Is It Really All Obama's Fault?

I just heard a woman on the radio (frankly I don't know who she was but she must have been a political candidate or someone in a party committee or something such). She claimed that (1) we have never had such a protracted period with the unemployment rate over 8%; and (2) that the price of gasoline is 110% higher now than when Obama took office.

All this led to a pitch for Mitt Romney as better qualified to be President.

Let's look at these claims and examine whether they are to be blamed on Obama. First, the price of gas. It's been stated many times that one reason that gas prices have risen is that world demand for oil, led by increasing living standards in China and India, has been rising. Everybody has heard of the law of supply and demand: with greater demand, the price is going to rise.

Second, Obama has been guiding the US back to economic health after a worldwide near-meltdown of the economy and the banking system in 2008—before he took office. The economy is still not robust and thus employment has been improving only gradually. It probably would take New Deal–style programs to make a big difference in that—programs which the Republicans definitely would fight tooth-and-nail and almost certainly would successfully block.

I heard someone talking about the power of the President. The bottom line was that the president does not have as much power as people tend to think. Our government is divided into three branches—the so-called Separation of Powers, which has shown itself to be a wise provision of those who established our form of government. So the Executive Branch (the President and his cabinet departments) can't do everything on their own.

Where government departments and agencies can influence the economy, we have (again) Conservatives and Republicans crying out that the government has too much power and advocating for little or no regulation—the "free market" philosophy which, as they'd like us to forget, is what caused the economic mess in the first place.

So it looks like they (the Conservatives and Republicans) want to blame Obama for any and all problems the country is experiencing, but at the same time they want to negate or thwart any power he or his cabinet departments might actually have to affect those same problems.

Looks to me like they just want to blame.

Updated May 13, 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Price of Gasoline in 1975

Hunting for something in my desk drawer, I found a very old credit card receipt, for gas--from 1975.

I bought 5.8 gallons of Amoco gas. The price? $3.75. That was the charge total. (That comes to about 65 cents a gallon.) Here and now, that won't even buy 1 gallon!

I remember that, when I was in high school and the local gas stations were having a price war, gas would be less than 20 cents a gallon.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

My Car Isn't Big Enough

I used to wonder why people drive SUVs. At one point I thought it was to be macho—but a lot of women drive them. (I think the macho factor might hold true for guys who opt for big pickups, muscle cars, etc.) With women, at least, I think the answer is that they feel safer in very large vehicles that put a lot of steel around them.

Admittedly it's true that, in a collision between a small vehicle and a larger one, the small one is likely to get the worst of it. That's simple physics. So the people who are driving monster vehicles are likely to inflict more harm—harm to the vehicle and maybe bodily harm to the driver—when they hit a smaller vehicle.

But they would say, I'm sure, Well, let them drive a big vehicle, like I do. I'd call that a kind of arms race. I'm glad not everyone thinks that way, or we'd all be in vehicles the size of a stretch limo or a tank—or one of those huge Hummers—that would hardly be able to make it around the corner in urban driving.

Well, the price of gas is rising again. It must cost $70—maybe even a lot more (I don't know how big their tanks are)--to fill some of those big vehicles. Let no owner of an SUV, large pickup (when it's not needed for business purposes or work), or van complain to me about the price at the pump, 'cause you know I'm the last one to sympathize with them.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Gas Prices Going up--Again

From my window I can see the price sign of a gas station, so I'm usually up on where gas prices seem to be headed. There was a recent dip that proved very temporary, and prices now are about 30 cents higher than they were during that dip. Said neighboring station currently shows $3.259.

I wonder how high the price of gas has to rise before people who own monster SUVs like Suburbans and Tahoes regret buying such a thirsty vehicle. And you know, if you follow this blog, that I have less than zero sympathy for those folks, because I regard them as destroying the planet. (Greenhouse gas emissions are directly proportional to gas consumption.)

Statistics show that, when gas prices rise, people are interested in smaller, more economical cars. When gas prices fall again, people go back to disregarding fuel economy when they're car-shopping, and in fact sales of large SUVs rise again. (This has been a problem for Detroit at several periods over, say, the last 50 years: They introduce small cars and then the price of gas falls and they can't sell those smaller cars.)

So we see that car buyers can be very short-sighted. The price of gas may fall but it will certainly rise again, kind of like the stock market. And, like the stock market, I'd wager that, long-term, the trend is upward.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Some Miscellaneous Thoughts

This is going to be somewhat rambling because I have short comments—too short for individual postings—on several subjects.

First: About today's shooter at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum. I don't normally wish anyone dead; but this guy, James von Brunn, has been full of hatred and prejudice and bigotry and resentment all his life; and he is 88 years old. I'd say he's infected and polluted this Earth long enough, so I don't mind bidding him good-bye.

Second: The people who complain about high gas prices should try to remember that, whatever our gas prices are, they're double that in Europe. And, to the lady (and others like her) who complained on the TV news that it costs her $80-plus to fill her gas tank, I'd say, So drive a smaller car. I know that my car won't hold $80 worth of gas. A tank for me, at current prices and here in Chicago, where gas prices are high, would be maybe $40 or so. I just have no sympathy whatsoever for people who want to drive enormous SUVs.

Third: I was thinking today about how we (meaning all humans) are able to rationalize the bad things we do to one another. This guy is this, or he did that, or he said such-and-such. That justifies whatever bad thing we did to him or want to do to him. I think that's a human tendency.

The rationalization that we employ to justify the treatment given someone is that s/he "deserved it." Maybe this means revenge for some wrong done to us, real or perceived. Try to stop and think for a moment about this notion of someone "deserving" one or another form of ill treatment. Certainly very few people are truly all-forgiving; but the degree to which you are likely to feel that some meted-out punishment was "deserved" is a function of your personality. And of course some people are more forgiving than others. Some forgive quickly, others may harbor their grievance for a very long time. Some collective groups (e.g. nations) have harbored ill feelings toward an "enemy" for hundreds of years.

Copyright © Richard Stein 2009

Be Sure to Buy That Big SUV

Big SUVs have been heavily discounted by dealers. It's supply and demand, no one—at least no one sensible—wants them. So you've got this person who says to himself, "Well, I can buy that TailGrazer (or Exhibitionist or GM Ginormous) for $38,000 instead of $45,000, and gas prices have been much lower—so I think I'll go for it!"

Well, aside from the fact that the people buying and driving those monsters are helping to destroy the planet, they're going to find that they were short-sighted. Out my window I can see a gas station, with its price sign, so I can keeps tabs on the price of gas. A couple days ago the price went up 20¢-- and it was Monday, not Tuesday, when they usually raise their prices. It's up to $2.659 for regular now. I bought gas last week for $2.24, and it's only been a few weeks since it was $2.11.

Now that we're in sight of $3 a gallon again, can $4 be far behind? Woe be to him who thinks for a moment, It won't happen again.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein