Mar 22 2008
Gas is still cheap.
I think the price of gas is still on the cheap. When compared to Europe and other developed countries our gas prices are low. The main issue is gas prices impact the cost of our food and goods. The price of gas is a regressive tax, the price hurts people with lower incomes the most.
The part that really bugs me is the price of gas is high because we made it high. All the crazy politicians we have been electing to the government (local, state, or federal) for about the last 100 years have been passing laws and other rules that have created high gas prices. The high price in gas is self imposed.
Its a combination of taxes, laws and regulation. Some of the regulations I am in favor of and would gladly pay for but I bet 90% of the stuff is crap. I think we should drill for oil where ever we can find it and start using more coal. But things won’t change until gas prices get even high and the people start demanding their politicians to really do something about the regulations and taxes tied to gas. Right now this whole hybrid, solar, and alternative energy movement is just a distraction from the real problem. Think about it, if gas was $1.00 a gallon would you seriously consider buying a car that was a hybrid. I sure would not! It would be pointless, you can buy a lot of gas for the $1-2000 premium they put on hybrids.
Until this whole mess is fixed in 50 years, I guess I will have to keep paying $3.54 a gallon at Costco!
Posted by John
I’m a flaming liberal so of course I categorically disagree with you on just about everything, but that’s cool. I’m not an angry liberal and can understand most of the time the context that drives conservatives. That said the one thing that bothers me most about the fossil fuel debate is not the global warming issue. My problem is much more pragmatic.
We are essentially running on the same triumvarite of resources that powered the technological revolution of the 20th century. Fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine transformed our society, but I think we’ve become far to reliant on that technology. Instead of trying to modernize and push the capacity of these resources we’ve merely drilled deeper and in more places. Our refusal to expand hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar power production means that we are always dependent on foreign sources of fossil fuels. We need to break this dependence and advance the technology of combustion like we’ve advanced in so many other areas over the last century.