5.25.2007

Yellow ribbon, not around a tree

Spiiderweb™ writes about a gas station owner in Milwaukee, one Harvey Pollack, who wrapped yellow caution tape around his pumps yesterday and refused to sell gas because he thinks the price is too high, a gutsy move.

You can do what Harvey has done. You can keep feeding the corrupt corporate beasts or you can take a stand too. You can continue to buy from the monsters who cheat you on a daily basis or you can choose not too. You can continue to suck up hundreds of gallons of gasoline in your SUV daily or not. You can reward the pirates or you can refuse to.

Its all up to you....
...Spiiderweb™ writes, and I agree. But my own real problem with gas prices is not so much how high they are but where the profit goes. High prices, at least in theory, will drive down consumption. The oil companies are betting that theory is pretty soft because, Dear Reader, you are hooked. I know. Me too. Half my job is just getting there. $5.00/gallon gas would be a real bitch. (When I was in high school a gallon cost two bits and for a buck you could go on a heavy date. OK, it was a small town. Maybe $1.50 in the city.)

If the government slapped a 2-bucks-per tax on gas that might be a good thing. The income would go to rebuilding roads and bridges, not to fattening oil execs, and maybe we'd all start driving less and talking a lot more about real alternatives, not just the pie-in-the-sky, run-out-the-clock stuff they're feeding us now.

But as things stand, Big Oil is now blaming you, Bunky, for high prices. See, you keep mumbling about ethanol and - gasp - hydrogen and such subversive stuff and what are the poor oil companies to do, they whine, invest in making more of that good gas? I's all about the refineries, haven't you read the ads?

Well. The Feds are even more reluctant to raise the gas tax than they are to raise the minimum wage so you don't have much to worry about anytime soon, Dude, if you're invested in Exxxon. Or if you drive to work.

But - think about it - if you cut down just a little bit on driving you can save some money to buy some yellow tape.

Link: spiiderweb™: Must read IMHO

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