Lowering Gas Prices through Supply and Demand
Gas is expensive. Boycotting certain specific gas companies, boycotting on certain days, buying a few gallons of gas at a time, and petitioning President Bush will not bring down gas prices.
Only three things control open market gas prices: supply, demand, and taxes. Our gas taxes are already very low: Federal taxes are 18 cents per gallon, and state taxes vary. If you decide to save money at the pump by ending the gas tax the lowered gas prices will increase demand, and per-barrel prices will increase even further eroding your supposed savings. You'll also have to increase taxes somewhere else to make up that lost revenue.
The only way for civilians who don't own energy companies to lower gas prices is to reduce demand - consume less gas. That doesn't mean buying the same amount of gas in smaller increments, or buying the same amount of gas from second-tier companies, or buying the same amount of gas on certain days. If you want to reduce gas prices you must buy and use less gas. Decrease demand or pay increased prices: those are your two choices. Figure out what you need to do based on your unique lifestyle circumstances and then do those things: decipher your local bus map and schedule, buy a more efficient car, move closer to work, avoid wasteful and unnecessary outings, buy and use a bicycle daily, choose less energy-intensive activities and hobbies. If demand remains constant and supply continues to decrease, prices will continue to rise. If you do not voluntarily choose to use less gas, market forces will eventually compel you to use less gas. You might as well start practicing now.
The only way for people who do own energy companies to lower gas prices is to increase supply. That means encouraging oil companies to pump more oil. The free market and the highly-publicized record profits of oil companies already encourage them to increase supply, though. (More gas sold = more money.) Those same high profits are also encouraging biodiesel, hydrogen, compressed natural gas, coal gas, nuclear, wind farms, and turkey guts. Removing subsidies on inefficient corn ethanol and removing import taxes on more efficient Brazilian sugar cane ethanol will encourage the market to follow biological imperatives rather than lobbyists' imperatives.
The only way for terrorists or counterterrorists to lower gas prices is to reduce terror attacks on oil refineries and delivery systems. It doesn't matter whether you do this by killing terrorists or making them happy enough to stop. It *does* matter if you're not stopping them but increasing the frequency and severity of those attacks, or giving them cause. Unlike "supply" and "demand", "terorrists" are not an economic variable but they are a sociopolitical variable. The only real economic tradeoff I can think of between terrorism and oil is whether our country spends more money protecting our increasingly expensive oil than we would spend just buying it at unprotected market rates.
I'd like to see an end to all corporate welfare for oil companies, both directly (in the form of tax breaks and cash subsidies) and indirectly (using American foreign policy and tax dollars to support energy interests abroad). When the price of a gallon of gas represents the true cost required to obtain it we will start seeing real progress on all fronts: fossil fuel production, alternative fuel production, energy consumption, and transportation.
Only three things control open market gas prices: supply, demand, and taxes. Our gas taxes are already very low: Federal taxes are 18 cents per gallon, and state taxes vary. If you decide to save money at the pump by ending the gas tax the lowered gas prices will increase demand, and per-barrel prices will increase even further eroding your supposed savings. You'll also have to increase taxes somewhere else to make up that lost revenue.
The only way for civilians who don't own energy companies to lower gas prices is to reduce demand - consume less gas. That doesn't mean buying the same amount of gas in smaller increments, or buying the same amount of gas from second-tier companies, or buying the same amount of gas on certain days. If you want to reduce gas prices you must buy and use less gas. Decrease demand or pay increased prices: those are your two choices. Figure out what you need to do based on your unique lifestyle circumstances and then do those things: decipher your local bus map and schedule, buy a more efficient car, move closer to work, avoid wasteful and unnecessary outings, buy and use a bicycle daily, choose less energy-intensive activities and hobbies. If demand remains constant and supply continues to decrease, prices will continue to rise. If you do not voluntarily choose to use less gas, market forces will eventually compel you to use less gas. You might as well start practicing now.
The only way for people who do own energy companies to lower gas prices is to increase supply. That means encouraging oil companies to pump more oil. The free market and the highly-publicized record profits of oil companies already encourage them to increase supply, though. (More gas sold = more money.) Those same high profits are also encouraging biodiesel, hydrogen, compressed natural gas, coal gas, nuclear, wind farms, and turkey guts. Removing subsidies on inefficient corn ethanol and removing import taxes on more efficient Brazilian sugar cane ethanol will encourage the market to follow biological imperatives rather than lobbyists' imperatives.
The only way for terrorists or counterterrorists to lower gas prices is to reduce terror attacks on oil refineries and delivery systems. It doesn't matter whether you do this by killing terrorists or making them happy enough to stop. It *does* matter if you're not stopping them but increasing the frequency and severity of those attacks, or giving them cause. Unlike "supply" and "demand", "terorrists" are not an economic variable but they are a sociopolitical variable. The only real economic tradeoff I can think of between terrorism and oil is whether our country spends more money protecting our increasingly expensive oil than we would spend just buying it at unprotected market rates.
I'd like to see an end to all corporate welfare for oil companies, both directly (in the form of tax breaks and cash subsidies) and indirectly (using American foreign policy and tax dollars to support energy interests abroad). When the price of a gallon of gas represents the true cost required to obtain it we will start seeing real progress on all fronts: fossil fuel production, alternative fuel production, energy consumption, and transportation.