Are Americans at all justified in complaining about gas prices?

Question

As gas prices continue their rise toward $4 per gallon in the USA, a lot of people are complaining.

However, the USA has the worst fuel efficiency requirements of any first world country. We have half the fuel efficiency requirements of Europe. Our gas also remains cheaper than most other countries, and costs less than half as much as in the UK. Many Americans drive unnecessarily large and inefficient cars, trucks and SUVs. Hybrids still make up less than 2% of car sales in the US.

If we're unwilling to take steps to improve our fuel efficiency, yet our gas prices are still far below most other countries, are Americans at all justified in complaining about gas prices?

Answer 1

Nope! Think this sez it all

http://earthissues.multiply.com/photos/h...

Answer 2

If you want to drive a 75hp car the size of golf cart go for it.  I'd rather drive something comfy, with some power, and room for more than just 2 people.  Many people that drive trucks have trailers.  Try pulling a boat with your golf cart or even a hybrid.

Answer 3

Yes we are, the prices are higher than what we are used to paying it is higher than what we normally pay. People have the right to drive what ever car they want. I would not want to be caught dead in a Hybrid for obvious reasons.

Answer 4

Well I would have to say yes as we are being extorted and gouged all in the name of unbridled greed.

Good being the virtue it is can take something evil and make something of it, this something being an incentive to finally get off our addiction to fossil fuels and find clean renewable and in the long term cheaper energy technologies. Technologies  that create a more real dispersed economic growth for society  as a whole and not just an elite few.

Below is some excerpts relating to the current profits and attitudes of the top 5 oil producers.

"Today, some in congress took top oil executives to task, slamming them for taking $18 billion in tax breaks, not investing enough in renewable resources and for pulling in a combined $123 billion in profits in 2007 – all while consumers suffer at the pump.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) put the money question to top oil execs at one of Congress' periodic hearings on gas prices. Politicians frequently fire off populist one-liners and CEOs cite the law of supply and demand.

Walden asked: "With your record high profits, have you thought about lowering the price of gasoline?"

Shell President John Hofmeister replied with what appeared to be a "No," adding, "Profits are what enable capital investors to increase supply."

And yes in spite of all this I am in favor of higher gas taxes that hopefully would go to fund research and subsidies for alternative energies. The oil companies usually respond to longer gas taxes with raising their prices in its stead to take advantage of that would be lowered price.

Answer 5

no

Answer 6

Don't forget Japan.  Their fuel economy standard is almost twice America's.  Where is LittleRobberGirl?  I think she said they pay something like 5.50 in the UK.

Answer 7

I would have no problem with the price of gasoline in the United States going up in price if the reason was for higher gasoline taxes that are more properly earmarked for transportation/infrastructure improvements (rather than put into a general fund).  If the extra higher prices meant better bridge/tunnel upkeep, road repair, and even better funded alternative transportation methods (rail, commuter light rail/bus/subway service, carsharing, carpool matchup services, etc.) or alternative fuel research, I wouldn't mind the upward price changes.

However, most of the upward pricing in the US is just market driven.  Higher demand = higher prices.  Oil companies are touting record profits over the last few years, with higher stock prices and nice dividend payouts.  More Americans are owning more cars and driving more miles on those cars than they did in the past.  (Add to that pressures from other developing nations, like China, where citizens are acquiring more cars and therefore using more gasoline too, and demand world-wide for gasoline is going up.)

I do think that it is fair to complain that the price of gasoline is going up to just line the wallets of the oil companies (and their shareholders, which includes many of the complaining Americans thanks to mutual funds in their retirement plans) with no other good coming out of it.  However, some of the complaining should go farther to point at the real source - the higher demand for the fuel.  If Americans demanded more fuel-efficient cars (such as buying the most fuel-efficient vehicle in whatever class that met their needs), and drove with better fuel efficiency in mind (slow down to the speed limit, no jackrabbit start/stops, no idling, combining trips, better maintenance of their car (such as proper tire inflation and regular filter changes), then there'd be less demand for the fuel and therefore there would be less upward price pressure.

Answer 8

Supply and demand.  Less supply, more demand = higher prices.

When you take out the subsidies that hybrid manufacturers get from governments they are actually quite expensive.  

And it just doesn't make environmental or economic sense to try to put an expensive dual-powertrain system into less expensive cars which already get good mileage.

If you're taking the route that America deserves to pay for higher prices because 'everyone else' already does then it's quite a blame America first attitude that you're portraying.

I do think we have the right to complain about the prices just as much as you feel it's your right to post a question.  (and it is your right, this is America)

Overall I think gas is taxed too high thanks to environmental laws, I think we need to drop our independence on foreign oil but we can't thanks to the inability to drill for our own oil, I think we need to build more refineries domestically but we can't thanks to environmentalists.

I also think it'd be wise for more wind farms, but don't get me started...  

Totally justified in complaining about petroleum products.  And if you aren't complaining then nothing will ever get done about it.

Answer 9

no....we are not entitled to cheap gas....if you want the price of gas to go down then support drilling in ANWAR and off the coast of Florida....also the building of new refineries in this country and the understanding that it is the environmentalist movement standing in the way of those things that would bring the price Waaaaaay down

Answer 10

even my 4 litre 3.5 tonne truck that i used to tow my living waggon with did 24 mpg! that's better than the average car in the u.s.a!!!!!

we are paying over a pound a litre here, and average car mpg is 40-50mpg.

Answer 11

give me a muscle car, i`ll burn up some gas

Answer 12

YES after all we call this chunk of land United States of America, not f***ing UK Japan or any other name.

Answer 13

I had to think about this question for a few days, before I decided on my answer.

Yes, I think Americans are justified about complaining about the price of gas.

America is a young country.  America is a HUGE country, compaired to most European nations.  Even our individual states are bigger than many of the European countries.  

America has not has two thousand years to work out an efficient transportation system of masses of people.  There are a few large cities, here and there, New York, Chicago, for example, which have ways of moving masses of people in timely and efficient ways.  

I now live in rural Idaho, home to about 1.5 million people in the entire state.  There is no mass trasit.  We do have a bus system that runs to the major employer here.  But it just goes there, and to park and rides (also known as vacant lots, not paved, not lit, sometimes have cows grazing in them...no kidding).

I live 9 miles from the nearest store.  The road in front of my house is a 65mph highway.  Too busy, and too far, and too fast to safely ride a bike to the store.    

Odd thing was, when I lived in town, in Washington state (Everett) I was still 8 miles from the nearest grocery store.  For a while when I lived in Everett, I rode the bus, when I worked in North Seattle.  It was a 2 1/2 hour trip, ONE WAY.  Five hours a day on the bus, plus 9 hours at work.  It was a total of 21 miles from my job, to my doorstep.  I had to walk two miles (no kidding) in order to catch that bus.

How can they possibly expect anyone to ride mass transit that isn't even close to efficient?  2 1/2 HOURS to go 19 miles? (Remember I walked the other two).

There was no way I could afford an apartment closer to work....far too expensive.  I worked on a hospital campus, as an office manager/surgical tech to a private M.D.

When people cannot afford to live close to their employer, when groceries are still miles away (even in the city), and when there is no reasonable mass transit system, I believe people are completely and fully justified about being angry about gas prices.

I would also like to know what has happened to fuel efficiency....why have the brand new "fuel efficient" vehicles gone down in millage compaired to our old vehicles?

1996 Merc Sable.................36 MPG

1986 GMC 1/2 ton pickup...29MPG

1968 Ford 3/4 ton pickup....17MPG

Compair them to new, similar vehicles, and they get the same, or better millage.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 14

I don't know, you bring up many valid points.The USA needs to raise it's fuel efficiency requirements to meet the growing need to lower carbon emissions into our poor defenseless planet. I feel that the USA talks alot about how to fix the problem, but that's all we do it talk. We're not really making any strides or real efforts whatsoever to improve the situation. And look at it this way, if we took a million dollars from every dang millionaire movie star out there, we'd have plenty of money to come up with a solution that all said movie stars are always rambling about. Or if we cut out a budget for lobbyists in the White House, that would surely shave off some dollars to explore productive ways to improve our environment. What can I say, I love the USA I love where I'm from, but I do NOT love how it's being run. It isn't fair to the American people who want to make a difference and a change that people with the power to do so, do nothing, but talk. You bring up a very interesting conversation.

Answer 15

h**l yeah we are justified in complaining...  I am a citizen of the good 'ole USA and I do my part to conserve energy and recycle... But nothing I do will result in lower gas prices... NOTHING!

things keep getting more expensive, and our pay stays the same...  what gives??  when is it going to get easier?

Answer 16

A friend of ours just moved to Norway, where gas prices are upward of $7 a gallon.  Surprising enough the vehicles of choice are monster SUVs.  Surprising enough, Norway is doing well with its offshore oil and gas sector, and in recent years high oil prices have made for government budget and current account surpluses, and rising disposable income.  The irony is that more of their country will be impacted by global climate change than ours, and their government is more involved in climate change solutions than ours.

But I agree absolutely.  Improving fuel efficiency is a must, and we do enjoy relatively "good" prices for gas, relatively speaking.  My car gets good mileage but takes premium gas.  My husbands car gets comparable mileage and takes regular.  Guess which one we're driving when we're together?

Answer 17

Since when did we need justification to complain? Like the Nike slogan - Just do it.  :)

Answer 18

Yes, we are justified.  It is not the peoples fault if those who are in DC refuse to listen except to the almighty gas lords as to what a vehicle can obtain.

There are vehicles which can run on water, but the companies are hording the rights to the patents and no one can create the cars.

Answer 19

I think we have the right to complain. However, what we should be complaining about is not the point of purchase cost of fuel, but what the procedes from the gas taxes go to. We pay a tax on our fuel, which is used to build more roads, which enable sprawl, which means things are further and further apart, which means we need to spend more money on gas to get to them.

What we need is a gas tax that is used to fund alternatives to using gas in the first place. Things like pedistrian friendly urban re-densification, light rail, busses, bike lanes and pathways, etc.

The gas tax should be used to help us move away from using so much fuel, rather than encouraging and reinforcing our addiction.

Answer 20

Just a few facts to chew on:

1) Fuel prices in Europe are actually about the same as in the US, if you take taxes out of the picture.  The only reason the pump price is higher over there is that the governments have piled huge taxes on fuel.  This of course is what the global warming alarmists in this country wish to do as well.

2) There are actually no mandated fuel efficiency standards on automobiles in most European countries.  The higher efficiency of their cars is entirely due to the high fuel prices which are the result of 1) above.

3) Many of their cars will not pass either the safety standards or the emission standards in the U.S.  This is especially true of the diesels.

Anyway, who are you to say that I or anyone else is driving an unnecessarily large and inefficient car.  One would have to be terribly arrogant to believe he knows better than me what best fits my needs.