You know and I know gas prices in these parts are, well, in a word sucky.
According to AAA.com, the statewide average cost for a Michigan gallon of gas in January 2007 was $2.11 (ah, the good ol? days). By the end of February the cost had crept up to $2.307 per gallon (still palatable). The end of March showed prices were $2.514 a gallon, and by April, $2.81.
When I drove into work this morning the price was $3 and 32 cents a smackin? frackin? gallon. I feel warm and fuzzy when I read $3.32 a gallon. I feel like running naked in a field of poppies, wind flowing through my fast graying locks. I feel simply fantastic that gas prices, since January, have gone up 57 percent.
I feel all sorts of happy things (evil, vile and despicable) yet, ever the good little trooper, I get in line and buy my three gallons and pay with a smile.
Gas station attendant Wendy recently bent my ear while I was paying for gas. ‘Can you tell people to stop pumping gas and then driving off? Every time that happens, it comes out of my paycheck.?
I guess all of you are not following my lead. How can I be your leader, if you don’t follow?
Folks, every time you pump and dash, you are not hurting the big, bad oil companies or even the gas station owner. The only person you’re hurting is the person unlucky enough to be behind the counter when you perpetrate your dastardly deed.
You ain’t stickin? it to the man. You’re sticking it to the person who probably makes nine bucks an hour.
Another point: owners of gas stations are not the ones raking in the doe-ray-me, either. Gas station owners bank their profits not on you buying gas at their joint, rather that you’ll also by a bag of chips, or a pop or something from their convenience store. Bottom line, their profit is not from the gallons of gas sold (as a matter of fact, whenever somebody pays for gas with a credit card their very small profit shrinks due to credit card finance charges).
And, while I am at it, May 15 was to be the big gas out — and I am not talking about gaseous emanations from the body. May 15 was a day when a good, old-fashioned American grass-roots movement was to show the Mobils, Exxons, et al, what we really think. It was a day we were not supposed to fill up.
For all the hype, the e-mail chain letters and hope, it’s my strong belief this doesn’t and won’t work. Hate to be the party-pooper and rain on your parade, but, the Mobils and Exxon’s, et al, can wait you out — especially because they know it’s coming. For all I know, they artificially pumped up the prices the week before to ‘brace? for the big gas out.
They may be rich, but they ain’t stupid. They know if you don’t fill up today, you will tomorrow or the next.
Like I said, there is no sticking it to the man.
You can call me a leftist leaning, European socialist with tree-hugging, Al Gore supporting tendencies (and you’d be off on your characterizations), but the way I see it, until folks don’t feel the need to showcase their wealth by driving Lincoln Navigators, Cadillac Escalades, GM Hummers and big honkin? trucks with Hemi engines that can pull down the Empire State Building, gas prices are gonna? stay up.
It’s a simple capitalistic premise based in Economics 101. The laws of supply and demand say, if there is a big demand and low supply, costs go up. The opposite is also true. Demand has changed and that has effected supply. We have more folks driving AND so do the Chinese and Indians — we all need the supply, when before it was only us. Quite literally, the man has us over the barrel.
In theory, our buying patterns will dictate the market. If we demand (purchase) more fuel efficient vehicles, the auto companies will produce them (unless, of course, you’re GM, Ford and Chrysler — in that case you’ll continue to produce and promote monster trucks and let the Japanese beat you).
I guess it is a lot more complicated than the oil companies making obscene, record-setting profits on the backs of average Americans. And, while I would like to see the gas outs work, I won’t hold my breath.
But, back to the original point: Stealing gas will not stick it to the man, just your neighbor.
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