Very recently there was a group on Facebook that was trying to lower gas prices by having a boycott on them for a day. A DAY!? Are you kidding me?! How ignorant are people getting these days? Does no one understand the basics of economics anymore? Let met spell the core concept out for you:
Demand vs. Supply
That's it, it's a direct correlation. Yes it does get more complicated than that but it is simple. The reason for the recent increase in cost is a direct relation of a possible loss of supply. Therefor the suspicion of possible loss drove the price up while demand has stayed the same, possibly even dropped some. The impact of a small group of people not buying gas for one day is not going to impact demand as much as to cause a drop in prices that they all expect. Not to mention even if I was just a mindless freak about joining stupid causes like this that I did join and decided to be a part of the group, it wouldn't have mattered an ounce. I had bought fuel 3 days before. I don't know about everyone else out there but I do not buy gas on a daily or even a weekly basis. I buy gas when the tank is low, that means I buy gas on average of every 10-15 days. Obviously that is dependent on fuel consumption. A more worthwhile cause would have been to say "lets boycott fuel for a week" even at that, with the right timing anyone could easily achieve that by fueling up just before that week and going right through that week without ever needing to buy gas.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that gas is not a commodity for American society. It is a necessity, people buy it as they need it not as they want it. Granted some people need gas to do the things they want to do but that does not mean everyone does. The way people can change the gas prices is by eliminating their gas guzzling vehicles, using high efficiency vehicles such as motorcycles and other small vehicles, cutting out excessive trips using a vehicle, start walking places within reach, if not within walking distance then bike, if possible commute with other people from work, or even use public transportation.
In the future please think about what you are doing before you create something stupid like this day boycott against fuel. You are only making yourself and others look incredibly stupid doing so.
Sometimes I feel like American gas prices are actually a bad thing being cheap the way they are. "On a per capita basis, Americans use three times more oil than Europeans, he said. That means Americans are more exposed to rising gas prices than their counterparts across the Atlantic." This means that we pollute more as well... I don't think people realize how cheap gas is in America. Really, until we get up to four or five dollars again, I wouldn't be bitching. I agree- people shouldn't be so dumb.
ReplyDeletehttp://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/104996/Why-Gas-in-the-U.S.-Is-So-Cheap
I agree.
ReplyDeleteOn a related matter: It's also easy to blame oil companies for problems when we should be looking at both the auto industry and ourselves. Why don't we have public transportation and why don't we carpool?
Well, the auto-industry has bought out many patents and forms of public transportation throughout the last century. They generally do this to prevent production of certain kinds of vehicles/and or competition in other forms of transportation. Ie: no bus for you..so go buy a car. Now.
And, we don't feel like paying taxes to build railways or more bus routes. Then, somebody proposes an alternative, like recent discussion of passenger train routes in PA. What happens? Local companies who ship by rail decide that they don't want to have to reschedule their shipments..and the rail company says they won't build any more track.
As for carpooling: We want to drive our own cars, durrrrrr.