It’s really amazing how this last year or two has very clearly shown commodity oil prices have absolutely nothing to do with the prices consumers pay for refined oil products. Yet the myth remains…
I would really like the price of US gasoline to be higher as a norm. The low prices encourage excess consumption. A lot of the populace isn’t even aware how wasteful they are because it’s never at the front of their mind.
While I agree in theory that gas prices should be higher, there aren’t really any alternatives in the US. Aside from a select few densely populated urban areas, people need cars to go about their daily lives. Much of this is indeed due to car and oil company (and maybe even tire company) lobbying and lawmaking forcing a car-centric lifestyle on the country, but regardless it will take a very long time for the US to move away from cars as the mode of transport.
High gas prices are even a problem in parts of Europe, even when most cities are livable without a car. There was a huge protest movement triggered in France a few years ago (Gilles Jaunes - Yellow Vests) when the metropolitan political establishment in walkable and well served with public transportation Paris decided to raise national gasoline taxes. The rural citizens, especially those working in agriculture, were furious. Their livelihoods were threatened.
me too. but i wish it were via taxation instead of corporate profit
Agreed, Congress should have put in place something like a rebated carbon tax ages ago.
This assumes people have an alternative way to get around, whereas in most of the US a car is the only available means.
I live in the suburbs of a major city and there are no bus stations in my entire township. Only a single digit number of cities even have subway systems. A lot of people are forced by the way the US built transportation infrastructure to drive, often long distances.
Not only that, but due to this infrastructure setup, logistics also relies heavily on trucking as opposed to air, rail, and water. This means that as gasoline prices rise, so will the cost of absolutely every other material thing that gets shipped. Food, clothing, construction materials (including for things like homes), basically name any physical thing and the price will rise. That also means the prices of services will increase too since many services still use physical objects which must be shipped. Monthly subscriptions will increase prices, government fees will increase, taxes will increase (even without a separate oil or gasoline tax or carbon tax or whatever you want to call it), the cost of deliveries (an absolute necessity for the elderly and disabled, or those who are quarantined), bus fees, taxi fees, carpool fees, every single thing.
And this won’t hurt the rich. Millionaires will still be millionaires. Billionaires will still be billionaires. And those in the oil and gas industry will just get fatter from this proposal. Exxon would also support increasing prices.
Meanwhile, people who are on the edge might fall off the cliff, and working class people will suffer. There will be more child hunger and malnutrition. There will be more people unable to even get to work.
The solution does not reside with increasing the burdens on the poor.
Entire US economy and infrastructure is built around low gas prices. While it’s certainly going to be great for prices to start going up forcing a reduction in consumption, it will have a profound economic effect on the people in US. Since there’s little to know public transit, a lot of people rely on driving to get to work or to go buy things like food. Deliveries are largely done by trucks as opposed to trains, so prices of goods will be shooting up. These are just couple of examples of the cost of living problems US is about to be facing in the near future.
