Up The Middle

mood: aggravated

music: Jewel "Pieces of You"

For those of you who don't drive this may not be that big a deal, but i do and the fact is i don't care if it is green or not (not to say i'm against the environment) but i LIKE to drive and will continue to drive. So the latest news is that gas will rise another 20 cents by Thanksgiving- this is getting to be fucking ridiculous and theres no excuse for it whatsoever. The last couple of years gas prices have sea-sawed for no apparent reason at all- for decades (less the gas crisis of the late 70's- caused by a goverenment imposed price ceiling if you didn't know) gas prices rose a little each year but there were no dramatic shifts, then suddenly enter the new millenium and BOOM!- prices all over the board- setting record highs weekly. And i'm FUCKING SICK OF IT. I'm not talking about the actual price- i'm talking about the constant fucking with it. If its going to be $3.20 then it should be $3.20 the whole fucking year- i'm sick of everytime i leave the house i have to refigure my gas budget because Big Oil decides it wants to make another billion. Sure all the analyists and the oil companies themselves blow smoke up the publics ass about demand this, supply that, a shek farted in the middle east- oil prices are going up, joe dickweed has speculated prices on Wall Street so oil is more expensive, etc. But the bottom line is those things are only an ounce of truth- Big Oil- Shell, BP, etc. rake in billions upon billions annually on what- oil profits- yet somehow they can't mitigate price surges in the oil market? Its not that they can't- but rather they don't. 

It doesn't really boil down to economics as much as it does greed. The Middle East has been unstable for the last 30 years, OPEC has existed for just as long, wall street has always speculated oil prices, and at least in the last 15 years demand has consistently outrun supply- so how come it seems in the last three or four years that gas prices can't even stay the same for a whole fucking month? Most importantly even if you want to pick out all the factors and say this is the real reason- simple economics question- why do gas prices increase overnight when yr local gas stations haven't even seen a new shipment of gasoline?- meaning that the gas they have in their tanks at that moment is $3 a gallon gas that miraculously becomes $3.20 a gallon yet is the same gas that traded at a lower price last week. Its like fucking magic!

If any other industry attempted this the government would be investigating it before sunrise tomorrow but when it comes to oil its que sera- like they can't control any of this (yes i realize there are big oil lobbies with their hands in the cookie jar- also why biofuels are so slow to develop). And if there is an explanation for this then i would ask why is it when a similar price decrease happens, we, the consumers, never witness that decrease at the pump overnight, usually it takes weeks if it ever happens at all. Greed- plain and simple- thats all this is. All this started when Big Oil figured out that the market would bear more for oil- thats the only real economics involved- and they will keep pushing prices until (if ever) the market finally balks.

I'm just fucking sick of it and i'll go so far as to say if $4 a gallon will cover all the market fluctuations for the year then damnit just price it a $4 a gallon and let it be- its better than having to guess what the fucking price is going to be every fucking week.

I just wish the market would make up its fucking mind.