#47 It’s a Ga-Ga-Gas

Is it just me or are did gas prices nudge up a bit early this year? What gives? Used to be it was at least late May or early June before the corporate gougers started sticking it to us. Man, it started in January this year. Did they think we wouldn’t notice if they started early? Or is this just their way of softening us up first? Kind of like a cat does when it’s caught a little birdie. Bats it around a few times and makes it think it’s almost free, and then with one ferocious bite chomps off its head. Or maybe this is the oil-igopoly’s way of kissing us first?
On a number of levels high gas prices can’t be helping the economy much. You kind of wonder what things would be like if the guy in the White House had a lot of friends in the SUV business instead of the oil business. The car industry is doing a retake on the seventies. In fact, I saw one of those new tiny cartoon cars that Detroit is currently putting out in desperation the other day. This one was called the Déjà Vu. Definitely harking back to the 70s oil crises on that one. ‘Sept back then we could blame the evil oil cartel, OPEC. American’s could rest comfortable knowing that if we really wanted to, we could end the oil price gouging in a second by marching into Islamaville and taking over those black gold gushers. Hmm.
Champions of unfettered oil exploration now say that when we open up the Alaska wildlife reserve to drilling, all our problems will be solved and oil will once again flow like honey. Problem is, even conservative estimates say that all the oil in the reserve only amounts to about a three-month supply at current usage rates. Four, if we all parked our giant SUVs.
What’s worse is that no one can give a convincing reason why gas prices have suddenly started to climb so precipitously. And the funny thing is, when you hear the talk shows talking about not adding taxes because it might kill the economy, they’re completely ignoring the one thing that could bring the anemic recovery were having to a screeching halt. Higher fuel prices.
Higher fuel prices are a hidden tax on everything. Everything we get comes to us by truck, train, boat or plane. All of which run on fuel. All of us go to work each day using fuel. And if fuel takes a bigger bite out our budget, then we won’t be buying that new electronic gizmo, which now also costs more anyhow because electronic gizmos take money to ship, too. Our great new internet economy, that thrives because shipping items from Ama-dot central is so cheap, will wither on the electronic vine of commerce like a desiccated grape.
A recent poll asked people what they were spending their tax refunds on. A lot of them said bills. I don’t know about you but I’ve already spent my tax reduction four times over on one bill in particular: My fuel bill. Hey honey, we saved two hundred dollars on taxes this year...Oh, and we spent $1000 more on gas. Gee, I sure hope someone isn't getting really, really rich off this. You’d think that destroying a whole economy just so a few people could pocket an extra couple billion wouldn’t be very compassionate.
America Ya Gotta Love It.