• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Gasoline prices....

WebSlave

WebSlave

Maybe seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
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Beautiful day out today so I took the vette out for a ride. Along the way I noticed that the local Shell station has regular gas for $3.09 a gallon now. I checked my records and on 12/30/2020 when I took out the Jeep to get the tank filled up, regular was $2.19 a gallon at that time. :ack2:

OK, so what caused this drastic price increase now?

Just seems like life lately is akin to swimming through a thick swarm of sea nettles and Portuguese Man of War jelly fish. Sort of makes you just want to get out of the water, doesn't it?
 
Not as bad where I am but it isn’t far off. $2.70 for regular last time I filled up. It was like $2.20 a week or 2 ago.
 
over a 1 dollar a gallon raise since Trump left office. Reminds me of last time when gas prices were horrible actually worse. Oh wait yeah the current president was vice president then.......and it will be the same almost 4 dollars a gallon it was then im sure before the year ends
 
Interesting chart on the differences in gas prices depending on which party the president belongs to:

https://www.idrivesafely.com/defens...rats-vs-republicans-gas-prices-last-100-years

Adjusted for inflation, there is an $0.08 difference (higher during Democratic presidencies) -- between 3-4%. Of course, it would be completely unfounded to suppose that there is a direct correlation between party and gas prices -- global economic trends and political stability affect both presidential wins and gasoline prices.

Don't make me dictator, though -- I'd make gas $17 a gallon and use the funds to provide stuff that people actually need, including wages that would make the hike more bearable for the people on the bottom of the pile, and roads that are worth driving on, and wildlife reserves so animals can have a place to live that isn't fragmented by roads. My car gets 40+mpg, and I wouldn't walk 40 miles to save $17, so it looks like a great value to me.

Or I'd price gasoline (which is a necessity) as a percentage of wealth. The average hourly wage is around $25 -- suppose gas would be priced at 10 gallons an hour. People earning the federal minimum would pay $0.78 a gallon. Per this article, Jeff Bezos would pay $1.34 million a gallon. If anyone who makes $80,000 a year complains about $4 gas, they can walk. ;)

Letting something like the price of energy change with the wind, or whether some sheik is pissy, or whether Russia takes control of Citgo to destabilize markets, or some other irrelevant cause is caveman thinking.

I'm not serious about most of this, of course, but beyond the practical problems of implementing this sort of stuff I think it is worth considering the ideas behind it.
 
Well, from 12-30-2020 to today (03-14-2021) I am seeing a 41% increase in the price of gasoline from one presidential administration to the next. And the fat lady hasn't sung yet.
 
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/gasoline-inflation-in-the-united-states/

Yes the price of fuel is up, because as people have returned to on-site work and children have returned to in-classroom instruction there is more demand for it. It would be higher still if people still if people were flying at pre-COVID rates.

Also bear in mind that a lot of people are still working from home and will continue to do so since their employers have realized that they are just as productive, and they don't need the overhead of office space.
 
Gas was crazy cheap in the 1990s. Prices climbed a lot between 2000-2008, and dropped quite a bit from 2008 average to 2009 average. Make an argument from those stats, and I get a completely different result. It is simple confirmation bias.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/204740/retail-price-of-gasoline-in-the-united-states-since-1990/

Also, Melinda's points make me realize that people's responses to the pandemic and everything that is fallout from it is the one big determinant of every big picture issue currently. We're not going to get back to your regularly scheduled broadcast for a long time.
 
Heck, when I was late teens, gasoline (high test) was costing me something like 35 cents per gallon. My GTO at the time was draining me because it was costing me around $5 every couple of days (or was it every day? :shrug01: ) going back and forth to work. I guess the engine work and those 4.10 differential gears had something to do with that. And I believe my right foot was a LOT heavier back then too. :hehe:
 
WebSlave said:
And I believe my right foot was a LOT heavier back then too. :hehe:
Click to expand...

Yep, those were good times, when we drove real cars! Big engines, 4 barrel carbs, and metal in places that are all plastic now. Thank you, government MPG mandates :mad:

I remember gas being around 40 cents a gallon, but our Firebirds, Torinos, and old pickup trucks drank gas like it was going out of style!
 
Summer, 2008: my old minivan transmission gave up the ghost and fixing it would cost more than it was worth. Plus, I needed something to tow a horse trailer.

At the time gas was hovering around $4/gal.

Checked online, found that (no surprise) prices for larger pickups and SUV's were cratering and they were sitting onto the dealer lots for months. Looked at online availability, took a lightly used 3/4 ton Suburban 4x4 w/ 454 V8 that had been on the lot for six months for a test drive, haggled a bit on the price, paid by certified check later that day. I still have it w/ over 450k miles on it.

If gas goes over $4-5 per gallon again soon I might just retire it and get another.
 
Presidents have very little to do with gas pricing. Global market and issues such as the Texas freeze, hurricanes, flooding, terrorism cause huge spikes. Summer always increases gas prices due to demand. It doesn't matter how much USA produces as it will be sold at Global Market price. We get no discounts where ever the oil comes from. A president can ask countries like Saudi Arabia to increase production to help lower pricing but it is not some magical fix or huge reduction in price. Oil, tobacco and alcohol can name their price.
 
I can remember as a youngster my dad, who used to own an Esso (later to become Exxon) gas station, complaining during a time when prices were rising very fast, for one reason or another. The problem was that when he would sell out of the current stock of gasoline he had in the ground, the prices increased so fast that the money earned from selling the gasoline at today's price was not enough to pay to get the tanks refilled tomorrow or next week. So gasoline retailers were forced to have to speculate on the future prices, and price the current stock of gasoline accordingly so they could afford to stay in business. If they guessed too low, they chance winding up just breaking even, with just enough "profit" to pay for the next load of gasoline. Or even losing money for every delivery. So prices would jump tremendously at the pumps because the retailers HAD to do it that way. They had no way of knowing what the gasoline would cost tomorrow, next day, or next month, so they had to work off of worst case predictions or go out of business in a hurry.

This would happen all the way up the chain of production, and you can see how it would snowball in a hurry.
 
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