Here we go again.
Rising gas prices.
Record-breaking gas prices have gripped the nation, with much of the nation over $5 a gallon as of this article. Some places in California are already over $8 a gallon!
And it doesn’t seem like it will end anytime soon, will it? Nope. Because those corrupt “analysts” for Big Gas and Big Oil continue to predict higher and higher prices.
Worse yet, those higher gas prices are making the cost of things even more expensive, because the supply chain runs on diesel, which is more expensive than the regular gas most of us use. That’s making inflation go up and up even further.
And once again we have finger-pointing and blaming. The red-hat fascist cult followers of the orange narcissist and their propagandist radio and TV networks want to blame President Joe Biden. Biden wants to blame Russia’s thug Vlad Putin. The Democrats want to blame Big Oil and Big Gas and basically Big Corporate. Big Oil and Big Gas want to blame a “complex series of conditions” that they supposedly cannot control.
Truth is, much of the blame falls on those “Big” groups. They’re choosing to raise prices so they can reap those record profits later.
And the solutions offered – if any – are a bunch of broken records repeated over and over like commercial jingles. A pipeline that cannot be finished per court order that wouldn’t even supply oil to American refineries. Permits to drill oil that have been languishing for years. Oil shale fracking that the companies are refusing to increase because they want their goddamned profits.
Oh, and the gas taxes and regulations. Let’s not forget those. Even when environmental regulations are lifted and the gas taxes are suspended, the prices still go up and up. Worse yet, the Bigs may even keep the savings from the tax suspensions to further boost their profits. Here in Georgia, the governor suspended the gas tax, and the prices only went down a fraction of the almost-30-cent-per-gallon tax imposed. Gee, whatever happened to the rest, Big Gas?
Now, folks, I’ve been on this mud ball for over fifty years. I remember the 1970’s when OPEC held the western world hostage over oil. I remember the gas rationing and the shut-downs and the long lines and the odd-even days for vehicles. Hell, I remember the comedy movie “Americathon” based on those rising prices. I remember the rising gas prices from Iraq during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I remember how those prices fell quickly once the allied forces invaded Iraq to liberate Kuwait. I remember the rising prices of the late 1990’s and again in the 2000’s. I remember people threatening to punish Big Gas with a laughable “one-day” protest that did nothing.
You know what I remember the most from the gas spikes of the 2000’s? I remember the lies and the false promises. The shopping list of demands from Big Oil and Big Gas that the president of the time, George W. Bush, pushed Congress to exact, only to then turn around and say that none of those proposals would do a damn thing to help today. Biggest con job of the decade second only to the Great Recession!
But through it all, there has been one solution that continually gets ignored. One solution that this commentator has been saying for years that seemingly nobody wants to see enacted.
It’s one that requires no executive order. No act from Congress. No regulatory action. No state or local involvement. No court decision and it cannot be blocked by any judge or any piece of legislation. And it would guarantee to put the price hikes to an end.
You want to know what it is? It’s really simple.
Stop driving.
Okay, it’s not really that simple. Obviously, we can’t just give up driving completely. But we can certainly put a huge dent in our driving habits in the short term by liming our driving to the essentials. Work, shopping, emergencies; just like we did during the pandemic. No trips to the movies or going to restaurants. No trips to the beach or to the mountains or to grandma’s house. Staycations instead of vacations. Want to see the fireworks on the 4th of July? Watch them on TV; you’ll get a better view anyway.
Matter of fact, once upon a time we had this thing called carpooling. I know, I know, I’m really showing my age here. But ask your parents about when they used to share a ride with others from work. Using all the seats of a vehicle for people and everyone pitches in for gas. Imagine that!
And you don’t need a law or regulation to do this. It’s just people making the decision to cut down on their gas consumption by not doing the stupid things during the summer months.
The reason why we should do this is simple: reduce demand. Big Oil and Big Gas and the conservatives and the red-hat cultists all say it’s about “supply and demand”, right? Well, if Big Oil doesn’t want to produce more oil for America and Big Gas refuses to build those new refineries they keep bitching about, and the oil shale frackers are saying “frack you” to America about increasing supply, then we need to cut down on the demand the best way we can. That means stop driving.
Now I know two things about having us not drive as much.
First, the rising gas prices will come to a halt. It will also slow down the economy, which will ease inflation. That part is both good and bad as there are plenty of businesses that depend on us driving about.
And second... you will never do this willingly.
I know the whole stinking lot of us are stupid, selfish, self-entitled, and self-centered. We don’t want to give up our autonomy. We don’t want to give up travelling. We love driving our huge gas-chugging pickup trucks and SUVs. Hell, I should know! I once said I would never drive an SUV and now I do; albeit a fuel-efficient one, not a gas-chugger. We don’t want to stop going on trips, going on vacation, going to concerts and stores and restaurants. We feel we are absolutely entitled to these things, and thus we will continue to do the stupid things and bitch about the rising prices.
But let’s get brutally honest here... at some point, we won’t have a choice but to cut back. As long as we continue to drive like idiots and buy those gas-chuggers, as long as we feel entitled to drive about, take vacations, go on trips, go on flights, no matter how high those gas prices will go, they will continue to go up, along with the rest of the prices. Then, barring a sudden economic collapse or the passing of a certain thuggish foreign leader, we will reach a point to where we won’t have a choice but to cut back, because we won’t be able to afford it. And we won’t be able to afford a lot of other things as well.
If we cut back on our driving now, we can stop the price hikes here. But as long as we continue to be entitled and demand that we drive about and just whine and bitch about the prices, then all it will do is tell Big Oil and Big Gas and Big Corporate that we haven’t suffered enough. You don’t like $5 gas? How about $6? How about $8? How about $10? They will keep raising the prices because they know that we are stupid and will just bitch about it. They will keep making things expensive for us all. They will do so until the economy breaks, or until we do, and then the economy will follow. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again.
It's up to us, folks. I’ve been saying this for years. We need to make the hard decisions now, or they will be forced on us later on, and then we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.
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