A Pain in the Gas

Watching mainstream nightly news in this time of world crisis I note that the second “lead” story every night (after coverage of the fighting in Ukraine) is the spike in the price of gasoline in the United States. As the major media outlets are headquartered in New York City there is a natural geocentric bias in their coverage of gas prices, and the most recent cries of alarm wailed at the probability that gasoline in the New York area will soon exceed $4.00 a gallon.

Welcome to California and have a nice day!

When I relocated from New Jersey to California in May 2018, I left gasoline at $2.41 a gallon in Old Bridge New Jersey for a price of $3.61 a gallon in Palm Springs, California. Indeed, in previous years California gas had been as much a $4.50 a gallon, while in New Jersey (before Gov. Christie doubled the State gas tax to make NJ the second most expensive place for gasoline after being the second least expensive for years), gas at the pump hovered around $2.00 a gallon. Right now, California gas is around $6.00 a gallon, and you have to pump it yourself.

Remarkably, the commute to New York City via the NJ Turnpike or Staten Island Expressway remains a single-occupant, bumper-to-bumper nightmare during rush hours despite gas price increases, and gas price increases have done nothing to deter the growth of the rush hour parking lots otherwise known in California as the 5 and 405 Freeways.

But what gas price increases and the general increase in the price of goods and services has done is increase the “Whine Index” of Americans.

America used to be a country of doers, but now it’s mostly a country of complainers. We rail against the price of gas, but drive bigger and more expensive SUVs and pick-ups, and drive them more often. We cry about restaurant costs but finance a delivery industry of Grub Hub, Door Dash and others that didn’t even exist when we ate most of our meals at home and picked up our take-out ourselves. We moan about the price of fruits and veggies but load our shopping carts with frozen sides and pre-packaged, processed foods. Hamburger meat is $4.00 a pound, enough to make four Big Macs, but we spend $16.00 for four at Mickey D’s instead. Our kitchens have a bookshelf of cookbooks, most of them never opened.

If you don’t like what you see, do something about it. The price of things is still basically a function of supply and demand, money chasing goods. If money wants the goods, the price of the goods goes up. If there are more goods than money, the cost of goods goes down. Look in the mirror: there’s the person who can influence the effect of inflation by showing more discipline, accepting some inconvenience, and abhorring selfishness, greed and waste.

If you’re not willing to do that, you can always sell your much appreciated real estate, pack up your three cars, your jet skis, RV motor home, Harley and 26-foot center console Grady White and ship all of it to Iraq. Gas is $1.91 a gallon there, and they have free health care.