Why Gas Will Never Hit $10 Per Gallon in the U.S.

News item: Gas Prices in the United States May Someday Hit $10 Per Gallon.

Spot sez: You'll never see it happen, and here's why. The day when this blog entry was published, May 4, 2008, gas prices in the U.S. were hovering at around $3.50 per gallon. Everyone who drives a car is feeling the impact, but some more than others. Over-the-road truckers are paying several hundred dollars more per fill-up thanks to the skyrocketing price of diesel fuel.

Meanwhile, every Tom, Dick and Fido are complaining about the price of gasoline, but let's look at the true impact. The top-selling car in the U.S. is the Toyota Camry, which has a fuel tank capacity of 17.2 gallons. At $2.50 per gallon, it cost $43 to fill the tank. At $3.50 per tank, it costs $60.20, or about $17.20 more. Fill your tank three times a month, and you're paying $51.60 per month more than you were about a year ago. Yeah, that hurts, but most of us are going to grin and bear it. Most people will cut costs somewhere else to make ends meet. It's not going to radically change the way we live. And, for the upper middle class and very wealthy, an additional $51.60 per month is really not that big of a deal.

Now, let's look at those scenarios at $10 per gallon: It would cost $172 to fill the tank of a Camry, compared to $43 at $2.50 per gallon -- a difference of $129 per fill-up, and $387 per month based on three fill-ups. All of a sudden, you're talking about a monthly jump in prices that the average middle class, credit-card-debt-ridden family is just not going to be able to bear. And, $10 per gallon gas prices will even get the attention of the super-rich, many of whom are driving gas-guzzling SUVs and luxury cars. The impact on these folks might be as much as twice the average, or about $774 per month.

When we've reached that point, all socioeconomic classes of our society will be demanding alternate forms of transportation -- mass transit, electric cars, hydrogen-powered cars, etc. The demand for change that has been needed for really the past 30 years will become so pervasive that there will be no turning back. And if there is anything that can lead to the downfall of the major U.S. oil companies, it is that. For the past several years, all of the major oil companies are reporting huge profits. As the price of crude oil continues to increase due to new demand overseas, these profits will continue to grow.

There will come a price point, and it will be before $10 per gallon, at which the oil companies will know they cannot continue to pass along all of their rising costs to their customers. With billions of dollars of profit per quarter, there is room for the oil companies to eat some of the increase from the oil producers and settle for, let's say, hundreds of millions of dollars in profit rather than billions. The oil companies are all aware that the only event that can lead to their downfall, at least in the short term, is to allow prices to escalate to the point where both John Q. Public and Bill Gates are having trouble coping. They're not going to make that mistake.

Patches the Miracle Dog Survives 100-foot Plunge

Meet Patches the Miracle Dog. In Smith County, Texas, this pooch slipped and fell down a 100-foot well at his owners' home. The amazing part? After a death-defying plunge, Patches was apparently none the worse for wear.

Let's put 100 feet into some context. In Major League Baseball, it's the distance from home plate to first base, plus 10 more feet. It's 40 to 50 normal human walking steps. Think about how far that is.

A guy in California wasn't as lucky as Patches, showing the kind of results you'd expect from a freefall.

Spot sez: Patches won't be a media star, but his story is truly amazing. Every pooch, hound, mutt, canine and pup should be envious of Patches' good fortune.

Chad Johnson, Meet Jerome Simpson

The Cincinnati Bengals are making it crystal clear that they are ready to move on without Chad Johnson. In a year when they have many needs on defense, they used the 46th pick in the NFL draft on wide received Jerome Simpson from Coastal Carolina University.

Losing Chris Henry, the team's top longball threat, was a problem, but the loss of Chad would decimate a formerly outstanding wide receiver group. So Mike and Marvin decided to grab this young player in round two -- the same round Chad was selected in in 2002.

Mike and Marvin continue to make a very clear statement to Chad. Whether it turns out to be in the best interests of the team remains to be seen.

Keith Rivers Joins Questionable Bengals LB Corps

So, it was a linebacker -- Keith Rivers from USC. Hard to argue with any blue-chip caliber pick who can help the front seven on defense.

He goes into camp competing for playing time against these other linebackers on the Bengals roster:

Darryl Blackstock (free agent from Arizona), Ahmad Brooks, Eric Henderson, Rashad Jeanty, Brandon Johnson, Dhani Jones, Roy Manning, Jim Maxwell, Corey Mays, David Pollack and Anthony Schlegel.

It's not a star-studded cast by any means, so Rivers has the potential to come in and be a starter, if not a standout. If the season started tomorrow, you'd guess that Brooks would start in the middle, with Jones and Jeanty on the outside.

Next for the Bengals? Spot has always believed in the "take the best player available" concept, regardless of position. You can reach for someone to fill what you perceive is a need, but if your scouting is doing its job, you'll build quality depth by taking the best available player, regardless of position.

Bengals: OK, so now what?

The Cincinnati Bengals are on the clock at number 9, and they have watched the defensive down linemen they coveted -- Glenn Dorsey, Sedric Ellis and Derrick Harvey -- go in the picks immediately ahead of them. How about running back?

In Chad Johnson, be careful what you wish for

It's National Football League draft day, which means Spot has found a spot near the television to follow all of the "action." This year, my assistant will get a lot less sleep between first-round picks because each team has only 10 minutes to decide. Drafts have lost a lot of their pace in recent years because the first rounds have lasted longer than the Pleistocene epoch.

Several teams have been asking the Cincinnati Bengals about Chad Johnson, who has completely lost his mind since the end of last season. One report today said the Redskins called the Bengals last night and asked what it would take to get Chad. This was after the Bengals said no to a first-round pick this year and possibly another one next year. According to reports, the Bengals said they are not interested in trading Chad.

Along with the Redskins, their NFC East rivals in Dallas and Philadelphia have reportedly been interested in acquiring Ocho Stinko. The sports talk show hosts in the Dallas area have been openly speculating about what it would be like to have Chad and Terrell Owens on the same team.

Spot's advice: Be careful what you wish for. Chad Johnson has a personality that is naturally made for a future career in the media, and until the past eight months, he's been the toast of the town in Cincinnati for most of his career. But one thing has been true all along will remain true -- Chad is most interested in what is good for Chad. When Coach Marvin Lewis has forbidden him from his post-TD celebrations, he pouts, goes into a funk and withdraws. Success for the team is not as important as success for Chad, and that is not going to change if Chad changes teams. The bloom will be off the rose in Irving, Philadelphia, D.C. -- or wherever else Chad may land -- once he gets a penalty for celebrating after a TD and is reprimanded by a coach.

Spot's advice for the Bengals: TRADE CHAD! Turning down two first round picks doesn't make much sense. Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis are scoring lots of points with fans on Bengals blogs for not giving in to Chad, but those points don't translate to success on the field. Spot thinks the Bengals will wait until after June 1, when the $8.03-million salary cap hit the Bengals will take can be spread over two seasons instead of one.

Quit Paying Twice for Water!

We never could have seen this one coming, could we? Hold on to your bottled water, but ...

Aquafina is actually tap water!

And guess what? Because people are sufficiently hooked on bottled water and conditioned to purchasing it, nobody will really care much.

This "revelation" brings to mind one of Spot's primary pet peeves. (Betcha didn't know that a pet could have a pet peeve, did you?) :)

WHY DO PEOPLE PAY TWICE FOR WATER? Most humans pay a monthly fee for water service in their homes, and that includes tap water -- which by all accounts is pretty darn safe to drink. You don't get a whole lot of reports of populations getting sick and dying from drinking tap water. (Well, at least here in our fine country.)

Even so, a high percentage of our human population turns around and buys bottled tap water at the store, at vending machines, at sporting events, at the beach ... it goes on and on. It's not uncommon to pay $1 per bottle of the stuff. Well, guess what -- you can buy water bottles at the store for about $1 apiece, fill them with home tap water, put them in the fridge for a couple of hours, and you have effectively eliminated the need to buy bottled water.

The insanity even stretches to restaurants, which offer bottled water as a premium beverage. Good Lord in Heaven above, it's the same stuff that you'd get if you'd ask for tap water.

The food service industry is not only laughing all the way to the bank on this one, it is gasping, hyperventilating, gagging and screaming in joy. Let it be howled from the highest curb -- Spot will never purchase tap water in a bottle from a grocery store, street vendor, restaurant, liquor store, beverage mart, gas station convenience store or vending machine. I'm not in a position, nor of the disposition, to pour money down the drain.