26 November 2008

'Ere we go, 'Ere we go, 'Ere we go! Petrol to drop under $1 a litre.

| johnboy
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If this is recession I say give me more!

The ABC informs us that Canberra petrol prices are going to go under $1 a litre this week despite the gloomy prognostication of the peak oil doom-mongers who bravely said it would never happen.

Interest rates plumetting, petrol prices down by more than a third. That Kevin Rudd gets things done for working families eh?

Certain mouth breathing media outlets think a shopper-docket discount price counts as a real price and have already announced this. But we’re holding out for the real thing.

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Hehehehe we are such easily led mammals.

tylersmayhem10:41 am 27 Nov 08

Yeah, kinda figured and it sucks!

@tylers: Its a marketing psychology effect that I forget the name of, but the theory is that the average human only pays serious attention to the first one or two significant figures, and sees the figures after the decimal point or comma as almost inconsequential.

So fuel sells better at 99.9c/L than at $1/L, a car at $24,999 sells more units than the same car at $25,010, etc.

tylersmayhem10:04 am 27 Nov 08

I paid 99.9 cents at calwell this morning.

And I think this is a perfect time to actually pose the question – what’s the deal with all fuel prices ending in point 9? 120.9, 99.9, 1.70.9. WTF?

Bang for buck eh? Remember when Holden dropped the 253 because six cylinder motors were getting more powerful

Thumper, Sir Frank Williams people carrier is better; the body of a Renault Espace (read Toyota Tarago) with the chassis and engine from a formula one car. Could make the Saturday morning shopping run interesting!!

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:00 am 27 Nov 08

The appeal with locally made V8s is their bang for buck – they don’t cost much to buy (and are cheap in terms of servicing, parts and, often, insurance), and go well with plenty of room for humans inside.

I’ve had mine 5 and a half years and have no intention of replacing it.

That said, not everyone wants one, and that’s fine. Never before has Australia had such a wide range of vehicles for a buyer to choose from.

‘Yawn’ Boring. If you want to fit a lot of gear, how about a Kombi van fitted with a Porsche V10?

Stop dragging your knuckles along the ground and accept there are much better cars out there than V8 commodores (and falcons).

Everyone wants a V8 Commodore now. I’m telling you

My weekly fill on the gas-gulping hulking child-killing 4WD was $19 today.

Just goes to show that the people running our economies are about as intelligent as question-less devotees of celebrity gossip magazines. Just replace ‘Angelina makes 10yo child adopt another child’ with ‘Gold is really shiny and impresses people, lets sell all our shares and buy that up instead’.

Regardless of the price drop or not, using your car less is still cheaper than paying for fuel and wear & tear.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy4:22 pm 26 Nov 08

Last week I filled the V8, from almost empty, with premium, for 75 bucks. Cheering.

I think $1.20 a litre is more realistic for the medium term.

Holden Caulfield3:54 pm 26 Nov 08

Gungahlin Al said :

Under a buck? Not seen since 2000. Yeehar. Back to filling up the little Paseo for less than $40.

Not true, although pretty close. I did get fuel for under 96¢ from Shell in Fyshwick back in April 2004.

OPEC can charge whatever people will pay for their product. Just like we do with our iron ore and coal.

The price gap between unleaded and premium seems not to have contracted back to what it was when fuel was last at this price, I’ve noticed.

BerraBoy68 said :

jakez said :

As a young, upwardly mobile, debt free individual, this recession is turning out to be personally fantastic for me.

If I lose my job, there is always the Army Reserve.

Nothing should ever be so bad as to make you think the Army Reserve is a valid option… for anything. I spent several years in the A.Res after leaving the forces as a ‘regular’ and let me tell you, DONT DO IT! (oh, the humanity, the humanity… sob)

Please elaborate either here or in private (I can get johnboy to give you my email).

I paid 99.9 cents at calwell this morning.

It may of been with my everyday rewards card, but ..it was under a dollar! i was happy! 🙂

Agreed johnboy and to think folk didn’t believe oil tankers were doing cicle work in the Gulf for weeks on end ’cause they didn’t have orders for their shipments. And now the oil companies are suggesting demand is falling. What ever happened to the “Northern winter approaching excuse for shortages/higher prices beyond our control”.

jakez said :

As a young, upwardly mobile, debt free individual, this recession is turning out to be personally fantastic for me.

If I lose my job, there is always the Army Reserve.

Nothing should ever be so bad as to make you think the Army Reserve is a valid option… for anything. I spent several years in the A.Res after leaving the forces as a ‘regular’ and let me tell you, DONT DO IT! (oh, the humanity, the humanity… sob)

It won’t last. You wait. It’ll go tearing straight up to $2 in months.

And United are dropping their fares to teh US beautifully… Qantarse aren’t even in the race.

Johnboy, you say that like corporate fascism is a bad thing.

Actually the OPEC countries made bugger all out of the price spike, the speculators did that.

It helped that they fiddled the shipping schedules to avoid landing oil until things got desperate too.

These are pretty much the same guys we’re now mortgaging the western world to bail out so they can keep their helicopters.

tylersmayhem10:30 am 26 Nov 08

Being more circumspect, you gotta feel less than charitable about the mongrels from OPEC who’ve been milking us for the last 8 years…

Indeed!

Wow. Now I’m really pissed I sold my RX8.

Don’t beat yourself up DLS – this low fuel price is not here to stay. Let’s see where we are in 12 months time. I suspect back up to $1.60 or $1.70 a litre, then back to $1.20 for instance. This is only a short term turn around. We have not all of a sudden warped back 9 years!

As a young, upwardly mobile, debt free individual, this recession is turning out to be personally fantastic for me.

If I lose my job, there is always the Army Reserve.

I paid 99.9 at Kippax last night, albeit with a shopper docket (real enough for me).

Regardless of what happens with oil prices and the FX rate, I am confidently predicting the price will shoot upwards of $1.20 around, lets see, 20 December.

Die Lefty Scum9:53 am 26 Nov 08

Wow. Now I’m really pissed I sold my RX8.

Gungahlin Al9:47 am 26 Nov 08

In the same way that home loans are coming down, but credit card and personal loan rates remain obscenely high…?

neanderthalsis9:38 am 26 Nov 08

While unleaded seems to be heading south pricewise, diesel still hovers around the buck and a half a litre. Saturday saw unleaded at $1.11 at one of the outlets of the evil fuel empire (shell) while diesel was still $1.47.

Gungahlin Al9:36 am 26 Nov 08

Yep I can sense a nice driving holiday down around Eden and Gippsland coming on over the Xmas break…

Under a buck? Not seen since 2000. Yeehar. Back to filling up the little Paseo for less than $40.

Being more circumspect, you gotta feel less than charitable about the mongrels from OPEC who’ve been milking us for the last 8 years…

Now will QANTAS drop the fuel levy off their ticket prices now we are back to where we were before they imposed it? Or was that really just about reducing the amount of commissions to travel agents?

hopefully that was a misprint and they actually meant$1.47

KRudd is certainly getting things done, except for the working part.

We get petrol for less than a dollar, provided the Aussie Dollar doesn’t do anything untoward, like say go under$(US)0.64.

How about those whacky French Banks that are saying our dollar is going to hit $(US)0.47 sometime next year? That will be interesting!

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