Gas Prices 101

Last month, some well-meaning soul sent me an email urging me not to buy gas on May 15 to punish the oil companies.

Sadly, their effort apparently bore no fruit, as I heard of no bankruptcy proceedings for any major oil companies the next day.

Now, the latest missive is to boycott Exxon indefinitely. Nice try, once again. Won't work. America (the U.S.) is too diverse a nation these days for that, which is good in many ways, bad in others. In other words, there is no godlike figure who can stand up anymore and command the devoted loyalty of virtually the entire nation. No Martin Luther King Jr., no Cesar Chavez, no John F. Kennedy, etc. If the Messiah Himself appeared in Central Park tomorrow and told the nation to stay home next Thursday, millions of people would still be found out playing golf on that day, oblivious, clueless or obstinate.

Here are a few things to consider if you are currently seething with hatred for oil companies:

How big is your car? If you are driving an SUV or some massive pickup that carries around nothing heavier than your butt and a few leaves that drifted into the back of it, then please go away, go far, far away, because your complaining only makes you look stupider.

How heavy are the taxes on gas in your area? And did you vote for the politicians who support/imposed them, who are now crying crocodile tears about high gas prices? Again, go away, you bother me.

Are you aware that stats show that despite our whining, Americans are buying more gas than they were two years ago?

Are you aware that millions of people in China who used to ride bicycles in the post-Mao days, now drive cars? And that their cars run on gasoline, just as ours do? And that they have just as much a right to drive cars as we do? And that until we finally, as a planet, overcome our gas addiction, the laws of supply and demand dictate that all those new gas tanks will keep the price of the stuff ever higher? And that no internet campaign, no angry boycott, will change any of that?