Gas prices

Every few years when the gas prices surge, I usually receive at least one bleeding- heart consumer activist e-mail urging a one-day ban or boycott as a form of protest. Universally they blame the greedy executives at oil companies.

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Also, universally these “slactivist” chains are idiotic, narrow-minded, and frankly, immature. I am afraid, that to many people, the idea of a “villain” is comforting. ‘Surely someone is to blame. Surely someone who is powerful and greedy and bad.’ If that idea resonates with you, I have bad news for you. No one person, committee, corporate board, coalition, or even off-shore sovereign is doing this and temporary bans or boycotts to send a message will never work.

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Price is the intersection of supply and demand. Period. In an effort to be helpful, I am providing the following list of things that you can do to that really would help to lower the price of gasoline:

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1. Use less gas

2. Discover an untapped oil field

3. Invent a less expensive way to refine crude oil into gasoline

4. Figure out a way to lower the cost of transporting fuel from refineries to service stations

5. Invent an automobile engine fueled by sea water or human idiocy parading about as consumer activism