Yes It Is, It’s True: We are powerless vs. gas prices

“If I could have my way. I’d get myself right up today, but I can’t, so I’ll cry instead.” — The Beatles

“There ain’t nothin’ I can do about it.” — The Supremes and Vanilla Fudge, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”

I hear tell gas prices are going down to their lowest levels is quite a spell. I noticed Friday they were as low as $2.39 on 142nd Avenue in Dorr. And once again, I wonder why, in the face of inadequate explanations of energy and economics.

I too often feel as though gas prices go up and down while we everyday working stiffs just sit back and finally realize that what we say and do have no impact on the process. We seem to be at the mercy of unknown forces.

One day about seven years ago, I was driving to work in Grand Rapids and made a terrible mistake by not filling up in the morning. By the time I left work, I immediately was greeted by gas prices of $2.55.9, up more than 20 cents per gallon than eight hours before. I traveled along 28th Street in search of better prices, but all reported $2.55.9. I then kept a keen eye out for lower prices along U.S.-131, but they were all the same and there was no change when I finally reached Dorr and Wayland.

That evening, I drove to Kalamazoo to cover a meeting and was sad by the news that all prices along the way were $2.55.9. And after I got home an old friend called from Muskegon to ask about gas prices because they were all $2.55.9 along I-96 from Grand Rapids to the Port City, without exception.

This led to Young’s Theorem on Gas Prices — They all go up quickly at the same time. They go down piecemeal slowly at different stations.

When I complained at work the next day, a Free Market advocate replied, “You don’t understand the principles of a command market.”

And that’s when I came up with the depressing notion that we collectively are powerless when purchasing a substance we desperately need to conduct our daily business. We’re only pawns in their game, with apologies to Bob Dylan.

I should have known better in the fall of 1973 during the infamous period referred to as “The Energy Crisis.” A gas station attendant in September 1973, at the old Town Talk on South Main, told me prices were going to go up significantly. And it wasn’t long afterward that I became painfully aware that the tentacles of its effects would reach nearly all aspects of our lives.

I remember gas lines full of panicked motorists losing their tempers with gas station clerks. I remember worrying about making any kind of trip anywhere because of the possibilities there would be no gas for sale. I remember shortages and the costs of many goods, including food, increasing because it cost more to transport them to local stores.

We were told by many back then, including President Richard Nixon, that we had to cope with an energy crisis, that we should dial down our thermostats and wear sweaters in homes, and Nixon even implemented a nationwide speed limit of 55 miles per hour. Time magazine even had a front cover showing a drop from a gas dispenser with the headline, “Running out of everything.”

Played down was the role of Saudi Arabia and OPEC, the Middle eastern nations that possessed the most oil. The U.S. was backing Israel in another of the wars “over there” and the Saudis got even with the Arab Oil Embargo.

A milder version of this crisis played out again in the summer and fall of 1979, and once again a motorist had to be careful about traveling because some stations were out of gas. It felt like Saudi Arabia and its allies had us over a barrel, so to speak, so we had to change our foreign policy to become less antagonistic to the oil-rich nations.

There are some political observers who maintain that the wars we have fought for the past four decades have been all about control of precious oil. Some have insisted we invaded Iraq in our quest for oil and still others insist our policies in the Middle East frustrated the oil-rich countries so much that they decided to hatch the plot of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

We’re still fighting in the Middle East, 17 years after the day that will live infamy, and some observers believe we will never end these adventures until the human race no longer exists. And if the place blows up, there’s a chance we will leave no record that we were here.

Have a nice day.