Gasoline price impact. Check in here. COSTCO parking lot almost empty.

[bribri16]

I had to take my car in for a tune up yeaterday and I stopped by the COSTCO to store up household items. I live in upper Montgomery County just outside of DC. Even on weekdays this COSTCO parking lot is a bear to find a parking space. Yesterday i was amazed to fing many many empty parking spaces and the lines inside were only three deep. I drove by the SAMS parking lot across the street (I never shop at SAMS) just to see if my suspicions were correct. That lot looked like the store was closed. My neighbor tells me one of main attraction malls (Montgomery Mall) was practically empty as well.

There is no doubt in my mind that the cost of gasoline has a lot to do with this. People just aren't up to driving way out in the burbs to shop. I think the Labor Day week-end will tell the real story. If shoppers stay away it's curtains for this economy. Maybe people will finally wake up and figure out that they can do with less and make the corporate cabal pay as they are making us pay by raising prices in a time of crisis and gouging us with high gasoline prices when there is no shortage and when oil profits are at record highs.

[Kitka]

1. I really doubt that people will realize

that they can do with less and make the corporate cabal pay. They're more likely to just get pissed they have to do with less and lobby for intervention in gas rices so they can go right back to consuming at the same level.

[TheFarseer]

2. On the other hand

it would be really great if people were changing their driving. I know I have. I had hoped other people would be sensible enough to.

[cbear70]

22. we have

We have changed our spending and our driving. We take the car less, don't buy as much, don't visit places like we used to. We are getting to know each other more by playing games and watching movies inside. The cost of gas has really cut into our budget, we have a minivan because we used to drive home which is 900 miles and it is more comfortable. We aren't going home this year because we can't afford it.

I have noticed people in eastern Iowa aren't doing as much. My husband has a second job of delivering pizza ( thankfully the company provides the car) , they are being hit hard, people aren't ordering as much as they used to. My brother manages a pizza shop in Boston and he said they too are seeing a cut in business.

I think in the next month we will see the truth. Maybe it just hasn't trickled down yet. Things need to change but sadly..

[Cary]

3. Don't you know?

Haven't you heard? The economy is booming.:puke: :sarcasm:

[Dover]

20. Trucker strikes will impact both the oil and retail/import businesses

so there may not BE anything at the malls to buy if the ships can't unload their cargo due to a truckers' strike. Truckers are going to be key players in this showdown.

[Wcross]

4. Reduced roadside litter noticed here.

I live in a rural area (tennessee) and I have always had problems with empty beer cans/bottles and fast food wrappers tossed alongside the road. I have always suspected teenagers/young adults cruising the country roads. It seems that the gas prices have kept them closer to town and/or cut into their beer budget. (I hardly ever see bottled beer anymore)
If the higher price for gas is what I have to pay for a reduction of slobs driving by my house, I am all for it!

[converted_democrat]

5. We live near a Walmart and there is always a line to buy gas from

their gas station from 8am to 8pm because they are the cheapest in town usually by .03 to .05. We were driving by yesterday in the middle of the day and Walmart, Lowes, and Walmart's filling station were like a ghost town. Gas is 2.72 where I live, and unless you own your own business or your a doctor a lawyer or a nurse you make minimum wage. People can not afford gas to get to work, let alone pay their bills.

[bribri16]

6. Just checked the strip mall across the street. Usually filled on Sunday

mornings with the elite suburanites getting their breakfast from the Corner Store. It's empty!!!!

[tinfoilinfor2005]

7. I live in the Florida Keys and this will effect our economy a lot

especially Key West. Most of the out of state tourists coming into the Keys drive from the airport and Florida residents drive or take a boat. I bet our tourism will be cut in half if gas prices keep going up.

On the other hand, it will be pleasant to have less traffic and be able to be seated in a restaurant until we go broke. :)

[geomon666]

9. I didn't think of that.

That's got to be scary to the buisness owners down there. The restaurants, marinas, hotels, gift shops.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

16. I run a resort. All of my guests are tourists.

If they decide that they don't want to spend the money for the gas to drive down here, sooner or later I'll be looking for work. But of course there won't be any jobs left here so sooner or later I'll have to move. Things won't be any better in the rest of the state of Florida so sooner or later I'll have to go north. Once I find a job and house up north I won't be able to pay the fuel bills so sooner or later I'll have to move back to Florida. I'm screwed.

[China_cat]

8. Costco here is always jammed

Especially now. Simply because Costco gas is at least .10/gal cheaper than anywhere else but the extreme cheapo gas stations that nobody trusts.

If your Costco doesn't have gas, I'm sorry. We plan our trip for every 10 days to 2 weeks, stock up on what we need and fill up at the same time.

[LizW]

10. Our Costco has gas lines right now

I haven't checked the WalMart.

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. Our Costco doesn't have gas, not the one closest to me anyway.

Wish it did.

[buddysmellgood]

11. Is it open? yuk yuk yuk

[hlthe2b]

12. I'm not driving any where but to work and back.

I stop on the way home for groceries, errands, or I walk from home. PERIOD. Fortunately I'm within a few miles of most things I might need/want to go to once I reach home. And it isn't that the extra $$ are necessarily devastating. It is just that I fear what heat this winter will go to, and how high gas is going to go. Not to mention my horror at the death in Iraq coming as a consequence of our lust for oil.

I certainly don't go places on a whim, as I used to and if I do, I carefully consider whether going to (the Costo, from your example) is really worth it, and if so, will go to the closest one, rather than the one near my formerly favorite shopping mall.

I imagine this is going though many people's mind, even if the Hummer-driving hogs could care less.

[bribri16]

13. Well, I think that proves my point. If the COSTCO is not selling cheaper

gasoline, the buyers are staying home and not out shopping as they normally would be. Another indication of the impact of high gasoline prices, fewer picknicers in the parks.

[CornField]

15. In contrast -- our bike trails are crazy!

We have great bike trails here in Eastern Iowa. They are well used all during the summer, but the last couple of weeks have been insane.

[watercolors]

17. One car family

and retired, we now plan all our trips, get everything accomplised at once. There are no frivolous trips.

[undeterred]

18. I heard Walmart has been low on business

The reason is obvious. Maybe these companies can do something about the high price of gasoline- no one else seems to care.

[Dover]

19. American 'ruins' of a capitalist system...malls, big box stores..

Not exactly the Parthenon, the monolithic temples to capitalism, as epidomized by the Mall of America (in Minnesota), will be our legacy...an uncelebrated relic of only monetary consequence. And whose citizens were quantified according to their capacity to serve these temples. Not the citizens of Rome, but the comsumers of America. To this they pledged their lives and faith...patriots one all. Hows that for a eulogy?
BEST Indeterminate Facade, Houston, Texas, 1974


About the concept for this building:

...The violated structures created by SITE catered to what Wines identified as a mass desire for “the purgative power of calamity and ruin,”13 a desire evidenced by the increasing popularity during the seventies for disaster films in which technology triggers cataclysm rather than saving the day. The longing for these sorts of spectacles did not rise only out of a morbid fascination with destruction, Wines argued, rather, that, “their fundamental attraction has been to provide a disillusioned generation, weary of political deception and technological folly with a means of vicarious revenge.”14 SITE responded to this popular desire with an aesthetic of destruction, decay, and incompletion to counter the “fascism of the omniplan,” as Wines explained:

As a society we are being forced by energy shortages, the inequitable distribution of wealth, and the ethical bankruptcy of most institutions to trade in our faith in final solutions for a condition of uncertainty and relativity. If there are any monuments left, they are monuments of entropy.15


MORE > http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_6/robey/robey.html


___________________________________________________________________


The United States is only now old enough to have its own ruins. Because our society tends to be interested in the future rather than the past, it does not celebrate its relics -- in fact, it actively seeks to forget them. America had little need to construct coliseums, castles, or pyramids. Our culture was built on functional structures of progress rather than symbols of permanence -- places that were ultimately left behind when progress moved on. America's ruins were not carved out of stone; they were built out of steel and brick, and were painted in lead. Now they are rusting, crumbling and peeling… moldering skeletons of the modern age. So much of our American history has filtered through these buildings. Entire towns filled with thousands of people rose, prospered, and then vanished into the earth. America's ruins are fleeting -- they are barely old enough to be classified as ruins, and yet they are already disintegrating, forgotten, or demolished and paved over with sprawl.

http://americanruins.com/the_film.html

[Horse with no Name]

21. I was in Texarkana on Saturday

The mall was busy--had alot of people carrying not alot of packages.
I went to Ross--lines were to the middle of the store.
I didn't find many good sales anywhere.
There were people everywhere, just not people buying alot of stuff.
Even at Target...people had baskets with just a few items.

[bribri16]

23. Any other local reports on the affect of high gasoline prices? n/t

[Karenina]

24. Is the Dairy Queen still there?

Such fond memories I have of the place. As we stopped to "stretch our legs" and have some ice cream, passing through en route to Little Rock, some locals pulled up in a pickup, one of whom trained a shotgun at my head as they urged us to be on our way...