GAS UP! By what values do you actually live?
We self-set such standards, and, very often, make a vocative show of our basic choices when some abrupt change takes place in our living sphere - such as the recent surges in the price of gasoline.
The average,nation wide price of gasoline $2.92 per gallon as of Friday, May 5, 2006. At one nearby location members of our family bought gasoline at $2.74 per gallon. The price varies daily in each region and there seems to be no obvious or readily apparent reason for the change other than the price the selling site across the highway has just posted. Users seek a reason and make one up out of the whole cloth of some really wild possibilities when the cause of the changes are not specified to their liking. Different people see the cause as originating in different places, too.
Gasoline price have always been on an upward scale over the course of many yesteryears. A gallon of gasoline we bought in, let's say - 1924 - the year my father bought his first car, were in the range of 17-20-some cents, as I recall. In the intervening years, the price has worked it way up the scale to, shall we say, roughly $3.00 per gallon and more in some areas.
At this point we must start to understand and respect the quality and quantity of the product.
Quantity remains pretty much the same. We buy products by set measures - a gallon, in this case...ounces, pounds, inches, yards, rods, acres, but often forget how much the quality might vary. We also assume such changes are always for the good of the user, but that need not be the case. In the food industry, for example, people demand that caffeine be removed, to a large extent, from their coffee even while they support the ever expanding number of caffeine-laden sports drinks, sodas, health, and energy enhancers. to which the excess coffee caffeine has been transferred.
The quality of gasoline may well be better today and during even those halcyon days of nostalgic memories. So much can depend on specific and specialized uses to which it might be applied and to safety and environmental requirements in certain areas. Quality has been improved both by taking things out and by adding to the basic composition , as well.
In 1924, my Dad bought a brand new car of a popular make for $333.00. Other cars, such a foreign imports and bigger show-cars went of over $2,000. The prices are quite a bit higher today. The 30-cent gas is now $3.00. You may fail to remember when a "loaf" of bread cost 8-10-or 12-cents but think what it costs you today. There is plenty of room for argument about quality there, as well, but I don't hear many voices demanding that the "big flour" firms be punished.
And, more people insist now on what each of them calls "quality" in their driving - which ranges from essential aids to safer driving all the way down to the most foolish excess of the silliest kind.
Think a bit about this gas price problem we are having, before you go placing "blame" for it on anyone in particular. In a very real sense we have all had a hand in it. We all have more control over it than we may, at first, realize. Ours is a large country in a physical sense and it is unwise to try to compare our driving habits with those of European nations. Many or our states are far larger than entire nations elsewhere, but, if we wish to do so, we can cut down on the quantity of our driving and still maintain the quality thereof and, along with it, better price control.
A.L.M. May 7, 2006 [c647wds]r
