Oil, no matter what the price, we use it. It is our means of going to work and back. It is our means of going to the strore, and our means of heating our homes. With crude prices (and gas prices) on the rise again, I feel the need to rant a little bit. The prices go up in the blink of an eye, and come back down a penny per day.
For example, since around sept. or oct., gas prices in my neck of the woods have been gradually coming down at a rate of a penny per day, maybe even one penny every two days. Very slow, but steady. Crude prices seemed to be dropping at a much faster rate. The lowering of prices seemed to stop at $2.19 per gallon of gas (in my area). Crude prices were still declining, but gas prices stopped….. doesn’t seem right to me. Then, in one day when the US announces that their crude supplies where lower than they thought, BAM! gas prices are back up to $2.39 per gallon. $2.39!! What the hell happened? Why did the price of gasoline jump up so quickly?
I always here news reporters say “Even though crude prices are coming down, it will be a while before you see any change at the pump”. True enough, it takes a long time for gas prices to fall back to where they should be when the price of crude is down. But man, crude takes a one day jump and IMMEDIATELY gas prices are up to match. Why is this? What happened to “it will be a while before we see a change at the pump”. Anyone have any answers / comments?
One more thing, for those of you that live outside the US and start yapping about how we have the cheapest gasoline in the world, let me remind you of something. A lot of countries now have national public healthcare…the reason your gas prices are so high is because of the large tax burden on it to fund your health care plans. Here in the US we have no such plan. Our health insurance prices are through the roof also. So, you may have a to pay a little more for gasoline to drive you to the emergency room when you have a heart attack and need surgery, but once you are there, your hospital costs will be very small (if anything at all). In the US, as soon as you walk in the hospital, the bill starts climbing….and it is hard to tell how much money you are going to owe by the time you get out of there.
Just a quick for instance, my wife had to have her gall bladder removed about 2 years ago. It was outpatient surgery. We went in at 8am, and were back home by 6pm that evening. That surgery racked up an enormous bill over $8,000. Thank goodness that surgery had no complications, or the bill would have been even worse!
So think next time you are saying that anyone here in the US should be thankful for our low gas prices, just remember that the next time you have a cold, your treatment is “free”…..but that is a rant for another day.
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I would be willing to pay SIGNIFICANTLY more money per gallon of gas if there was free health care. I’ve heard too many horror stories about people having to file for bankruptcy after something as minor as a trip to the ER that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills. Oh well … I guess the best we can do is keep dreaming.