A Road Diverged

As many of you are surely aware of, prices of oil have once again gone up - $75.00/barrel.   I haven’t seen the effect at the pumps yet (this morning it was $1.79/gallon).   While I was reading an article about the price of oil� two things stood out to me.   First, was that there was no problem in supply.   Second, someone mentioned that “they” were waiting to see how high the prices could go before there was a decline in demand - which is rather dispicable.   My husband commutes to work, and at this rate we’ll be paying $300-$400/month on gas alone.   And we own a fuel efficient car.   I cannot even imagine what people who own SUVs are paying.   The real question though, is when will demand decline?�  Or will it?�  Are we all so dependent on gas that we’ll tighten our belts, eat out a bit less and save the money to put towards gas?�  Are we willing to make sure that demand goes down?�  Is there anything, that we as a consumer do?�  It’s probably not reasonable for most of us to go out and buy a new car that is more fuel efficient.   For many people, riding a bike to work is also not an option (much less walking).   There is always the bus - but depending on where you live that may not be a very desireable choice either.   And if your job is erratic on when you’ll be there - well, that goes out the window as well.   Perhaps we should just spend more time at home.   That could save us some money.   But, one must remember that prices at the grocery store will be going up as well to cover their fuel costs, so that probably covers the savings made from staying at home.   What’s really sad is that the people this hurts most are the average American who makes a decent income, but not enough to adjust for this change in gas price.   I also have a feeling that a lot of people will start charging their gas to their credit cars and go into more debt.   What a horrible feeling, to go in debt because of gas!�  I don’t know the right solution to this - but there has to be one.   Government interference has crossed my mind (the oil companies are not 100% private), but I don’t know whether I’m comfortable with that idea.   I suppose that I shall wait for a mass email to hit my inbox telling me what I can do to help make gas prices go down.   Someone must have an idea…one that doesn’t include blowing up Iran…

This entry was posted on Friday, April 21st, 2006 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Politics, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.