May 12, 2008 | In: Uncategorized
Stop Complaining about Gas
Yes. We all agree with you. The rising cost of oil is affecting our wallets. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. We’re all feeling the crunch (some more than others). Before you complain, however, let me ask you a question. What kind of phone do you have? Is it one of those free phones are did you pay $100/$200 or more for it? You go out to eat often? Do you bring lunch to work every day or do you go out? Do your kids have phones? Do you or them have a game system? Are you seeing my point?
We spend LOTS of money on non-necessities. I do it too. I love that stuff. I’ve got a Wii and plan on buying Mario Kart once I’m done with finals (I’m getting my MBA). I plan on buying an iPhone in the next year or so. In other words, I buy things I don’t need because I can afford it. But for some reason, people think we need these things. Almost as if you can’t be accepted in the modern world if you don’t own a fancy phone or an iPod. If you’re having trouble making ends meet, and you have an iPhone, then you’re an idiot. Of course, I’m generalizing, but I believe my point is clear.
So prices went up. Okay, that happens. It’s called inflation. Gas will eventually…….maybe not for a while…..but eventually stabilize. So deal with it. Stop going out to eat twice a week. Start brown-bagging your lunch. Life isn’t going to get any cheaper, so unless you have a plan to make a lot more money fairly soon, start living within your means.
This post is not meant for businesses who complain about gas. For businesses, it’s a whole different ballgame. Let’s hope that an alternative energy resource is not decades away.
7 Responses to Stop Complaining about Gas
Cobas
May 15th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I’m going to have to disagree with you here.
I consider something like gas to be a perishable item. You pay $4/gal, use it up and have to buy more. Let’s say you own a relatively fuel efficient car that gets 28 miles to the gallon, and let’s further assume that your gas tank can hold 15 gallons of gas. That means you can drive approximately 420 miles (ideally; the reality is much lower than that) before needing to refill.
Now, let’s say you live 20 miles away from work. That’s actually a relatively short commute for most Americans, but let’s say 20 miles for the sake of this argument. That’s 40 miles a day, or 200 miles per work week.
Let’s also assume that you drive an additional 50 miles a week for leisure. That number is also small, but I’m also a boring person. So that’s 250 miles per week, or approximately 35.7 miles per day (250/7). This means that you need to refill your tank approximately every 2 weeks.
Since it costs you $60 to refill ($4*15), you’re spending $1,560 every year on perishable goods.
I agree that we, as Americans, have the tendency to exceed our means and indulge in luxury items, but there’s the rub: they’re luxury items; one time costs. Gasoline is a cyclic cost, where you pay for it all the time, day in day out, 24/7/365.
I don’t HAVE to buy an iPhone, but I HAVE to buy gasoline if I own a car. If I buy an iPhone, I own it for life (or until it breaks), but if I buy gasoline I “own” it until I use it up which happens every two weeks.
If I buy an iPhone for $500, I’m done. That’s all I have to pay. If we assume the average life span of the iPhone is 3 years, that makes the iPhone cost 7.5 CENTS PER DAY I OWN IT. But gas still costs the same amount per day, every day, and usually more, if this upward trend continues.
The answer isn’t less indulgence – although I definitely think that’s necessary. The answer lies within coming up with safe, cheap, clean alternatives to our precious C3H18 molecules that power our cars right now.
Ely Rosenstock
May 15th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
I see your point, and it’s a good one. I also DEFINITELY agree with the need for research on safe and clean alternative fuels. I do question one of your assumptions. That is that the iPhone (and other similar technology indulgences) have a 3 year lifespan.
The majority of people who have bought the iPhone in the past year would probably be categorized as innovators in the adoption curve. That is, these people want the latest device out there regardless of the cost involved. The typical innovator will hold their phone for a maximum of 2 years which would coincide with a 2 year contract with their service provider. More likely, however, they will get a new phone every year based on the jumps in mobile technology. Those people who stood in line to buy an iPhone a year ago will be out again to buy the new one that comes out in a few weeks.
All in all, though, your assessment is correct. A one time purchase/indulgence might not be the best comparison to a daily necessary expense. Because, as you mentioned, the one time purchase can be expensed quite cheaply over the course of its use.
But, the point I’m making is not so much about the iPhone, or the one time purchase. It is more about the lack of financial responsibility in this country. The idea of missing one paycheck and not making rent is the most foreign concept to me. This is not because I’m rich. It’s because I’m scared to live that dangerously. People need to learn to save. Spending lots of money on unnecessary items (such as an iPhone) when you don’t have enough money for rent next month is crazy.
We need that alternative energy source as quickly as possible. But that won’t solve today’s problem of high gas prices. People need to be responsible and plan ahead.
kate
May 19th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Gasoline prices in England have been soaring above prices here for some time now and the result there has been… dum da da dum… less reliance on gas (they drive tiny cars)!!! Not that I enjoy paying $4 a gallon, but I have been excited to see what we, as a nation, will do about it. I had dreams of more efficient public transportation, more bike lanes, more and more smaller cars, electric cars, better hybrids, alternate sources of fuel….
While some people are responding responsibly to the “crisis,” our friends at Chrysler have decided to ENCOURAGE wasteful behavior by offering new buyers gas at $2.99 a gallon for 3 years! That’s EXACTLY what we need, more idiots driving their SUVs to the corner store without a second thought. BRILLIANT!
Ely Rosenstock
May 19th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Very good point Kate. I hate that Chrysler promotion as well. I think car companies are scared of a the future they don’t understand. They’d rather keep the status quo where the country relies on their machines to move everywhere. More fuel efficiency could mean less revenue for them. That scares them. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Kate
May 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
“They’d rather keep the status quo where the country relies on their machines to move everywhere. More fuel efficiency could mean less revenue for them. That scares them.”
It is so crazy to me that they still think that way when in fact Toyota has outsold them in the US with cars like the Prius!
Cobas
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
More fuel efficiency SHOULD scare YOU and automobile producers. We have a well-tested, mature infrastructure for handling refined crude oil and changing that will cost a lot of money – costs that will be passed on to the consumer.
Now, before I go on, I just want to make one thing clear: we absolutely MUST find a solution to our oil woes and we must figure out a way to reduce our carbon emissions. That said, we must also do it in a practical way.
Brazil has switched cold-turkey to ethanol. While this is a step in the right direction, it also is jumping the gun. Every year, Brazil is felling hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforest in order to plant sugar crops to feed their ethanol addiction. Reread this paragraph. Now read it again.
That’s right: in order to reduce their carbon footprint, they are CUTTING DOWN A FOREST WHICH, BY ITS VERY NATURE, REDUCES CARBON. I believe the term I’m looking for here is “back-asswards.” And while their government has subsidized the change-over to ethanol, it is not any less costly than the price of gasoline.
Ethanol would degrade our current pipeline infrastructure. The metal would corrode too quickly for our oil pipelines to work. We’d need to replace those. We’d need to replace various parts of our cars in order to burn ethanol instead of gasoline. In the long run, this may be cheaper, but right now it is much too expensive.
I think we need to continue researching how to produce a fuel that is cheap and abundant. There’s been a lot of research in using bacteria to metabolize simple sugars and produce gasoline molecules. If this can be mass-produced so that it works outside of a lab (refineries are dirty, unsanitary, unclean places, and the bacteria will need to survive there in the billions), I think this might be the way to go in the long term.
I think the near-term answer lies in carbon emissions trading. If the government sells carbon credits, it could use the money it raises to pump dollars into the alternative fuel research market.
Microsoft gets things right when they try to maintain backwards compatability. Apple gets slammed for not going so – and rightfully so. If you spent thousands of dollars on software – even if that software were 20 years old – would you want to replace it? Even if there were better versions out, why replace what you’re happy with?
Why the sudden change of topics? It’s no change at all. The future of fuel will rely upon backwards compatability with our current infrastructure. The American public is too strapped for cash to invest in new cars and to foot the bill for new pipelines. For now, we are stuck with crude oil being refined into gasoline.
Ely Rosenstock
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I wouldn’t compare Microsoft and Apple’s backwards capability strategies to the situation with gas. Americans can shift to an alternative fuel if a viable one was available. It would be a new surge of entrepreneurship of alternative fuel dealerships popping up around the country as people slowly buy these new advanced cars. Our economy is built to evolve with old businesses disappearing and new businesses emerging.
I agree with everything you say about the necessary research. But don’t bring in Microsoft and Apple into this. They have different strategies. Apple caters to the hip, trendy, cool crowd (it just so happens that everyone wants to be cool). Microsoft caters to everyone else. Different markets, different strategies. Their approaches on backwards compatibility fits with both of their strategies.