Today I saw horrendous queues at the petrol station to buy fuel. My wife says it is because tomorrow it will go up by $3.
Any idea why it will go up so much? Usually the price move is about 0.1-0.2. This time it is a whole $3!
everyone wastes so much gas idling to get gas. They should NOT announce hikes and just change prices at midnite. American gas stations don’t announce price increases.
The government has reduced the fuel subsidy, so the +$3 will be a permanent increase. 
…and queuing up for hours the day before a permanent increase could save you nearly a full cheap meal! well worth several hours of waiting :loco:
[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]Today I saw horrendous queues at the petrol station to buy fuel. My wife says it is because tomorrow it will go up by $3.
Any idea why it will go up so much? Usually the price move is about 0.1-0.2. This time it is a whole $3![/quote]
What are prices per liter now, anyway? $35? $40?
Here’s a handy gas price page that let’s you know the coming weekly increase/decrease and the price for 92, 95, & 98
Here’s a handy gas price page that let’s you know the coming weekly increase/decrease and the price for 92, 95, & 98
gas.goodlife.tw/[/quote]
Thanks! :bravo:
April fool?
You wish.
You wish.[/quote]
I don’t drive, but I am more worried about price for propane tanks because it affects me more. I heard they’re going down slightly… unless that’s the april fool…
At least one Taiwanese poly-tick-cians said he thought it was april fool…
Who wants to bet MRT/bus prices will go up next? Anyone?
So what exactly is going on, why is everything getting a price hike except for wages?
some said its President Ma trying to placate all the business owners… even though some of the blame is kinda misplaced as Taiwan seems reliant on imports and obviously they have no control over prices.
Placate business owners? The should have put the price up years ago but a lot of the big users are heavy industry, they want cheap power.
Ma had to wait for his second term to get this pushed through. If you haven’t noticed oil has been trading 120-130 USD a barrel.
Inflation is going to hurt this year but it has been happening all over the world, not helped by quantitative easing.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Placate business owners? The should have put the price up years ago but a lot of the big users are heavy industry, they want cheap power.
Ma had to wait for his second term to get this pushed through. If you haven’t noticed oil has been trading 120-130 USD a barrel.
Inflation is going to hurt this year but it has been happening all over the world, not helped by quantitative easing.[/quote]
Well but Taiwan also has the crappiest wages and the longest working hours in the region, and no one wants to do anything about it. I mean the wages in Taiwan are like 1980 level and it has only gone up marginally.
I saw one of those loooong lines for gas about 7:00 this evening as I was walking home. Just out of curiosity I counted how many cars were waiting: 36.
buses in Taichung are free for 8km (with a card)
i can’t want for peak oil to be over already. it’s going to be such a fuck up. a world-wide catastrophy. 
[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]Today I saw horrendous queues at the petrol station to buy fuel. My wife says it is because tomorrow it will go up by $3.
Any idea why it will go up so much? Usually the price move is about 0.1-0.2. This time it is a whole $3![/quote]
It’s inflation. If you follow economics and macroeconomics, then you would understand. Actually the fuel price has hardly changed in the last twenty to thirty years. The value of your fiat dollars have however and so now they purchase less than ever before, which means you need more of them when paying for something.
[quote=“sulavaca”][quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]Today I saw horrendous queues at the petrol station to buy fuel. My wife says it is because tomorrow it will go up by $3.
Any idea why it will go up so much? Usually the price move is about 0.1-0.2. This time it is a whole $3![/quote]
It’s inflation. If you follow economics and macroeconomics, then you would understand. Actually the fuel price has hardly changed in the last twenty to thirty years. The value of your fiat dollars have however and so now they purchase less than ever before, which means you need more of them when paying for something.[/quote]
And since you’re still getting the same amount of money from your work for the last 20 years or so, your wage is actually decreasing.
Light crude is trading approx $103/barrel as of last Friday.
http://money.cnn.com/data/commodities/?iid=C_MT_Commodities
120?
EDIT: are you talking about Brent pricing?
It’s not really important as the government has been subsidising fuel costs for well…forever. It’s just that with a barrel of oil costing multiples of what it used to that this policy is really causing debts to rack up. Consumers in Taiwan have been used to cheap electricity and oil so it’s going to be a difficult switch.
The business people were happy with the government picking up the tag as it then put less pressure on them to raise wages ASWELL as subsidising their operations. The government found it very difficult to change the policy given that inflation is one of the biggest things that can do a government in…the Arab Spring has largely been caused by inflation. With electricity costs priced to market this may have some positive effects such as increased efficiency, less pollution spewing cars and scooters and trucks and hopefully we will finally see some solar panels going up.
I agree with you Taiwan Luthiers that a bigger problem is stagnant wages for such a long period but it’s not really the question here.