So much for Gas-Out Day

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So much for Gas-Out Day

By James E. Clingman


May 19th was Gas-Out Day. What's next? A Gas-Out Week?

Maybe an entire week of not purchasing gasoline by millions of consumers
might raise the eyebrows of the oil barons, but I doubt it will get much
more than that. The guys and girls who control the oil are greedy crooks,
plain and simple.

But then, what does that make us - Suckers? What does it say about people
who have been so accustomed to relatively low gasoline prices that we are
willing to buy gas-guzzling vehicles, some of them resembling Bradley

Fighting Vehicles and luxury ocean liners?
What does it say about us if we continue to drive our vehicles on
meaningless trips, too lazy to walk or ride a bicycle or a motor scooter
instead? Yes, the oil barons have their faults, and plenty of them, but
who's buying their oil?

Of course, "This is business," as Nino Brown said. Sure, it's not fair; it's
not ethical, but it is business, and we must look at it that way. Not buying
gas for one day, as you may have noticed, does nothing to change the
situation in which we find ourselves.

Consumers who are upset about the price of an item or commodity must not
only change their behavior, they must also sustain that change.

One day ain't gonna get it y'all.(Sorry for the bad grammar, Bill Cosby).

What would you do if you were selling something and folks kept buying more
of it, regardless of how many times and how high you raised the price? We
love our cars; in some cases they are our gods, and we love to ride. The bad
thing about it is that we buy the most expensive, heaviest and lowest
fuel-efficient vehicles.

Thus, we demonstrate every day, via our proclivity for the finer things in
life, especially our cars, that we are willing to pay any price for
gasoline.

So what do we expect from greedy, money-hungry oil barons?

Do I believe the price of gas is manipulated? Of course, I do. I wrote an
article a few weeks ago titled, "The Great American Oil Slick," talking
about just that. But dealing from a purely economic perspective, you know,
supply and demand, it's not so much about the crooks who are stealing from
us each time we fill up as it is about us, the consumers, who demand more
and more gas regardless of the price.

We are literally telling those we're complaining about that we are willing
to fatten their coffers even more, as long as they keep supplying our
demand.

What do we do? Well, we can change our penchant for military defense
vehicles in our driveways and do some downsizing of our own.

The auto dealers have sold us a bill of goods by manufacturing a car/truck
mutation called an SUV and convincing us it is safer and will make us feel
respected, powerful and invulnerable.

They make vehicles that will pass everything on the road except a gas
station. We line up to buy them, and then complain about the price of
gasoline - does that make any sense?

Downsize; get back to basics: Cut down on unnecessary trips, walk if you can
- do whatever it takes to decrease your demand for this precious fuel, not
just for one day, but for the rest of your life. You may also want to
petition your state government to cut back on the taxes they attach to a
gallon of gasoline, which in some cases is as much as 40 percent.

Check this out. When a few terrorists "attempted" to destroy an oil depot in
Iraq, before the day ended, despite their being killed and not one drop of
oil being lost in the process, the price at the pump immediately went up
about 15 cents per gallon in my area.

On the other hand, when the Saudis recently agreed to increase oil
production, immediately, to help lower the cost of gasoline, prices did not
decrease. In fact, in the same news report "experts" said consumers would
not likely see a price reduction until after the "peak driving season,"
about two months after the Saudi concession. What's up with that?

Bottom line: We know what's going on with this gasoline thing. Why do you
think our "vice" president would not disclose his discussions with his
energy buddies, such as Ken Lay of Enron, et al? Why, despite the close
relationship between Daddy Bush and the Royal Saudi Family, are we paying
through the nose for oil?

Why do the major automobile manufacturers continue to resist doing what they
have known how to do for many years: raise the fuel efficiency of their
vehicles? Why are we not exploring and exploiting other energy sources? We
haven't we built an oil refinery in this country since the 1970s? Why? Why?

Why? Because of the greed and lust for more money by the oil crooks, and the
U.S. consumer's insatiable appetite for and dependency upon gasoline, that's
why. I have a feeling it also has something to do with petrodollar hegemony
versus the euro, but I'll save that for another column.

As we "sucker consumers" ponder our next move, we may want to go back to our
Economics 101 notes and review the information on "Elasticity of Demand"
before we call for another Gas-Out Day.

James E. Clingman, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati's
African American Studies department, is former editor of the Cincinnati
Herald Newspaper.