$3 gasoline
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ass transit -- which means riding buses in the Top of Utah -- is starting to look more attractive all the time. That's because gasoline prices are hovering at the $3-per-gallon mark.
If you have to buy mid-grade or diesel, you're already paying more than $3.
The only people these high prices benefit are the oil companies and their associates -- last fall, Utah drivers discovered to their dismay that Utah retailers weren't above profiteering even after oil prices had dropped. And the really awful and frightening thing is, it isn't even summer driving season yet -- we've hit $3 per gallon before the highest demand for fuel actually arrives.
If it's $3 during the first week in May, what's it going to be after Memorial Day -- in June, July and August when Americans roll across the country on vacation?
We sincerely hope this is nothing but crazy talk, but some oil industry prognosticators are saying $4 gasoline might not be out of the question in California and other parts of the U.S. by mid-summer.
We haven't heard that Utah will hit $4, but at this point we wouldn't bet against it.
If Americans are serious about wanting prices to subside, we'll buy more fuel-efficient cars and trucks and vans. But Americans have shown pretty forcefully the past couple of years that we prefer to hang onto our SUVs and large vehicles, and hope everyone else saves enough gas to drive prices downward. Given that reality, the only other choice is to drive less -- do your grocery shopping all at once, not five or six days per week. Do all your shopping on the way home from work. Don't drive anywhere you don't have to.
It's easier said than done. We're all creatures of habit.
Because we're that way, economists are nervous. According to ConsumerAffairs.com, "high fuel costs are already causing consumers to curtail discretionary spending." In March, it says, the only "non-durable" good that was purchased in higher volume was gasoline, and that the rising prices of fuel are eroding the otherwise positive effects of consumers' increasing wages -- workers may have more take-home pay, but since they're having to spend it on higher gasoline prices, they aren't able to buy other items that keep the economy healthy: "Consumers look at their fuel bill and decide to spend less on other things."
It's becoming an all-too-common story: The positive news regarding the relatively healthy U.S. economy is being blunted by an oil industry that loves those high prices -- the higher the better, in fact. No matter that it will eventually drive up prices of all consumer goods that have to be shipped from one place to another, or that families will be rethinking their vacation destinations.
Big Oil has a nasty habit of spoiling the party for everyone else.
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