Why do Americans think it is their right to have artificially low gas prices?

Question

Of course I live in chicago, which has amazing public transit. Also, I drive a hybrid, though only about once a week. Still. I live in Memphis for years, a decidely driving city with a crap bus system. However, I used to play this game where I'd look in passing SUV's and count how many people were in them. About 95 percent of the time it was one person. Yet they have the audactiy to think it is their RIGHT to low gas prices? Says who?

Why don't we build better public transit in cities like memphis instead of letting our government obsessively interfere with natural price rises? Wouldn't that be money better spent?

Answer 1

NO ONE; Just who have you asked this question of and gotten that answer? We don't feel it is our RIGHT! It is a privilege of a free society.
And lemme tell you about that hybrid- alternative fuels take more energy to make than you get in return. Making electricity requires some source of energy, itself.
Yeah, I think people are nuts to drive the big SUV's and only one person in them, but they are free to buy what they want.
It is a FREE country.
Where do you hail from?

Answer 2

Whether prices are artificially high or low is a matter of opinion. Gas is heavily taxed by the States and the Federal Government, so the arguement could always be made that if this tax was removed, the price would be lower. Of course, if we were a surplus gas-producing country, things would be different. A second arguement is the "inflation scale-up", that the price of gas, when adjusted for inflation, should be the same as it had been.

People also believe the price of gas is rigged by the Government or Refiners or OPEC. While crude oil prices are the highest ever, the price of gas seems to have fallen from earlier highs this year when the price was lower. Another factor is the uncanny ability of the car manufacturers to sell "gas guzzlers" when the price of gas is low, which people are stuck with when the price goes up.

Remember that gas is something you pay for with commodities. All that good food that is grown on the Illinois flatlands or pass through the Chicago stockyards (shades of Carl Sanburg) take gas to harvest or transport. So when your gvmt. tells you that inflation is in check because the
"core rate" is stable, it is full of you-know-what, since the $3 steaks I bought in the bad-old Clinton years now costs $8 in the good-new Bush years. Such cynicism on the part of the government breeds disbelief on the part of the populace.

Answer 3

First of all, just because there is only one person at the time you look at them doesn't mean that is always how it is. My family has a SUV and there are seven of us so we fill it up, but sometimes only my mom or dad will be driving the car. Second of all, not everyone lives in a place where there is good public transport. Try living in the suburbs of Ohio, there is not even a bus stop within walking distance and even if there was, there are no sidewalks to walk on. Finally, high gas prices would be fine if there was a good reason for them, but it is just another way for the big time owners to get richer.

Answer 4

If gas was adjusted for the rate of inflation, cosidering that it was supposedly 50 cents before the gas crisis of 1972, it'd be $2.75 anyway and nobody would've noticed. Americans complain because one day gas was $1 and the next it was $3. If gas had been adjusted for inflation, S.U.V.s wouldn't have ever been popular in the 90s. Since then, S.U.V.s have become a symbol of status.

As to why Americans think they have a right to low gas prices. Name one American who has never complained about the price of anything. Even if you're Bill Gates, you get a little irked when something you wish to buy (homes, gas, cars, blue jeans, milk, etc.) is more than you expect it. As much as they will complain, if gas was $5, they'd still pay for it.

Locally, milk has gone up $1 in just 3 months. What right do I have to expect cheap milk? When I walk into the store and I want to buy a pair of jeans for $20, does that mean I'm responsible for sending American jobs to China? What right do I have to expect cheap jeans? It's just the way we are.

Answer 5

I'm guessing that you don't realize that the gas prices currently are artificially inflated; gas does not have to cost this much, especially seeing as we have more than adequate reserves and sources of fuel that are not located in the middle east.

But big oil companies need to make their prfit margins, and since they help fund a lot of government official's activities, of course they will get governmental support.

Nice idea on the bus systems, but not everyone lives in a big city.

Answer 6

That's a very good point. Chicago is a good example of what public transit ought to be.

Here in Michigan, our state is built for cars. Cars are the real residents here - they only keep people around to wash them and gas them up. We work our fingers to the bone just to keep our cars happy. We even tore up our railroad tracks and made them into bike trails just so our cars wouldn't get jealous. Of course, no one is allowed to ride a bicycle because they would probably get in the way of a car. Also, if we see a person on a bicycle, we honk and yell at them for being unfaithful to cars. "Hey! Nice ride!" "Get a car, loser!"

I'm torn as to whether I should have sympathy for sprawling communities that are built around automobiles. The residents of those places are going to have to demand public transportation in the future, but that's going to be unrealistic. They're just going to be stuck with putting expensive gas in their cars.

Answer 7

I could not tell you. Where I live they think that every thing should be cheap for them. Housing, food, gas, utilities,etc. But if they are selling something they get upset if you try to bring down the price they are asking for it. It does not make sense, yet they are the first to complain about wages being to low.

Answer 8

It's not that the gas prices are artificially low, it's just that we are not able to buy as much cheap oil as we used to. The oil in the Middle East is easy to get and therefore cheap. The oil in other areas of the world costs more because it is harder to get. The world is not running out of oil, but it is running out of cheap oil.

Answer 9

no no no you don't understand. some of us who drive beat up cars and can barley afford to keep them want lower gas prices. those who own big monster trucks have no right to complain because if they can afford $500 a month for thier SUV, they can afford todays gas prices!!

Answer 10

No not artificially low gas prices but freedom from atrificially high gas prices is something we should all DEMAND.