Gas Prices

Some 40 percent of Americans would curb their driving habits if retail gasoline prices shot up to $3.50 a gallon, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

This is the problem. We should be driving less NOW. Doing otherwise keeps demand up and allows oil companies to shoot up the price of gas for not other reason. Sure, a barrel of oil does cost significantly more then when it was $1.80 a gallon, but not enough to justify $3.00 a gallon now. I drive my car as little as possible now simply because of the price of gas. What's worse is that when gas does go down, it'll settle on down to around $2.40-$2.60 range and everyone will be happy, not remembering that it used to be $1.80.

Demand is always going to drive up the price of anything, regardless of the situation. You want gas prices to go down? STOP DRIVING AS MUCH. Decreased demand will allow the market to adjust itself and prices will go down. By a hybrid, or better yet, get an electric car when they come out of mainstream car companies. An electric car coupled with a few solar cells on the roof of your home will allow you to strip oil companies of demand for their products.

The more people that do this, the cheaper gas will have to become. If they decide to raise the price because of less demand, they will only push people further towards alternative fuels and drive themselves out of business. The MINUTE a relatively cheap car with good mileage (150+) per charge, and fast recharge time (6 hours or less) becomes available, I'm jumping ship and I won't be purchasing oil unless it's for oil changes or something minor from then on.

Please don't mistake my plans for me preaching to you. If you want to stay with your current car, by all means stay with your car. However, when, not IF, gas prices hit $4 or even $5 a gallon, you can't complain because you weren't warned.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com