The Only Guaranteed Way to Lower Gas Prices

So many schemes have been proposed to somehow “force” the price of gas below its current level, and yet so many of them are so manifestly ridiculous that it's remarkable that any decently intelligent person would ever adhere to them. That's not to say intelligent people might not believe them for a time, but when confronted with the facts, no one can deny the obvious ignorance behind these propositions. In all the complex designs to bring the “evil” gas companies to their knees, we have overlooked the origin of the problem. You may be surprised.

The most ridiculous idea I've heard yet is that we should boycott the gas companies for a few days. But what do we do in the meantime? When we finally do buy gas we will simply buy more of it, making up for any loses the gas companies suffered in the preceding days.

The second most ridiculous idea is that we should spread out our gas purchases throughout the week in order to flood the supply chain of the gas companies, forcing them to lower prices to get rid of their inventory. I won't spend much time on this theory. It should be obvious to everyone that if everybody bought a little bit of gas on a daily basis instead of buying a lot of gas on a weekly basis that there would be no net increase in the amount of gas consumed, not even on a daily basis.

The third proposal is more tricky: that we should boycott the top two oil producers in an attempt to force them to lower their prices. However, as a friend of mine pointed out, the increased demand placed on the underdog gas companies would cause an increase in their prices, leaving us worse of than we were before.

While oil companies companies are most often blamed for the high price of gas, and accusations of price gouging and windfall profits are hurled like mud balls on an elementary school playground (and indeed, the origin of these political projectiles are no more mature than their 5th grade counterparts) most people are ignorant of the simple truth that oil companies don't make outrageous profits. Numerous independent sources report that oil companies receive only 9 cents in profit per gallon, which comes out to 5.8 cents per dollar of total revenue! For the sake of comparison, the average profit of all other industries combined is 5.5 cents per dollar, and many individual industries receive far more than that.

In the meantime, the U.S. Congress has repeatedly defeated bills to allow us to explore and extract and refine domestic sources of oil, mostly due to pressure from whiny environmentalists who don't have lives, and who seek a sense of purpose by “caring” about the environment and trying to “make a difference”. They've made a difference all right. Congress has created the the shortage of oil we now face. If oil companies were allowed to explore the oil-rich regions within the borders of our own country, no doubt they would supply more gasoline, and we would see the price of gas drop.

But that's only the long term problem congress has caused. Not only do they prevent us from drilling for our own oil, the federal government has instituted taxes that artificially force the price of gas even higher. The federal government charges 18.4 cent a gallon (in contrast to the gas companies' 9 cents per gallon) beside what states charge, which is an average of 22.4 cents per gallon. Exxon Mobil reported profits of 8 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2006. If the fed is receiving twice what the gas companies are getting per gallon, then that would mean that the federal government earned 16 billion dollars in the first three months of 2006. If this trend carries throughout the year, the government will have made 64 billion, or 3% of its annual 2.2 trillion dollar budget.

But that calculation doesn't even take into consideration all of the gas companies, nor does it take into account state and local taxes, corporate income taxes on the gas companies, or the personal income taxes of the personnel employed by those companies. It is the government that should be tried for price gouging and windfall profits, not the gas companies.

But the blame doesn't even rest with the U.S. Congress! We as Americans are to blame. WE need to quit whining and start doing. WE get off our butts and find out who our elected officials are. WE need to find out what they're voting for. WE need to hold them accountable in elections. WE need to quit following this immature feel-good, communistic policy of blaming private business for our personal financial problems!

Have you been lazy and laxidaisical about voting and finding out who is representing you and how they are voting? Then the blame falls on you my friend. Vote in this November's elections and make a difference instead of whining.

To find out who is representing you and how they are voting, go to http://www.vote-smart.org/pre_5.htm , input your 9-digit zip code and do a little digging.