Friday, June 6, 2008

Suffering the Effects of Gas...Prices

Alas, today I had to put gas into the car. $25 for a quarter of a tank at $1.42 a litre. For those of you in the US, there are 3.8 litres to the US gallon (different from the imperial gallon) but roughly you can multiply it by four for a price of $5.68 a gallon. It's still cheaper to gas up in the US, when I can, but I can't afford to drive as far.

So, gas prices, definitely causing us discomfort but these days we hear, oh the price of food is going up because of gas prices. Airline tickets--gas prices. Clothing--gas prices. Gas prices--gas prices. Yes, the price of gas is going up because of the price of gas. Or gas prices are going up because of volcanoes, tsunamis, rain, broken fingernails or war somewhere. I wonder how much George Bush can be blamed for gas prices?

The moment that our lovely provincial government mentioned that they would be doing a carbon tax on gas as of July 1, the price went up by a couple of cents (back in April). Let's not forget that gas is already taxed federally and provincially and more if you live in large urban centers--36.3% as of 2006 for Vancouver. Oh and there is tax on the tax. (You'll have to read my earlier rant, "Carbon Tax: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" to see why I think it's hugely flawed--the least amount of work the gov't can do toward environmentalism.)

Let's go back ten years or more. I remember a time when the price of gas stayed the same for months on end and would only change by a cent. In BC, less than ten years ago Arco started to come into the province. Gas went down to an unprecedented .29 cents a litre. You could gas up for $15. It began a gas war because of Arco's low prices. Do they even exist anymore? At that point in time prices would drop or rise but stay that way for a week.

Somehow everything sped up exponentially. It became a daily thing to see prices change by .10 cents a litre and it still happens. So, tell me, great gas corporations, are your prices changing on the hour because of every geographic upheaval, drop of rain or hurled insult somewhere in the world? Does this somehow affect the reserves? According to these poor beleaguered gas companies, which I'm sure are losing money, yes, every little earthquake, every insurrection causes gas prices to change instantaneously.

Wow, we are so volatile. I notice that those world crises are at their lowest late at night and mid day but that they affect gas prices most when we are going to or coming from work and always on the weekend when you may be driving at any particular time. Gosh, our world is like a bunch of festering sores just constantly popping.

There have been calls for investigations into the price of gas and the fluctuation of such. I have yet to hear that there was such an investigation or the results. We're at the mercy of the gas companies who will only switch wholeheartedly to hybrid or other clean energy cars when they can no longer suck the last drop of oil from the earth and likewise suck us dry. Just look at how little advertising has ever gone into a hybrid car and how they are more expensive than any gas guzzler. Oh, and if you check far enough some gas and car companies are often jointely owned or have shares in each other. Can we say collusion?