Didnt' buy it for the gas mileage in the first place
I think we should all become activists on the gas issues. It has not cost a cent more to get the oil from undergound, has not cost a cent more to refine it... it is the commodity brokers who have bid the prices up and for the most part, it is the gas companies who have divisions that are these commodity brokers. I have not seen any evidence that the world price of gas has taken such a precipitous increase and though many of you may correctly state that the rest of the world has been paying $4-6 per gallon for years, you are correct, however, most of that is due to taxes levied by their governments... the actual price of gas has not been raised as it has in the US over the past 4 months. It is panic pricing and bidding by the commodity buyers. There is not a wholesale shortage, it is the current practice of most companies of "just in time" inventory fulfilment that has created the rationing and spot shortages. The published .06% decrease in gas supply from a year ago is a rounding error in the overall scheme of things. IMO gas has become a utility, just like electricity or natural gas, and should be regulated by state commissions just like gas, telephone, electricity... so I think all of us should consider writing congress, state legislatures, the press, anyone you can think of about this contrived gas shortage. Those refineries on the Gulf Coast are not in operation today because there is no electiricty... it is not because they have been obliterated like the rest of the community there... there is gas and oil in all those tanks you have seen in the newspapers... that is not going anywhere, and it is not contaminated just because there is water throughout the rest of the refinery. It boggles my mind that because we have shut down the refineries on the Gulf Coast for maybe a month or so, that there is not sufficient production available on the West Coast, in Houston (which has not been bothered one bit by the disaster), the east coast, etc. that we could not have a normal supply distribution established within a few days. The press is having a field day with this, and the petroleum consultants (who by the way make all their income from positively supporting the petroleum industry) are way overreacting to this disaster in the Gulf Coast, and have helped this panic retail increase in gas. It will be very interesting to see the public posting of 3Q revenue results by all the petrochemical companies, and see the profits they have made from this situation. There is no sane reason for gas to be at the prices it is today. I believe we should create a groundswell of consumer demand that there be in inquiry into the gas price increases... have an actual accounting of what the wholesale prices have been in relation to the retail prices at the pumps, and we should lobby for state regulation of gas prices. Seems that Hawaii has already taken a step in that direction. Why not all the other states. This points out the dependence we have on petroleum based products when there is a very viable renewable energy source... ethenol, yet the government has not provided any incentive or has not pushed the energy segement in that direction. There is a budding ethenol enterprise in the midwest, where there are blends of gas that cost significantly less than the 100% pure petroleum products that we are buying today. There seems to be some push toward Hydrogen fuels... a very exotic and expensive high tech solution to reducing our dependence on petrochemical fuels. Ethenol is low tech, and could in fact be a great boost to our agricultural segments. Ethenol can be produced from corn, soy, and a number of plant species. Why not make a commitment to these renewable forms of energy. Ethenol is a cleaner burning product that does not emit the more harmful gases we are worried about. So we should be pushing our political parties to embrace this technology, and we should be sending many letters to our congressmen and women and representatives with a groundswell that they can not ignore... we need to put some force into the old phrase... "vote the rascles out" if they do not take the time now to support renewable energy policies and products... this is not rocket science stuff... it is common sense. Sorry for the long post here.. hope that I have given some food for thought.. We can make a difference, but we have to be engaged and be active to make it happen... we can't just sit on the sidelines and watch this situation go by and just complain about it. Just my thoughts. It's a serious deal we are about to embark upon as a nation, and I'm feeling right now that it's about as far as we should let it go. There is not real reason that the prices we are about to pay.. and the $4/gallon price is a self fulfilling prophesy... it will happen because we will allow the panic reaction to Katrina to be the "logical explaination" that will support it. I dont' believe that for an instant.
