Why do Americans feel they are entitled to cheap gas?

Question

I'm not trying to sound sarcastic. I was watching something on the news recently and whenever they had this debate they always go back to supply and demand theory.

Answer 1

No, not all Americans feel that way. Just the people that hate the free market feel entitled to cheap gas.

Answer 2

Because we refine the stuff, for one thing. We just hate getting screwed, for another.

Answer 3

if you got so much money send me some  

Answer 4

I am American. I don't really think we are entitled to cheap gas, but I know many people who are. They just love extremely powerful engines and big, useless SUVs. They just feel that they are superior. They all used to be farmers, so they all used the SUVs. Some used trucks too. Then they moved to the city or the suburb and just kept with the cars they have always driven, which are all gas wasting. Also, the oil companies had cheap gas to get people addicted to it, then they raised the price (like a drug dealer)

Answer 5

It's the second amendment to the constitution:  "the right of the people to cheap and plentiful gasoline shall not be infringed".

Answer 6

I guess its like changing the rules halfway through the game. People bought gas-guzzling cars and SUVs and trucks with the expectation that gas would remain steady, or slowly increase with inflation. Well that turned out not to be the case, gas prices sky-rocketed very rapidly, and people with these gas-guzzlers have lost so much money on gas, and they can't get rid of the vehicles without taking a huge hit in the face from depreciation on the vehicle.

Perhaps it's not necessarily a sense of entitlement, more of a sense of "this wasn't part of the deal when I bought this car!"

Answer 7

That is a very very good question.  The fact that people don't understand it is telling.  I'm not sure what it tells.

I know most Americans (that I know) are actually angry that the squandering got interrupted by something.  They never lay the blame where it belongs.  It's always "greedy corporations" that they blame, when it's obvious the problem was greedy consumers.

Future generations are going to get a huge laugh, aren't they?  They'll know that we pumped billions of barrels of useful hydrocarbons out of the ground, and just burned them.

Answer 8

Why do you feel we are not?

Answer 9

We are mostly a commuter society, especially in major urbanized zones and we see gas not as a commodity, but as a staple to our every day lives. If you have to drive a lot to go to work 20 miles away (sometimes the closest available work), and you make slightly above the federal minimum wage, say $8 an hour or so, does it seem fair to have to pay $4 for a gallon of gas?

Yes, they charge more in places like the UK, but we've never devoted the kind of funds to mass transit systems on such a consistent basis as other societies do. The closest we have are transit systems in areas like Seattle and Portland.  

Answer 10

no we don't