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 ROCKING THE BOAT AND DISTURBING THE SH*T *** SINCE 2003 *** |
** MEMBER #1439 of the CANADIAN PAPER MONEY SOCIETY **
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DON'T LIKE THE GAS PRICE?  YOU COULD BLAME THESE PEOPLE...
...BUT YOU SHOULD BLAME THIS PERSON:  Despite all of the new information available, the environmental activist movement has ensconced itself in the media and in politics to the point that all of the mainstream political parties in Canada have pro-environmental platforms. The Liberal Party elected a leader who used to be the Minister of the Environment under a previous Liberal administration. The Green Party similarly picked a leader with a strong environmental policy background. The New Democrats have supported traditionally anything that drains revenue and benefits nobody, but they have been forced to beat the environmental drum to avoid growing irrelevant as their support from the hard Left is being split with the Greens. Even the Conservatives are jumping onto the bandwagon in a vain attempt to out-opposition the Opposition. The environmental policy put forward by Environment Minister John Baird does not tax fuel directly, but the writing is on the wall as far as the oil companies are concerned. Their products are responsible for a large segment of the anthropogenic portion of total carbon emissions produced in Canada. The government wants to cut carbon emissions, even though all human activity produces far less CO2 than volcanic activity or animal activity or the decomposition of dead vegetation. Immediately after a fire at an oil refinery in Ontario caused a drop in the gasoline reserves, the price of fuel at retail stations jumped from the mid-80 cent range to over a dollar per litre. However, since thec refinery was put back into service, the price of gasoline did not return to pre-shutdown levels . Motorists are getting angry and saying the consumer is being gouged. When are we NOT being gouged at the pumps? Almost half of the cost of gas at the pumps is federal and provincial taxes. Part of the federal portion is an excise tax brought about by the Liberals in the 1990s for the purpose of collecting additional revenue to reduce the deficit. Canada has been deficit-free for a decade now; the excise tax was never removed. Moreover, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is charged on the entire price of gas, meaning we are paying tax on tax(es), and when the price charged by retailers goes up, the government gets more GST revenue. The refinery fire occurred in 2007. In 2008, the gas prices have already exceeded 2007 levels as the price of crude oil has reached the $120 U.S. per barrel plateau. Government initiatives to legislate the production and inclusion of biofules in all gasoline sold in Canada are supposed to decrease some of the volatility of energy prices. Instead, global food prices were dragged upward as speculation of food shortages hit the financial markets. While it is true that biofuels are produced from corn and other grain crops that could otherwise be used to feed people and livestock, and while the idea of food being converted into fuel is disconcerting, there's something else I find even more disconcerting. What scares me far more is that the economic well-being of capitalist western countries is always in the hands of the most fickle, capricious people: investors. The only thing scarier than an idiot is an idiot with money. They must literally make their decisions while watching the news on TV or while reading it on the Internet. So the media tells us that people in thrid-world countries are rioting in the streets because of the high food prices. This, in turn, causes idiots in Northa America to run to Wal-Mart and buy bags of rice. The solution to the food crisis is easy: ignore it. The media reports what we want to hear. Public reaction to the food shortages has been strong, so the media comes up with more and more stories about it, prompting an even stronger reaction and putting us in the current "crisis". While I love blaming the media, they are just the "middle man". We could just as easily get rid of the global warming crisis by not giving a toss about it. The media would stop chasing David Suzuki and the environment would cease to be a pop culture reference in a week. Like most Canadians, I own a car and enjoy driving it. However, if forced to decide whom I support in the global warming debate, I'll take the oil companies every time. They provide me with a product I need, and truth be known, gas would have to cost a heckuva lot more before I decide to curtail my driving habits. Other Canadians, though, whine about the gas price yet expect everyone else to do something about it while they continue to drive gas-guzzling SUVs and mini-vans. Canadians are still largely under the delusion that getting politicians involved produces change. And politicians have become involved. Stephane Dion did not elect himself as Liberal leader; a whole lot of people did. Ditto for Elizabeth May. The Canadian people as a whole have joined the eco-terrorists who want to pull the average person out of their cars and put them on bicycles and public transit. If I was the oil companies, I would look at what is going on and I would do the same thing as they. I would raise prices too. It only makes sense with so many people trying to marginalize my product and reduce my profits in the long-term. They know that the average Canadian is a hypocrite that expects everyone else to do the dirty work. We don't want to ditch our cars. We want everyone else to take the bus or ride the bike so that there's more room for our cars on the freeway during rush hour. The oil companies are simply hedging their bets by keeping prices high. They feel pretty sure the market for their product will be strong in the future, but they want to make extra money now to cover any losses in the future. Who knows, maybe they are going one step further by taking their additional revenues and using it to either diversify their holdings or put the money into fuel research. In any case, putting the retail cost down would achieve nothing. It would be a sign of weakness, like caving in to terrorists, and would reinforce more bad behaviours from the people trying to crush the energy industries. Think of it this way. Suppose you are a part-time seller of numismatic collectibles as I am. Suppose, for instance, that one of your customers is also a part-time seller and he/she is saying all kinds of bad things about you and the items you sell. Your prices are too high, they tell collectors privately and online in public forums, and you overgrade, and your business practices are totally unprofessional. Then the very same person contacts you to buy several of your items and he/she even asks for a discount. What would you do? A sane, rational person would probably respond in a professional way but offer the buyer no discount as an incentive to do business. Someone like me (sane but highly irrational and easily provoked) would probably mail a dead rat to the buyer. I'm afraid to know what the average Canadian (i.e., someone who is rational but completely insane) would do or even say in response to such a hypothetical situation. They would probably give the buyer the discount and perhaps even take them out for dinner! These are the people I want to send to Afghanistan and, as NDP leader Jack Layton would have them do, negotiate with the Taliban. Maybe a few beheadings of Canadian diplomats would change public perception of who the bad guys are! But seriously, you granola-crunching, Cappuccino-sucking, Birkenstock-wearing tree-hugging pinkos who burn more gas idling their V-8 SUVs at the Tim Horton's drive-thru than my 4-cylinder car holds when full are the problem, not the oil companies. You fucking idiots are the ones who buy gas like it is going out of style and then get mad at the oil companies as if they are the ones making you and people of your ilk dependent on their product. Is everyone high on exhaust fumes or does that not make any sense? Canadians get what they deserve. We want the best people to represent us in government, but then we want to pay them a fraction of what a position of great responsibility in the private sector would command, and we wonder why we get almost noting but bozos in Parliament? As a society, we are like the guy who goes to see his doctor and says "It hurts when I do this." If we stopped hurting ourselves, maybe we wouldn't be so damned pissed off all the time? Unfortunately, the cure for stupidity has not yet been invented. Just as there will always be people who respond to e-mails selling discounted Viagra and thereby end up on every mailing list, there will be people who think the best way to regulate market price is to buy large quantities of product from the retailer! Hmm, maybe I should consider selling my oceanfront property in Missouri while the market is hot!! Anyhow, in conclusion, gas might be expensive, but the cost of membership in the Church of Environmental Activism could bankrupt us spiritually, morally, and financially. Shutting down the oil companies would turn this Canada into a basket-case, a third-world country. We will always have a need for oil, and there's nothing wrong with supporting our industries, but we need to step back and look at our own lifestyles before deciding that it is everyone else's responsibility to enact change.  No kidding! A headline in the Ottawa Citizen (May 23, 2007). 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