So just where IS the true outrage about high gas prices?
Gas is running just about $3.00 a gallon here in Palo Alto. From what I can tell, up about 50-60 cents in just the last two to three weeks.
Yet I just read how gasoline consumption in this country is going to grow by another 0.4% this year.
People bitch, bitch, and bitch about how gas prices are outrageous, about how we should boycott the oil companies and all that shit. Yet we Americans haven't yet even begun to conserve gas. We haven't lessened our consumption a bit. But people are talking boycott? If they haven't been bothered enough yet to even conserve, how realistic is any talk about a boycott? It isn't, that's the answer.
I don't hold it against the oil companies for getting the price they do on gas. We have proven time and time again that gas is price inelastic: big changes in price result in little change in demand. So why shouldn't they charge as much as the market will bear? We don't do anything but bitch about it, we just buy it anyway.
We all love capitalism.... up until the point it doesn't work to benefit us. Are the oil companies in cahoots with each other over price? Ummmm... fuck people, get this through your heads: THEY DON'T NEED TO BE. Americans have shown time and time again that they don't care how much gas is, they will still buy SUVs and drive to the corner store for a pack of gum instead of walk. Why SHOULDN'T the oil companies take advantage of that?
I don't put any weight into all the hand-wringing and bitching about gas prices. Until there is a clear drop in demand, then it means nothing.
We're just reaping what we've sown. Average MPG for cars in the U.S. is far below what it was in even the early 1980s. Why? Because we wanted bigger and bigger cars and SUVs, we just didn't care about gas prices. The gas crunches of the early and late 1970s proved that.
Now we're just having to lie in the bed we made. I don't feel sorry for the American public at all.
Gas is running just about $3.00 a gallon here in Palo Alto. From what I can tell, up about 50-60 cents in just the last two to three weeks.
Yet I just read how gasoline consumption in this country is going to grow by another 0.4% this year.
People bitch, bitch, and bitch about how gas prices are outrageous, about how we should boycott the oil companies and all that shit. Yet we Americans haven't yet even begun to conserve gas. We haven't lessened our consumption a bit. But people are talking boycott? If they haven't been bothered enough yet to even conserve, how realistic is any talk about a boycott? It isn't, that's the answer.
I don't hold it against the oil companies for getting the price they do on gas. We have proven time and time again that gas is price inelastic: big changes in price result in little change in demand. So why shouldn't they charge as much as the market will bear? We don't do anything but bitch about it, we just buy it anyway.
We all love capitalism.... up until the point it doesn't work to benefit us. Are the oil companies in cahoots with each other over price? Ummmm... fuck people, get this through your heads: THEY DON'T NEED TO BE. Americans have shown time and time again that they don't care how much gas is, they will still buy SUVs and drive to the corner store for a pack of gum instead of walk. Why SHOULDN'T the oil companies take advantage of that?
I don't put any weight into all the hand-wringing and bitching about gas prices. Until there is a clear drop in demand, then it means nothing.
We're just reaping what we've sown. Average MPG for cars in the U.S. is far below what it was in even the early 1980s. Why? Because we wanted bigger and bigger cars and SUVs, we just didn't care about gas prices. The gas crunches of the early and late 1970s proved that.
Now we're just having to lie in the bed we made. I don't feel sorry for the American public at all.
posted by Tony Bags at 11:00 PM
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