I Don't Blame the Oil Companies

I've had enough of people looking for the quickest answer, even when its wrong and always has been wrong. They've done it again with the ongoing oil situation for the last 3 years. Lets just point our fingers at the oil companies and demand congress waste our money asking them a series of stupid questions that they release publicly anyway. Because there is no better way to find out what someone really means or did than through Congress... steroid investigation anyone? I've decided, and not recently, that there is no way the oil companies are to blame, not even mostly to blame. They sell a commodity that is openly traded on the stock exchange and we have all had a glimpse at how finicky the traders can be in the last few weeks. Basically the oil companies dig up the oil, and have it priced for them by the stock exchange which directly effects how much they have to charge at the pump to make a profit. They are in a business, and it isn't there fault we have built our country around their business, it is ours. While there business is good, there are no obvious problems that could affect supply and the demand consistently rises, they will make money and you won't pay very much for your gas. People get scared by many things that have little to no effect on their oil, and transfer that fear to the economy which reacts by raising the price of something in fear it may become more scarce. Supply and demand. You cut the supply while the demand remains the same and the price goes up. It works the other way with a massive supply driving down the price which doesn't help them, but their goal is to reach the happy medium where people will still buy gas and oil, and pay the maximum amount they are willing too.

Now that we understand they have much less control over the price than you might think, we arrive at all the money they are making! Yes they are recording record profits, but that is because they haven't had any more trouble getting oil, but the stock market is in fear they might and has raised the price of the barrel, making them more money. On top of that our level of consumption continues to rise, even as we make feeble attempts to disconnect ourselves from this constant flux and uncertainty. People complain about the gas, but they still do whatever they want. Its just another bitching point to be made at the dinner table while you eat plenty of food in your nice comfortable house.

Don't misinterpret me, there are people who are struggling to get by, and that group has grown recently. The majority still sits safely. The responsible and smart are aware of the issue, make small alterations and continue on. We have lost that certainty of our own constant economic betterment. This costs the people who sit at the bottom of the middle class as they are finding it harder and harder to keep up the sham of being middle class in hopes that next year they will get a raise and actually be able to afford the house, the car, the school, the boat, the 2 week vacation in which you drive your boat across the country to use it. You want gas to go back down? You have no control over the supply, so drive the demand down. It is that simple, don't make a few cut backs, make drastic ones, get your whole neighborhood to decrease their fuel use by 20-30% and then you'll be making a difference. This spreads throughout the country and in a matter of months the supply will be higher than the current demand, the oil companies will stop getting as much oil cause they have no where to sell it and still make a profit and you will be able to afford to do some of the nice things you could a few years ago.

Don't want to do that? Ok, then change where you get your energy from. Buy an electric car. Forget hybrids, they are only a way for the car companies to drag their asses on development of new and better batteries and electric engines. They are decades behind where they could and should be and need the time to catch up, but they also are thinking things will calm down, gas will go back down, and the public opinion will no longer demand efficiency. So they are less hesitant now than 2 years ago, but Chevy is the first to really full on announce an all electric car widely available for 2009, and it is dismal in my opinion. It takes over night to charge, only goes 40 miles, and is of little use to anyone who doesn't live in a city. What people need is the ability to drive around all day, especially in the midwest and the west, where driving around in your car for a couple hours a day is normal and 40 miles will probably not get you everywhere you need to go. Hence why hybrids are becoming widely accepted, people need to go a little farther and right now the only way is a mix.

Then there is the alternative energy market which has been growing, but unreliably thanks to Congress and our wonderfully educated and forward thinking President. Meaning the tax breaks and funding they get to help spread their business and straight up develop the technologies to an acceptably useful level (which they have recently achieved in many of them including wind, solar, and biofuel) are questionable from year to year which prevents investors from knowing if what they are investing in will be allowed to continue on after a few months because the government refuses to extend the bonuses for more than a year or two at a time. Many power companies have options where you can get your power from wind or hydroelectric at a fixed rate, because they know how much wind they will get in general and how much it costs to operate and maintain the turbines. Which now is becoming cheaper than getting it from the normal sources of oil.

These are the many options we have open to us, they take little or no extra money to support, minutes to look up, and could help us avoid any more oil surges and price inflation that has caused our economy to faulter a bit in the recent months. So I say the oil companies are doing business, we have chosen to do business with them, and if you want to bitch, do something about it, and then bitch to your neighbor who is still supporting an unhelpful system.