by David Kramer

Created on: November 17, 2007

The news media sets us up for gasoline price increases, but not in the way one might think. Considering that the news media is looked upon as a source of information we can use and benefit from in daily life, something one can use in decision making as a result of being informed. The media does not, however, set the public up this way with gasoline prices. The media sets the masses up by creating emotional responses that generate pointless conversation.

If the average driver travels 20,000 miles per year, in a car that averages 25 mpg, that equates to 800 gallons in a year. At $3/gallon, transportation costs are $2,400. A fifty cent raise sounds bad, but it equates to $2,800, or a $400 increase over the course of a year. This is roughly $1.10 a day more.

Certainly this is not a fully comprehensive number, given fuel prices drive up consumer prices on other products due to the need to ship them, resulting in fuel consumption someone has to pay for. The point is, the increase is not significantly high, but it is visually high. Gasoline is also a high-octane political issue.

The fifty cents extra for a slice of cheese at your fast food restaurant that now requires patrons to pour their own drinks, no one cared about. The cost of a bottle of water, far exceeding the cost of a gallon of gas, no one complains. The mysterious extra fees and charges on the phone bill that related to some unknown tax or technical jargon does not hit the front page. The marble floored insurance companies raising rates in one area to pay for the payouts they incurred in another are never exposed so consumers can address their agents accordingly.

Raise gasoline prices a nickel, or $40 in an average person's annual budget, and it is time to impeach the President. The reality is, gasoline prices in a sense help us. A portion of what we pay at the pump helps push money into countries that are willing to attack us because of the disparity of wealth.

Imagine if you were selling all you had to feed your family and knew you were going to run out, what would you do to level the playing field? How many barrels of oil does a country have to sell in order to buy a 747 to establish a transportation industry that can help stimulate economic growth and political stability? This is not meant to be an article sympathetic towards terrorist (those people are nuts), but rather a reality check to get us talking about real solutions.

The real reason we still depend on foreign oil is because we have to for economic and political reasons. Fuel cells have existed for decades and have been used in spacecraft that took us to the moon. Advances in research have resulted in lower cost fuel cells, less reliant on precious metals, or subject to cold start situations. Why are they not powering homes or vehicles? Quite simply, if the United States were to cut off dependency on foreign fuel imagine what it might do to their economies and what radical choices they may make to level the playing field.

The next time spent sitting around sipping our $4 designer coffee discussing how horrible the fuel prices are and what it is going to do to our lifestyle, perhaps will have a bit more to discuss. Perhaps the media can return to the business of reporting information and facts alone to the public can use to generate critical and insightful talk that leads to solutions. Then the media will not be setting us up by polarizing us with opinions.

Learn more about this author, David Kramer.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.