Isn’t that The love of money is the root of all evils"?
It seems obvious that gasoline prices are a price-fixing scam. Price-fixing is ostemsibly illegal, but the legislators are in the oil companies’ pockets. And isn’t it “interesting” that there’s always “something” going wrong just around the time when people are buying more fuel? A pipeline rupture, refinery explosions… There’s always “something” that happens that “forces” the oil companies to raise their prices.
I read somewhere that gasoline prices are based on the prevailing price in an area. So “prices are high because prices are high”. :rolleyes:
Unfortunately, I have a 90-mile r/t to work every day. Fortunately, I have a motorcycle. My Cherokee gets 20 mpg, the XJ600 gets 50 mpg and the YZF-R1 gets 40 mpg. (The R1 will only run on premium gas, unfortunately.) Riding a motorcycle save me money by using less gas. I also save time, which is also important.
I don’t think that writing to legislators to complain about high prices will do anything. It seems that whenever there is an “investigation” they find that prices are high and something must be done about them, but nobody ever does anything.
IMO it would be better to write to our representatives to urge them to establish a National Telecommuting Plan. Many of us work with computers. I spearheaded a drive to eliminate paper output in our office. This did two things: First, it saved the company untold thousands of dollars in printing and transportation costs (since our printer is in the main facility in another city), and secondly it demonstrated that our work could be done remotely (since we didn’t have to be in a certain place to receive printouts).
These are the benefits of telecommuting:
[ul][li]The employee saves money on gasoline, and wear and tear on his vehicles and the associated maintencance costs;[/li][li]Emissions are reduced because there are fewer cars on the road, thus helping to meet our commitment to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses we put into the environment and cleaning up the air in our cities;[/li][li]Increases gas mileage for the people who don’t commute since fewer cars on the road will allow the drivers to operate their vehicles more efficiently;[/li][li]Save commuting time since there are fewer cars on the road to slow things down;[/li][li]Save lives since fewer cars on the road will result in fewer collisions;[/li][li]Save repair costs since there will be fewer collisions;[/li][li]Save employers money since they will not need to rent or buy as large facilities as they use now, nor use as much energy for climate control, nor spend as much on “freebies” such as coffee and tea, nor spend as much on office supplies;[/li][li]Spur furher development of high-speed telecommunications infrastructures, and better and faster programs and computers;[/li][li]Reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, which will also have strategic (as in Defence) benefits;[/li][li]Improve the standard of living of employees by allowing people a more relaxed work environment and allowing people to live where they wish instead of where the corporate office is;[/li][li]Reduce crowding in our cities by allowing people to live where they wish instead of where the corporate office is;[/li][li]Reduce domestic costs such as dry cleaning;[/li][li]Allows tax reductions by claiming one’s home office;[/li][li]Tax or other benefits for companies that allow substantial telecommuting by their employees (In my NTP, such benefits would be written in).[/ul][/li]If more people were allowed to telecommute, then they would see a reduction in fuel expenditures (i.e., vs. what they are spending now, without the NTP) even if the cost of gasoline increases.
So I think that writing representatives about the high cost of gasoline is useless, and we would do better to write to them to urge a National Telecommuting Plan. (Feel free to use any of this post to write to your representatives.)
Gosh. Maybe I should have started a separate thread in IMHO. :o