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Well Fabs, you say I/we should cut back on our driving. That's a good idea. Now suppose you tell me how? My 1993 toyota 4x4 pick up has 75,600 miles on it. It will be 12 years old come October. (Mileage rounded up to estimated amount to October.) That's a whole whopping 6300 miles a year, average. My wife's 1998 Explorer, also a 4x4 as we had planned on using it for travel at retirement, has a whole 27,800 miles on it, again estimated tot eh month of October as we bought it that month. WOW! a whole 3,971 miles a year. As for travel, one son lives in Las Vegas, I have a daughter in Logan Utah, another in Albuquerque New Mexico and one more in Houston Texas. I have ten grandchildren I cannot afford to drive to and see.
My house and vehicles are paid for. Medical bills and soaring proerty taxes cut into the lifestyle. Cancer ain't cheap to live with, take my word for it. Betwen my wife and I, just the co-pay on our meds runs close to $500 a month, so yeah, I'm gonna *****, piss and moan about gas prices. With what we have left, we can go to the store for groceries, the pharmacy to pick up meds and go to the doctor. Oh, and we have no credit card debt. My wife and I are nearly in our 70s. There's no way, considering our health problems that we can find jobs, even if we were capable of doing them.
I douibt if they will ever lower taxes on gas, not even temporarily.
However, there are a few ideas I have that I think would make a difference.
One, I think it's Shell that's doing it, but they have their most profitable refinery in california. They make double digit profits from it, yet they want to shut it down and dismantle it. They refuse to sell it to someone else. Don't make sense to me.
I was listening to a radio program, and they had someone from the oil industry on. Did you know that they make 42 different blends of gasoline? Some states like California require one type of gas for enviornmental reasons another state wants something else. Notice, that the oil companies refuse to suggest that the states use the gas that pollutes the least nationwide, and ALL the states use that gas only. Just that alone could bring about close to 25 percent drop in the cost of refining gasoline.
So yes, I think that the oil companies are being too greedy. The cost of fuel goes up, the cost of delivering good goes up, people cannot afford the higher prices of said goods, and eventually, the people will finally see the light. just before it blows out.
Paul B.
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