Mogas Prices

So Bill Maher had Barney Frank, Ian McKellen, and somebody else on last night, and they got to talking about mogas prices and shortages and conservation and all that. And Barney Frank (who did get off a couple of great one-liners) was saying that it isn't fair for people who have to drive to shoulder the burden of petroleum supply problems--that consumers who have all along been encouraged to live far from where they work, to settle in the suburbs and build their lives around the automobile, shouldn't 'suddenly' get 'whacked' by high mogas prices.

And I thought: wait a minute. Suddenly?

The energy crisis is 33 years old this year. Thirty-three years. A third of a century. Think about that for a moment...

For 33 years, consumers have (with occasional temporary lapses into semi-sane behavior) continued to organize their lives around the assumption that mogas will always be available and always be cheap, even though for that entire time we have known it not to be true. Now, again, we are having our noses rubbed in the fact that it isn't true. Again.

Well, wah, wah, wah. And wah.

Look, I don't think it's a good thing that consumers bear the burden here. It does hurt people who really can't afford it. And Frank's point about how the suburbs have been pushed on us is very well taken.

Still, people make choices. Consumers make choices, even when corporations artificially limit the options or stack the deck one way or another. And the reality is that consumers have consistently been choosing back yards over neighborhood walkability, garage space over public transportation, square footage over conservation.

That's where my sympathy reaches its limit.

I would like to see some solution that encourages conservation by consumers (and mandates conservation by the auto industry) without slamming people who really do have to depend on their cars. I would like to see the executives and shareholders of ExMoTexaChev take the hit instead of consumers. Just spare me any talk about how 'unfair' the mogas prices are.

[That's all, folks]