pacific, the Gulf coast has the Gulf of Mexico, and then, there is the Mississippi River almost in between, intersecting the US mainland. Gasoline comes in via ship to many ports along all these waterways and coastal areas. Then once the fuel products are piped into reservation areas, it is again transported by large tanker trucks or rail systems to other fuel sub-depots. Refineries natural to the US, simply transport their products in much the same manner. The fuels should be priced, once it reaches the service stations tanks, almost across the board; but they are not, even due to the average transport miles considered from POE or "port-of-entry". Could it be the after-market refining if the gasoline comes in to the US ports as "crude"...the transportation costs...the union or/and workforces' local economic levels which vary across the country where fuels are brought to, refined, or distributed? What about all the impositions of taxes all along the way, as well? What are the "shares" everyone plus the federal and state governments receive along the way? Not only these thoughts, but what about the money actually taken in by the foreign oil corporations and their governments as well, when the US companies purchase foreign oil on foreign soil? I justify and accept gas prices, just as I have to accept prices of goods sold and other consumer goods, services, homes, and products, domestic or foreign in nature. But, let's pray that what happened to gas and fuel pricing in mid 2008 does not happen again. It affects almost everything, not just the gas and oil we buy.