Gas Pains
No, I didn’t overindulge at the Mexican buffet or anything. I am, of course, referring to the ever-rising prices at the pump.
My wife texted me the other day asking, “Why is there a line at Walmart for $3.99 gas?” It was a fair question. I had filled up the day before at $3.84 a gallon and felt a little nauseous in doing so. But I knew what she meant…
It was probably about to go up and people were getting gas for as “cheap” as they could. I also knew that using simple math meant it was at the $4-a-gallon tipping point.
The last time I had paid four dollars and change for a gallon of gas, it was 2008 and we were travelling to St.
Louis for a family vacation. Gas had been high then too, and I almost ran the family van out of gas trying to save two or three cents a gallon, but ended up paying $4.08 at a convenience store in Caruthersville, Missouri and fumed about it all the way to Six Flags.
Well, here we are again, and back in 2008, I think that $4.08 is the highest I ended up paying before prices dipped down into the $3.75 or so range. This was in mid-July that year and here we are still a couple of weeks away from Memorial Day. Just based on experience, I’d be willing to wager that we’ll be wishing for $4.08 by mid-July 2022.
I don’t want to get too political here, since high gas prices affect Democrats and Republicans alike, but it’s more than past time for some bipartisan initiative to fight this ridiculous inflation rather than use it as a tool to try to
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make the other side look bad right here at election time.
Hey, guess what, lawmakers? You’re the ones to blame for this! The average American absolutely does not care who is in power if the cost of goods keeps rising, we’re going to hold all responsible because you’re the only ones who can stop it. You can deflect all you like with the abortion issue or with the war in Ukraine or with COVID-19 or whatever else you’ve got up your sleeves, but even if we don’t understand the subtle intricacies of how student loans or trans rights can play into the larger political scene, we all understand dollars and cents, and we know that the only way we can have any impact on the economy is with our votes and with our wallets.
As the summer approaches, we are all feeling the pains at the pump… and at the grocery store… and anywhere else we have to pay for the things we need (electric bill, hardware store, fast food, you name it…). There’s a perfect storm brewing right now, where it’s already becoming clear to millions of underpaid workers that their time and effort is not earning them enough money to pay their bills all the while the money they do make is buying less and less of the things they need, and we are approaching critical mass.
What does this mean?
Well, it could mean a recession that makes the one that led to $4.08 gas in 2008 look like a mild downturn. It could mean massive (continued) shortages of the things that we need (have you tried to buy baby formula lately). It could mean more people joining the Great Resignation as calling in “out of gas” replaces calling
There have been a few other times in fairly recent history when inflation and a bad economy have led to entire regime changes in Washington. President Ford ran in 1976 under the umbrella of “W.I.N.” or Whip Inflation Now. Well, he did not W.I.N. at all. He lost. In 1992, after being warned “It’s the economy, stupid,” President Bush was made into a one-termand- don president. And his son only didn’t suffer a similar fate in 2008 because he was term-limited (although it did cost his party the White House.
We’ll see who ultimately gets the blame in November, won’t we?
Oh, and for the record, I was right. Gas jumped the next day to $4.01… sigh.
