You know I’ve taken one or two economics courses in my life. Okay, it was two. But one was second year economics and I understand supply and demand and know that microeconomics is the little stuff and macroeconomics is the big stuff but even I can’t figure out why the price of gas is so high.
Actually the economics of gasoline has always been a mystery to me. I remember in the ’70s it was in short supply and we were all lining up around the block to fill our tanks with huge no-drip nozzles and documentaries on TV were scaring us with predictions along the lines of there’s only enough “known” oil deposits to last us another 20 years or so.
Well now OPEC (Google it) doesn’t control our oil supply cause we drilled and fracked our way to more “known” deposits and we have enough oil for everybody, except we can’t get it to everybody cause there ain’t enough pipelines and Alberta is sad and apparently about to get mad (and the price of gas goes up again).
Anyway, the bottom line is there’s plenty of oil and I doubt the demand has changed that much lately to hike a litre of gas about 14 cents earlier this month in these parts. Sometimes they say it’s a “maintenance” issue at a refinery somewhere in Washington state that took a little longer than expected, which really means that 14-cent hike will be followed by a three-cent drop two weeks later that makes us feel warm and fuzzy all over.
And I know, I know, a lot of the price is taxes but that doesn’t explain the latest jump or most of ‘em for that matter.
I used to watch the market price of a barrel of oil more closely but all I noticed was that when it went up, even a little, the price at the pump went up about 7.5 minutes later. But when the price went down the corresponding drop at the pump either failed to materialize at all or showed up a few weeks later at a fraction of the market drop. I’m not sure what law of economics that is, must be covered in a third year course I guess.
And then there’s the pricing of gas. The next time you go to Wal-Mart and they try to charge you $1.44.9 for a litre of milk, ask them if they can round that off for you please and thanks. When the price of gas is this high the .9 marketing ploy might be losing a bit of its lustre.
Speaking of litres, I have a conspiracy theory about the high price of gas. I think Big Oil lobbied the federal government back in the ’70s to switch from the imperial system of measure to the metric system simply to hide the rising price of filling up the tank. Why else would we have switched? To lead the way for the States to switch to metric as well? Um, I’m starting to think that might not happen.
And how do you think Uncle Joe would feel if he knew he was paying $6.59.9 a gallon at his friendly neighbourhood station? Maybe just stay with the litre price for now.
After all what’s Uncle Joe and the rest of us supposed to do?
They keep hiking the price and we keep paying it, reluctantly and unhappily maybe, but paying it nonetheless. Him and I can’t afford a Tesla or even a hybrid for that matter. We should have sold the Hummer long ago and the new SUVs look more like old station wagons than actual utility vehicles.
So we’re trying and we have to keep up the good fight by working on the demand part of the equation cause we have no control over the supply. So drive less, walk more, take public transit, ride your bike, buy a horse, skateboard more and when you have to drive patronize gas stations with lower prices when possible, even if it’s a cent or .9 of a cent. It’s a start.
And one day electric cars will be here to stay and we’ll look back and laugh at what we paid for a gallon, or litre, of gas. Just try not to think of Big Oil laughing and spending our hard-earned money in 2019, or if you do use it as motivation to drive less and hit ‘em where it hurts, in the pocket book.
Related: B.C. cities break North American gas price record
Related: Gas prices hit $1.61 a litre in Vancouver
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