These Gas Prices are Insane!

Gas prices are insane these days, and my anger increases with price increases. Is there any relief for the hard working American person? Well my prediction is…no…not any time soon at least. You have to understand some of the underlying factors that contribute to gasoline prices to be able to understand why the price is so high. The basic principles are built on economic supply and demand. You see, currently are our country is suffering from a constant / increasing demand for gasoline, and the supply has been restricted.

Think about it this way, let’s say you really needed a gallon of milk, and your local grocery store only had a handful of milk gallons, and they didn’t expect to be stocking very many more gallons of milk over the next several months. Well as people would buy out the gallons of milk they had, when they brought in new shipments of milk, they would increase the price for two reasons: one to make more money on the milk they were selling, and two, to be able to carry some stock for a while without being sold out due to people changing their habits because of cost increases.

Some Thoughts About Our Domestic Gas Prices

The same thing is happening in the gasoline industry. Americans have not seen high gas prices for a long time, and have gotten very accustomed to long commutes and traveling a lot for vacations. Before hurricane Katrina and other economical problems, gasoline was very cheap, and so it wasn’t a problem. But today, there is a shortage of available gasoline, and prices are soaring to all time highs. Why is that? Well here are some reasons for the shortage:

Natural disasters have knocked out some productive domestic refineries, and they have been slow to get back online and in full production.
Restrictive government regulations placed on oil companies have disallowed the construction of new refineries in this country. In fact, we have not built a new refinery since 1976!
Further government restrictions have disallowed the exploration and discovery of new oil deposits in this country. Special interest and environmental wackos have contributed to the passing of these ridiculous regulations.
The creates far too great of a dependence on foreign oil. Our oil imports from Canada and Latin America are so great, that they are able to dictate the price to us.

The Biggest Reason for High Gas Prices

Before I go on, I want to point out here that these observations are not the only thing affecting gas prices. That said, the single largest reason for the insanely high gas prices is this:

AMERICANS REFUSE TO CHANGE THEIR HABITS REGARDING THE PURCHASE OF GASOLINE!

We are so stubborn and selfish, that we simply will not cut those vacations out, we won’t sell off that gas guzzling Ford Excursion in exchange for better gas mileage motorcycles or cars, and we won’t move closer to work to save on gas consumption. We expect the next guy to do these things, and therefore get the price down for us, instead of us taking action to limit our own consumption. I have a car that gets anywhere from 24-30 miles per gallon, and even I am deeply considering getting a 50-80 miles per gallon moped or scooter to ride around town and get necessary errands completed.

At the end of the day, if we do not make changes in our habits, we will be forced to by gas prices that are so high, you won’t be able to make the rest of your bills. So take action against the insanity, and get your gas prices down today.