Still Gassy
I am not sure where to go with this, so maybe I will just go everywhere…
To All Airlines: I have not forgotten. To Most Gas Suppliers: I have not forgotten you either.
Way back when, circa 2008, there was a time when gas prices were increasing at an exponential rate (and when I say gas prices, I refer first to the price of crude barrels which then affects the prices that the customer sees at the end of the chain). Some interesting things happened during this time. Before we get to the interesting things, however, was there ever a satisfactory explanation as to why the prices skyrocketed the way they did? Not that I can recall. Did the Exxon Mobil investors ever start purchasing stocks again after dumping them? Who knows. It might be worth mentioning why many investors bailed. While the general public was being fleeced through the nose, Exxon Mobil was raking in record profits in each quarter (something like $10 billion). I don’t mean record for Exxon, but record for everyone, forever. I believe they broke the all-time record for profit in a quarter. When they failed to break a record in a subsequent quarter, investors bailed, allegedly unhappy with the company’s lackluster performance (I think they only missed the record by some millions; nobody was starving). Tough crowd, but I digress….
Back to the interesting things (for the purposes of this piece, “egregious” has been euphemized with the word “interesting”). A result of this meteoric rise in the price of oil was the airlines finding new ways to rake its customers over the coals. The coal raking came in the form of ridiculous fees; “Oh you actually want to bring luggage with you on vacation? That’ll be $100. Oh, you want to eat during this 5 hour flight? That’ll be $15. Wait, let me get this straight… you want water too? You are better off bringing your own. Oh, wait…. You can’t bring water through airport security? Drink up before you leave the house, or we are pleased to offer you a 10 oz. bottle, once you have been thoroughly violated by airport security, at the cost of your firstborn. By the way, that ticket you saw for $400 a week ago is now $800 if you book right now. If you wait any longer, your children will have to forgo their college education.” And so it went.
The reasoning behind the addition of these numerous fees was that the airlines were in financial trouble due to the exorbitant cost of oil. However, here we are some years later, when I can buy a barrel of crude on sale at Target since it is so cheap, and yet these fees still exist (not that any reasoning person would expect them to go away) and continue to grow in number and absurdity. Airlines: I cannot accuse you of lying but your new business model, which may soon well mandate that passengers bring their own seats, seems, dare I say, opprobrious.
As for Exxon, Shell, BP and anyone else who offers liquid product for the purpose of powering automobiles, allow me to give you honorable mention. Although I do not know the math or the formula that determines what the price at the pump should be (“as much as we can get away with without being investigated”), there seems to be a serious disconnect at the moment. The last time oil was $45 a barrel, let’s say, the average gas price was $1.75 a gallon (more or less). When the price of crude peaked at $145 a barrel in the summer of 2008, the average gas price was $4.10 (more or less). Now that the price of crude has been back in the $40s, and has even spent some time in the $38 range, the average gas price is still $2.50 (more or less). Please tell me the math used to explain that. Hasn’t the cost of refining, transporting and so forth gone down in the last seven years? I would also ask for an explanation regarding posting only the cash price on your signs when the credit card price is higher, but let’s not get carried away.
Despite the multitude of Kardashian-based news items you show me to try to provide distraction, I have not forgotten.