Gouging

A sign of the times:




Gouging: That’s the nicest word I can come up with when talking about what the gasoline stations are doing to us now. Robbery works, too. “License to steal” is nicely descriptive. “Thieving weasels” has a nice ring to it. However you describe it, what’s happening is just not right.

Now, don’t go off on the “we’ve got to wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil” tangent, and don’t get all “electric powered cars” on me, either. I don’t disagree with any of that, in a big picture kind of way. But that’s not what this rant is about.

This is about me leaving my house at 8:20 this morning with mid-grade gas costing $2.59 a gallon, and coming home at lunch with the same gas costing $3.21 a gallon. And it wasn’t just one station. It was across the board, a 60 to 75 cent per gallon increase, at almost every station I passed. The one station that was still below three bucks a gallon was changing their prices as I sat there getting the last of their $2.75 a gallon petrol.

That’s ridiculous. We all know there’s no justification for that kind of jump. Even with Katrina, any purported effects could not possible have reached the pumps in less than 48 hours. I know that there’s been a disruption of service – I get that. But the gulf provides no more than 25% (some say as little as 7%) of the oil used by the US. Even if the entire gulf shuts down, does that justify this spike in a single afternoon? And even with the loss of the Port of New Orleans as a delivery point, does that mean that no gas is getting through anymore? I don’t think so. (And don’t get me started on the fact that, as I understand it, OPEC produces a barrel of oil for roughly 4 bucks each. Where is this 70 dollar price coming from, if not from pure speculation?)

What we have here is a systematic case of price gouging -- pure and simple. Sure, everyone talks about the “razor thin” profit margins of gas station owners, and how they’ve got to account for every increase in oil prices. But what basis is there for a 60 cent per gallon bump in the span of four hours? Is it to offset a projected future cost? Is it a jump out of fear? Even with nine refineries going off-line (which is the last number I heard) how does that result in a 60 cent increase in a single afternoon? More importantly, even if all of these things happen, how is it that every single gas station around, owned by several different oil companies and numerous independent franchisees, all felt the need, on exactly the same day and at roughly the same time, to increase gas prices by more than 20% per gallon? (Cue the “X-Files” conspiracy music, please). (I should note that, to there credit, out of the dozens of gas stations around us, one Hess station and one Mobile station had not raised their prices above the $3.00 per gallon mark as of 6:00 p.m. EDT. Let’s see how long that lasts.)

The worst part is that there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Nothing. You can’t boycott one station, because they’re all doing it You can’t pull out your steam-powered car because -- oh yeah, no one makes them. Most of us can’t bike the double-digit mileage to our offices (and in 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity, who’d want to?). We’re stuck, and it aggravates the hell out of me.

What to do? I wish I knew. I work in an office of four, and we all come from four different directions, so car-pooling is not feasible. I travel to various locations for my work, so I’ve got to drive. (I’d consider a horse, but I’m not certain where I’d hook my EZ pass.)

Seriously, I blame the oil companies, and I blame the gas station owners. But you know what? Someone else shares the blame as well. The media. Yes, the media is always an easy target. However, I have very clear recollections of the media trumpeting -- over and over, in multiple reports -- how Katrina may impact oil production in the gulf. May. Not will. May.

No one knows exactly what happened to oil production in the gulf yet. No matter. "May" equals "will" in this world of ours. Oil futures jump. Speculators speculate. People panic. And it now costs me $40 to get half-a-tank of gas.