Uninformed muses on rising gas prices (it can’t be good)

We’ve reached the point where even I’m complaining about the price of gas. The national average is supposedly a tad bit above $4 a gallon; the Orange County price is about $4.60. I needed half a tank and it still cost me a little under 30 bucks. This is ridiculous–and it’s not going to change anytime soon. Consumers would like gas come down at least 30 percent–but we’re not going to see it. We’re more likely to pay $5 a gallon gas by the end of the summer than we will be to see sub-$4 prices ever again.

I’m not economist; just a guy who makes a lot of assumptions with very little research. But I know this much: gas prices that high can’t be good for the economy. If it cost more to ship everything everywhere, it’ll drive up the price of products. So in addition to having less cash because it cost more to fill up our cars, Americans will also hafta spend more money on pretty much everything they buy. Groceries are gonna cost more. Online shoppers will have to pay higher shipping costs. Even pizzerias are going to hafta start charging for delivery. Everything is going to cost more…and there’s no end in sight.

This is bad–real bad. I don’t wanna go all gloom and doom here, but this is gonna have a major impact on our economy. A recession is obvious; a depression isn’t out of the question. But could it even be worse than that? I’m talking downfall of society stuff. Our economy is very, very fragile. Americans already face dwindling purchase power. Homes are being foreclosed left and right because no one has enough money. Most folks carry excess credit card debt. Wages are impossibly low. The unemployment rate just had its highest monthly growth in 20 years. All of these things are going on and we’ve yet to feel the true trickle-down effect of skyrocketing gas prices. I might not know much: but I know it doesn’t look good.

When I was kid–way back in the 80s–I seem to recall the subject of fuel conservation. Maybe this was the result of people still recovering from the gas crisis of the 70s. But I remember hearing from many different sources that the earth did not have an unlimited supply of fossil fuels and we’d run out eventually–maybe as soon as in 50 years.

That was 25 years ago: mankind consumes far more oil now than it did back then. Between the population growth and man’s thirst for more, we gotta be using a lot more gas than we did back then. Plus with all the plastics everywhere–I don’t even know where to speculate on how much more oil we use.

Maybe we’re near the beginning of the end. The Powers That Be would never announce to the world that oil supplies are running low–it would cause pandemonium. But I know this much: price is determined by supply and demand. If the supply is low and the demand is high, prices go up (I learned this when I had a lemonade stand on a hot summer day). No one is going to come out and say the earth is running out of oil–but the signs are there.