(Author’s note: this piece was prepared Monday evening, about three hours before Kim’s posting on Bush ordering an investigation into gas prices.)
Once again, gas prices are rising, and people are howling. I’m feeling the pinch, too — I don’t have a great deal of discretionary income, the Shaggin’ Wagon isn’t the most fuel-efficient vehicle around, and my daily work commute is almost fifty miles round trip. In short, It’s getting painful here too.
A lot of people are getting angry about it, too, and once again I’m one of them. There really isn’t a sensible reason why prices are rising, apart from the fact that apparently the market will bear it.
Where I’m differing from the crowd, though, is where to put the blame.
Some are blaming the oil companies. I’m no fan of them, but I really don’t hold them responsible for this. They have good times and bad, just like any other business. Besides, I strongly suspect that I own a little bit of oil stock through my 401K plan, as do many others. (Yup, I just checked — one of the funds I’m in has 2.6% of its money in Chevron and ExxonMobil.) Besides, the spikes have involved the price of crude oil, and they buy that crude for refining.
The producers? Yeah, I guess I can blame them, too, but I happen to be a bit of a capitalist. I have an instinctive reaction to not want to meddle with the free market system unless absolutely necessary — and then only minimally. “The power to tax is the power to destroy,” after all.
As my incredibly feeble understanding of the matter goes, the folks making out like bandits here, who are driving the prices up and up, are the speculators. They are the ones who believe that oil will be worth more in the future, that prices will continue to rise dramatically, and they want to make their money off betting on that happening.
And as tempting as it is to smack them around a bit, I’m not going to. They are risking their own money, and if they are wrong, they will be the ones who get hurt the worst.
We’ve seen it before. I recall the dot-com boom of the 90’s, when I simply could not imagine how the hell all these internet startups were worth so damned much money. I figured there must have been something I didn’t grasp that explained just how the hell they were staying afloat without actually making a profit.
It turned out that I was smarter than the geniuses, as was proven in the dot-bomb implosion.
And that’s just what I hope happens to these speculators who have driven gasoline prices to the point where I’m feeling the pinch, and a lot of others are struggling, too. I so look forward for the day when gas and oil prices take a big hit, come back down to what I consider reasonable levels, and all those speculators making money hand over fist today take it in the shorts — and hard.
I just don’t trust the government to fix the problem without making it worse.
Mak
only to a level that you would be able to comprehend!
Jay Tea & John Kerry
What moronic analysis that you exhibit. It’s a collective (oh, you probably hate that word)reflection of right-wing stupidity. No wonder America is in the mess it is.
You think that this nation exists in a world where it can petulantly & selfishly insist on having things ordered its way.
Unfortunately for people like you, the rest of the world is having none of this insanity & about 2/3 of the American public seem to be getting there fill as well.
As opposed to how it really is, where mak44 can petulantly & selfishly insist on having things ordered his (her?) way.
Well, I read all the posts. Seems as though everyone has an explanation. I personally like the one not mentioned enough–China and India are becoming gas hogs like us. Every resource on this earth is going to run out eventually; I marvel everyday that we still have all that we do. People are notorius wasters and there are a bunch occupying this planet. Unfortunately in a free society we are able to point fingers. This would have been a good thread without the politics and personal inuendo. We are all too blame!
Judith
Im sorry You feel this way, Me personally i feel no guilt for using what was made for our use!
Unfortunately in a free society we are able to point fingers?? as opposed to Iran for example?where point Your finger and Your liable to have it or some other part of Your anatomy cut off.
And Im innocent, thanks to the blood of Jesus Christ.
John Kerry
You are an evangelical wingnut, & no matter how many hosannahs you shout, your god wouldn’t piss on you if you were aflame.
And, should your maniacal wingnut views prevail, you & the whole world will be aflame.
In that case, you would isist that you had been god’s agent in initiating The End of Days.
Being a rather conservative libertarian myself I would simply suspend futures trading in crude and refined petroleum products and see where the prices go. The current run up of prices in these products and the subsequent costs to everyone on the planet I feel is unacceptable. The futures markets were conceived originally to lessen the volatility and price swings of commodities, however the exact opposite is true concerning petroleum products. Every bit of information, be it truth or fiction causes wild swings and increases in price. Seems that the speculators have found a golden goose here. Hopefully the price will tank and all of them will find themselves in the same situation as the Dukes did with FCOJ.
Regards.
Bill Place