Brown Sludge

Gas Rage - Jerking The Leash

July 1st, 2006

I’ve been reading a lot lately about “Gas Rage”.

Apparently people have been taking their frustration at high gasoline prices out on the people who work at the gas stations.

There is this piece about the guy who was actually killed when someone ran over him, and I’ve read countless others in the last couple of weeks.

As I watch the price at the pump climbing slowly back to the $3.00 a gallon mark (told you so), I’m not surprised really.

Well… I’m not surprised that people are outraged, because… nobody is really more outraged than I am, but, I am a little surprised at the way that people channel that rage at someone who really has nothing to do with why gas prices are so unbelievably high.

I think I’ve got it figured out though.

That pimple-faced slack-jaw behind the bullet-proof glass at the gas station is all they have really. That poor sucker is the only place that most people perceive that they have to put all the rage and impotence they feel about what’s happening to them at the pump.

People feel as if they’re being gouged.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that because Big Oil controls the capacity to refine, that they NECESSARILY have they’re fingers in the “SUPPLY” side of the “SUPPLY and DEMAND” equation. Like an obnoxious little fat-kid with their fingers on the water-hose they’re free to crimp off supply and drive demand (and their profits) sky-high whenever they feel like it.

The only people who don’t get that are Gordon Gekko wannabe’s and tin-foil hat wearing libertarians. Intelligent people get it, and they also know they can’t turn to anyone to protect them from this cynical manipulation.

Their legislators aren’t watching out for them. Congress says it investigates the prices – every time Damien pinches off the supply and prices begin to rise people make enough noise to make their representatives nervous – then there is an “investigation” into the prices – and then… silence.

What was investigated? Who was investigated? What was done exactly? Nobody ever says.

I get the distinct impression that some shill on The Hill picks up the phone and dials-up the CEO’s of ExxonMobile, BP, Dutch Shell, Chevron, and Total and says something asinine like “Hey! You guys aren’t screwing us at the pump, are you?”, the CEO’s do the “Shocked! Shocked I am!” act, and the shill says… “Okay then. Sorry for bugging you.”

Truth of the matter is that the FTC didn’t want to investigate them in the first place, and they howl every time congress makes them. Their report is mind bogglingly idiotic. The last “investigation” read like a chapter from Sybil.

First they claim :

In its investigation, the FTC found no instances of illegal market manipulation that led to higher prices

But then… they add furtively :

but found 15 examples of pricing at the refining, wholesale, or retail level that fit the relevant legislation’s definition of evidence of “price gouging.” Other factors such as regional or local market trends, however, appeared to explain these firms’ prices in nearly all cases.

All I can really say is… WTF???

They found 15 examples that fit the definition of price gouging… but… NEVERMIND?

Unreal.

Then they whine like little stuck pigs at end of the document about how much it sucks to be made to investigate - so that there really is no doubt about how much effort they really put into this “investigation”.

You can read the whole “finely crafted” document here
.

Then, people are barraged by nit-wits in the media and the blogosphere who try to convince them that gasoline is actually CHEAPER today than it has been in YEARS PAST. Mostly these guys are the stereotypical academic types who have never actually ran a single thing, and who have been sold on the economic theories of dead Austrians who – also – were academic types who never actually ran or managed a single thing of substance in their long careers as tenured professors.

The Republican’s have sold out.
The Democrats that haven’t sold out aren’t helping.
The Libertarians are… well… they’re too busy making tin-foil hats and fighting amongst themselves.

People feel as if they’ve been abandoned by those they look toward to protect them from being preyed upon, and that there is nobody to turn to for help.

And in real ways they have - and in real ways there really isn’t.

So… what’s the solution?

I’m not sure there is one in the short-term.

Our dependence on oil and those that provide it – meaning both Big Oil and Middle Eastern Regimes that don’t have our best interest at heart - means that they will continue to jerk our leash violently and cruelly until they are stopped. Period. Anyone who believes that either of these two groups are just VOLUNTARILY going to stop getting obscenely rich at our expense is… well… a very silly person.

That means that we probably have only one of two options.

1. Find another source of energy.

I’m harassing my Toyota dealer TWICE A WEEK about a flexible fuel Tacoma. But… here’s the deal. We need to have a COMPLETELY different source of fuel. One that doesn’t involve Big Oil in any way. I don’t see fuel “blends” as an option really, for very cynical reasons. Take E85. It is my opinion that if E85 took off that, MIRACULOUSLY, you would see that little %15 of regular gasoline in a gallon of ethonal would add about (you guessed it!) $3.00 to the price of that gallon. They are absolutely trying to convince people even now that the reason they’re charging so much at the pump is that in some places they have to blend %10 ethanol. They’re doing that dance TODAY. You can’t reasonably expect people that behave like that to act any other way.

The scientists say a hydrogen economy is the real ticket. The things I’ve read about hydrogen suggest it’s just as powerful as gasoline, burns absolutely clean, and it’s only waste product is… water. I guess my big question is : why aren’t we RUNNING toward a hydrogen economy if this is true?

As I’ve said before, it will be a sweet, sweet day when those guys overseas in those hostile regimes are sitting on so much black-goo that nobody really needs very much of anymore. Tell Big Oil “good luck finding a buyer for that goo” cause… we don’t need as much of it anymore. Try telling the 3 customers you have left that prices gotta go up because a bird farted near a refinery in Florida.

2. Take your rage where it belongs.

Stop bitching at the slack-jaw behind the counter. Direct your anger toward the people that did the damage.

If every single congressman or senator that voted with or received from or “earmarked” for Big Oil was thrown completely out on election day, gasoline would be .79 cents a gallon. I promise you. If having anything at all to do with this process meant an absolute, unquestionable, irreversible political death, you would see a dramatic change not only in the laws and legislation that have made it easy for these people to jerk your leash every time they feel like it, but you would also see a dramatic change in the nature of the “investigations”. You would also see them scrambling like hamsters on a hot-plate trying to change all the laws they’ve passed that made mergers and other unhealthy and uncompetitive behavior legal and appealing.

It’s an absolute truth that we all, with our power to vote, have capability to snatch away the leash that Big Oil has been using to almost choke us to death at the pumps recently and tell them all to collectively :

“Jerk this.”

Entry Filed under: General, Big Oil