Gas Prices

Striking It Rich

If you're like most of us, you have probably found yourself complaining lately about the rising prices of gasoline everywhere. I constantly find myself thinking about the good old days when gas costs were around one dollar a gallon and it took only ten to twelve dollars to fill my gas tank. Today, I find it costing me close to forty dollars to just fill up the gas tank on my small, four-cylinder truck, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Between the wars overseas and the recent hurricanes to hit the Gulf Coast, gasoline and diesel prices have reached a record high nationwide. Before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, gas prices were staying steady around the two dollar mark. The aftermath of Katrina and Rita affected more than New Orleans and surrounding areas, it affected the entire country. The Gulf Coast is home to more than twelve oil refineries that constantly supply the U.S. with a portion of it's gasoline supply, and because of the last two hurricanes, these major oil refineries still remain closed.

The upward swing in gas prices has hindered the economic recovery process that our country was still currently undergoing since 9/11, and has caused financial hardships for a majority of Americans, including myself. I have to do a lot of daily traveling back and forth from my house in Warrenville to Augusta and my weekly cost of gas is somewhere around $120. The burden of high costs of gas at the pumps are more than certainly going to affect holiday shopping and traveling, in fact you might find most Americans traveling by air instead of paying outrageous gas prices to travel long distances.

For those of you who smoke, for example, next time your standing at the pump, just think, for every gallon of gas you pump- it's equal to one pack of cigarettes. This is all due to the lowest oil production rates since World War 2, and all because of two devastating hurricanes that hit one location of our country, but affected the whole nation. The government says that the prices will eventually return back to normal, but who's to say that's true, and who's to say that most of our high costs of gas isn't due to random station owners gouging their fellow Americans.