NPR's Day to Day had a good segment on irrational consumer expectations. While 'high' gas prices has set off a wave of finger pointing, gas costs less per unit that coffee or soda, two liquids which are also guzzled in massive quantities by Americans.
Instead, the finger pointing has been directed at oil companies for alleged price gouging.
If demand increases (as it continues to do with increasing energy consumption by India and China) and sources of supply remain steady, then logically the price will increase. This isn't gouging. It's basic economics.
So why blame the oil companies? This is done mostly by populist politicians of both major parties who want to give the appearance that there addressing this problem without doing anything significant to actually address the problem.
Why won't they address the problem? Because there's not much they can do.
This brings me to the other point in the segment. When faced with perceived high prices, consumers inevitably prefer to blame someone else. This is why the finger pointing is directed at Big Oil for doing exactly what multinationals are demanded to do by their shareholders and the market (including those with 401(k) plans): make as much money as they possibly can. It's ok when these multinationals do so by destroying the lives and homeland of the people of southern Nigeria or by lining the pockets of one of the world's worst despots. But when Big Oil makes middle class Americans to pay three bucks a gallon for a product they took as their God-given right to get cheaply, then it's a national 'crisis.'
There are a lot of things for which you can reproach Big Oil but charging middle class Americans a fair market price for fueling their motor vehicles.
Because of the 'blame others' mentality, we get quick fix bandaids that do nothing to address underlying structural problems. And in some cases, exacerbate them. That's why you get federal proposals for $100 rebates so a family can get a free week or two of gasoline. That's why you get New York state proposals to cap the gas tax (thus further encouraging inefficient behavior). That's why you get proposals to drill in the Alaska's ANWAR park even though oil from there wouldn't hit the market for years.
If you're going to offer a rebate or tax breaks, why not use them to reward EFFICIENT transportation behavior? Why not exempt the purchase of hybrids from taxes? Why not offer them to people who bike or walk or take the bus to work? Or to companies to who reward their employees for doing so? After all, people who drive less or not at all are not only contributing to less air pollution, but they are easing demand on gas that's causing the prices to increase.
Free will is about choice. If you choose to buy a Hummer or a pickup truck, you have no right to complain about how much you're paying for gas. If you choose to live 50 miles away from where you work, you have no right to complain about how much you're paying for gas.
For years, I've been gently needled by some, and outright ridiculed by others, for my choice to not own a car. As I explained then every transportation option has positives and negatives and I've chosen the one that makes sense for me at this time. I took the good with the bad without blaming others or expecting others to subsidize my choice. If you want to call yourself an adult, you need to be able to do that. I've never lectured people on what transportation they should choose for themselves, only explained what I chose for myself. Yet now, many automobilists want the politicians to rush in and save them from their own lifestyle choices which have suddenly become inconvenient. I don't rejoice at high gas prices but you'll pardon me if I don't shed any tears for the protestations.
If you want to win elections, blaming others is always more effective than telling people to looking in the mirror. Voters say they want politicians to tell the truth but only if it's what they want to hear. And the truth is that at least for the near future, gas prices will probably continue to rise. If you don't like it, change your own lifestyle. Otherwise, keep your whining away from my ears.
4 comments:
Interesting blog. I enjoyed what you had to say about energy and immigration. Your position with respect to the fascist states and organizations fans of liberal democracy have been opposing warrants rexamination. The left has a strong record of opposing totalitarians from Kim Il-Sung 1950s to Milosevic, but their hatred of Bush has disappointingly blinded them to our current predicament. It seems the left will support anyone from Hugo Chavez to Mamoud Ahmadinejad if they have derogatory things to say about George W. Bush, who won't even be in office in less than two years.
I'm not quite sure what you suggest warrants re-examination. However, it's certainly true that some of the western left has a long tradition of opposing totalitarianism. It's also true that other parts of the western left had an infatuation with totalitarian regimes, from the USSR to the Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnam. I'm not sure I've heard any of my left-wing friends praise Ahmadinejad but this blog has been repeatedly critical of those on the left who've expressed sycophancy toward people like Chavez, Fidel Castro and Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A populist, cult of personality strongman is a populist, cult of presonality strongman, regardless of ideology.
I don't know if the left's hatred of Bush has blinded them to 'the current predicament' (whatever that means); Islamists are even more reactionary and anti-progressive than neo-cons and theo-cons. I do know that the left mistrusts almost everything that comes out of Bush's mouth, and for good reason. The problem that creates is that when he actually speaks the truth, much of the country doesn't believe him.
Incidentally, just because Ahmadinejad or Chavez say something that the left happens to agree with doesn't mean the left supports them.
B,
Here's what I'm still scratching my head about.
If there is greater demand for oil (w/ India & China now entering the mix) that sends the $$ of oil up, why has it not effected that we need oil to make...like plastic?
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