Gas prices inching back up;
recovery in peril?
Elk Grove gas prices are on the way up. Any driver who has visited their local gassing station in the last few weeks has undoubtedly felt...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2011/01/gas-prices-inching-back-up-recovery-in.html
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| Elk Grove gas prices are on the way up. |
Any driver who has visited their local gassing station in the last few weeks has undoubtedly felt the pinch of escalating gas prices. With the gas spike of 2008 a not so distance nightmare, gas prices are on their way up just as the economy is showing some, be they ever by so minor, signs of recovery.
For those of us who recall the perils of 2008, perhaps it was coincidental but the credit collapse and the ensuing Great Recession were preceded the acceleration of gas prices in the the late spring-early summer of 2008.
Obviously the credit crunch and collapse of real estate was not caused by high gas prices, but there is no doubt the pinch consumers felt at the gas station affected consumer spending which exasperated the collapse.
So as the 112th Congress convenes today, we hope people like Rep. Darrell Issa look into oil company price gouging and not re-fight the health care wars we have been subjected to for the last few years. So the question is this: Who will be the masters of Issa and his fellow GOPer's - the oil barons and Wall Street types or the average American consumer. The ball is in your court ladies and gentlemen of the 112th.
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| Gas prices on May 22, 2008 at Elk Grove Boulevard and Big Horn Road. |
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This article subtly suggests that oil price gouging and/or other financial chicanery are partial culprits for our economic woes. It may have read, "If we didn't have to spend so much on gas we'd spend the difference at the [newly commissioned] Promenade Mall." But how, exactly, are purchases of imported Bangladeshi Snuggies somehow more acceptable than imported Venezuelan oil? The Elk Grovian economy is overwhelmingly more dependent on auto sales, smog shops, Hwy 99 bridge building, vehicle repair shops, snack food sales at fill stations…and of course, gas tax receipts, than it is on athletic shoe sales or nail salons. Oil company gouging? Doesn’t the production and distribution of gasoline and the management of its pollutants produce substantial GDP as well?
I’d offer that had Elk Grove and the rest of the U.S. not followed the most energy-intensive living arrangement possible -- low-density, single-use suburban sprawl – our economic malaise might have been substantially muted. Our residents could better tolerate a nickel a gallon increase if they never had to buy it in the first place, if they could work in the same place as they lived. I’d offer that if Elk Grove didn’t sprawl to the banks of the Cosumnes River over the next two decades while offering employment above and beyond strip retail/fast food sales, our future residents wouldn’t also be so sensitive to energy costs.
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