Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor
The Oil Squeeze:
Time for the People to Rally

AUGUST 14, 2005 --

As the accompanying photo of a Mobil gas station in Torrington, taken last April 1 indicates, LPR has been concerned with the rising price of oil for some time.

The price keep going up; August 12, the price of gas at this Mobil station was 41 cents higher than was four and a half months ago.

LPR was in Torrington, August 12, after picking peaches at the Fix Brothers orchards, outside Hudson, New York.


Not a Georgia Peach, a New York Peach, from Fix Brothers Orchards outside of Hudson, NY.


Driving back to New York from Torrington,
this writer wondered what gas prices the summer of 2006 will bring. Will it be too costly to drive a hundred miles to pick peaches? Will cars become too costly for many Americans to use? Will people take
the to the roads on motorcycles, or will they not take to the roads at all?

How many drivers will sacrifice their cars for motorcycles as the price of gas increases …


…or will this be the state of traffic?


To date, from LPR's vantage point, there seems to be little interest in the cause of the oil squeeze on motorists. The media just passes on -- so far as this writer can tell -- press releases from oil sources that attribute increasingly high prices to "natural" or impersonal sources -- but never to "bottom line" motives.

As LPR noted, a few weeks ago, CBS reported a poll that people will maintain driving habits until gas hits $3 -- and that was it. No probing questions why gas
should be rising so fast, so far. Well, in some places that poll has got its $3 gas with that figured getting apprached widely, elsewhere.

August 12, LPR heard the comment on radio that the current oil prices will be inflationary. What is the present response to inflationary pressure? Send in Alan Greeenspan to raise interest rates, LPR believes.

No direct inquiry -- at least not for the public to know -- why the economy faces oil-price inflation.

Appparently ruled out is the possibility that Oil just sees an opening to squeeze the driving public. As Federalist 57 warned -- "ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few."

 

Apparently, it is to be dismissed that the oil squeeze could lead to bargains picking up shares in a declining stock market.

Save that scenario for an Ian Fleming-type novel.

We don't have media or officials asking banks to explain their usurious interest rates on credit card customers. And we don't have media or officials inquiring about the rise in gas prices.

Who is concerned with the common good? It seems to LPR that this is a good time for the people, via the internet, to rally for the "common good". If we don't rally now, against the economic squeezes on us, who will?


The Way of Oil Prices
Where are our leaders?

LPR ran this photo of a Mobil station in Torrington, CT four months ago. On August 12, the price was 41 cents higher -- and that would indicate prices have gone up -- about a dollar a gallon the past year?


Same Torrington Mobil Gas Station as above, only this photo was taken August 12.


The Winsted Gulf station sign photo above was also was taken August 12, and indicates that this Gulf station is trying to be a humane holdout.


Note: Gas prices in New York City are even higher than the Torrington prices and on August 12, LPR, driving through Westchester County, in New York state, saw one station with premium over the $3 line.

Looks like the only way we can get prices down is by some kind of action from consumers.

Our officials seem to be preoccupied with other matters -- but not making common cause with the people and the continued well-being of our economy.