Le Sequoit

Gas, and Gasbags

This gas price thing is stirring up a whole lot of debate. Worst in my book is the free market nonsense that such crunches can be best addressed by giving free reign to the monopolists, in the assumption that the value of their product will naturally lead them to search out new sources of oil. "Calm down, everyone, it's not like we haven't had these prices before, adjusted for inflation."

Of course, adjusted for inflation, the median income isn't keeping up with the price of gas, or with the income of such columnists as Patrick McIlheran, who gives us this advice:

So adjust. It's unpleasant - I speak as a minivan owner - but fuel costs had been low for a long time. If politicians need to keep busy, they can rethink rules that reduce competition and supply. They can otherwise let the market work.

Ah, yes, all those pesky rules, written at a time when foolish folk decided that living in a choking brown haze was perhaps not the way to go. Well, it's a post $2.00-a-gallon world out there, the reality is that we have to unshackle those ... well ... that oil company to do it's best, spending a lot of it's own money to flood it's exclusive market with cheap gas.

But ask not what the corporation can do for you, ask what you can do for the corporation. There are important choices to be made by us one and all. Not cumbersome, evil communal decisions, but good old American free market embracing ruggedly individualistic personal decisions, as the op-ed guy wires this in from his den:

The tale is that we're hooked and paying the price.

Speak for yourself. You're hooked if you drive 26 miles to work in a pickup truck. You're less dependent if you take a bus. Some guy who runs his consultancy off a laptop once he walks from his loft to a coffee joint around the corner has you beat either way. Make a choice and pay the price.

"Make a choice and pay a price." And how might that ol' free market be effecting one's choice? Let's look at the county where I work; Lake County, Illinois. The median household income is around $80,000. Jobs in Lake County predominantly line up along the I94 corridor, mainly in the southeastern part of the county. Let's look at the map to see where one might make one's "choice" to locate environmentally responsibly. The numbers are the median home prices in each town.

Now, Highwood is rather a small WC town alongside a former army base, so don't think everyone can move there. In fact, the old base is being converted into half a million dollar townhouses, so the median is likely to rise.

Where do all those $80,000 families live? Well, Mr. McIlheran, they seem to have made the bad choice to locate off the map to the left there, where they are certainly to be the first to pay the price. Miles away. Millions of gallons away.

How very irresponsible of them.

posted by sequoit @ 11:33 AM