electricland: (stupid rat creatures)
[personal profile] electricland
So I gather there's some asinine Don't Buy Gas Tomorrow campaign going around. Puhlease.

Break the Chain explores why these things don't work. (Via [livejournal.com profile] gristmill_rss, who alerted me to this in the first place. (Oh, and Snopes also has something to say.)

Gas prices aren't going anywhere until the market says so. Deal. Want to save money on gas? Carpool, drive less, take public transit, walk, bike, make sure your car's tuned up and its tires are properly inflated, don't speed, go easy on the braking and accelerating, and if you're buying a new car, make sure it's really fuel-efficient. Yes, some of these are only realistic if you live in a city, but a lot of them are available to anyone.

Drivers, I feel your pain. I do. But I'm also somewhat gleeful: we drive far too much in North America, and anything that'll help cut down on that is fine by me. Also my lungs.

Date: 2005-08-31 05:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] raithen.livejournal.com
Oil is actually far from a perfectly elastic market because it is far from a truly free market. The words "cartel" and "oligarchy" have a lot in common. Oil and gas are HIGHLY regulated & taxed commodities and this affects supply side enormously. Prices do NOT purely reflect demand for gas in the way that free market demand is usually considered.

In fact, the comments on the news this morning are telling - with 20%+ of America's domestic oil production out of commission, prices are up. This reflects a form of hedging/futures trading/gouging. Supply today is the same as it was yesterday -- it will be days or weeks before the lack of production in the Gulf of Mexico will actually impact the market in a true way. And, in fact, Bush is going to be "releasing petroleum reserves" to counter the drop in Gulf Supply and to influence pricing.

It is just So. Far. from simple economics.

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