Gasoline Prices

Gas, beans, beans make you toot, beans, beans good for your heart. Now with all joking aside, as we all know gasoline prices are extreme. As we are probably are all aware by now from the news reports the reasons for this is those that set the prices based it on expected supply of (accessible) unrefined oil as well as expected costs of refining (and of course demand). In short, this leaves us with what many of us are thinking as unfair, high gas prices due to the fact that actual prices of gas are based on theoretical/expected supply and costs as already mentioned. Now as much as we would all like to believe that are governments will step in and at some point regulate the price of gas we all know deep down inside of us that this is unlikely. The reason for this feeling is the reality that many of these companies both have professional as well as social ties with our governments (i.e., the companies do business with our governments and they know our politicians personally in many cases: this is besides cases that our politicians may have invested interests waiting in trusts for them when they are done with their political careers).

The question then what then can be done? The answer lies within the power of consumption otherwise know as demand: in short, do not consume so much and we will all see prices drop as these companies start competing for our business. Use alternative methods such as transit, carpooling, walking, etc. For those on the more activist side of things consider approaching your local elected officials or employers asking them to have reserved parking spots (or reduced parking prices) for carpoolers. As for right now, these companies are hoping the ceiling between consumer tolerance (i.e., demand) for high prices of gasoline is high enough [sorry for the pun] to warrant increasing gas prices. Eventually, as prices rise tolerance will decrease and the to will balance to form an equilibrium for gas price. We as customers both have the power to bring about this equilibrium sooner rather than later as well as to reduce the prices of gas when reaching this equilibrium. Oh, one other method to reduce prices is simply to go to a gas station that is offering a less expensive price (even if it that gas station that is only constantly one cent less per liter than the rest) to try to encourage competition amongst stations for our business.

Added to the above is the issue of whether or not prices of gas should be allowed to go up after disasters? See the problem with supply and demand is that principles of humanity do not easily apply, added on to this is the issue of real increases in demand after emergencies (i.e., is it more people that need gas or is it the period of time that they need it in that has increased) as well as supply (i.e., has the available supply has decreased or is it the production and distribution that has decreased).