Weekend Economics or How to Lose Your Readers
Gas prices are going up again. A barrel of crude is topping above the $55 a gallon mark, and expected to go even higher.
Yet, all I see around me are huge, lumbering, gas-guzzling behemoths. A Hummer H2 with one person in it. A Ford Expedition with 2 people in it. A huge diesel Chevy something or other behind me in the drive-thru line with one person in it as well.
I am wondering, at prices that are right now at over $2.35 a gallon, where in the world are they getting the money to feed these beasts? Each of the examples above gets horrible gas mileage, and I complain about spending thirty bucks to fill up my Honda. If I am spending thirty bucks, they are spending at least 60 a pop.
Hubba-hubba and I disagree about oil. Hubba-hubba is a free-marketer (read: Republican). He doesn't believe in rules and regulations and all that kind of nonsense. If we want it and we can pay for it, we should have it. I, on the other hand, think that we as a country have been selfish and spoiled about the very finite resource that is called crude oil. I think we should have already developed new technology to bypass our all consuming need for oil. The car manufacturers are finally starting to attempt to do so, with at least five models out that are hybrids.
Sometimes I think we are so greedy and consume so much of the world's resources, and for what? So that some guy with a height complex (or ahem, small penis) can think he looks hot driving a V-12 around on the parking lots that we call freeways?
Yet, all I see around me are huge, lumbering, gas-guzzling behemoths. A Hummer H2 with one person in it. A Ford Expedition with 2 people in it. A huge diesel Chevy something or other behind me in the drive-thru line with one person in it as well.
I am wondering, at prices that are right now at over $2.35 a gallon, where in the world are they getting the money to feed these beasts? Each of the examples above gets horrible gas mileage, and I complain about spending thirty bucks to fill up my Honda. If I am spending thirty bucks, they are spending at least 60 a pop.
Hubba-hubba and I disagree about oil. Hubba-hubba is a free-marketer (read: Republican). He doesn't believe in rules and regulations and all that kind of nonsense. If we want it and we can pay for it, we should have it. I, on the other hand, think that we as a country have been selfish and spoiled about the very finite resource that is called crude oil. I think we should have already developed new technology to bypass our all consuming need for oil. The car manufacturers are finally starting to attempt to do so, with at least five models out that are hybrids.
Sometimes I think we are so greedy and consume so much of the world's resources, and for what? So that some guy with a height complex (or ahem, small penis) can think he looks hot driving a V-12 around on the parking lots that we call freeways?
Comments
i drive a chevy sport utility behemoth, but only because i can't afford a new, less thirsty car, and i'm ashamed of myself. hell, i can hardly believe that my husband will allow himself to be seen in it.
we are selfish when it comes to natural resources. we americans think since we can afford to buy something that someone should sell it to us, and to hell with the consequences. we've even gotten ourselves into a war we can't possibly win to keep our gas tanks full.
when will the insanity end? probably not till the world's supply of oil runs out.
*hurl*