Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Into the Void Ouch! Price Gouging

Anyone who doesn't think crime pays hasn't had to buy gasoline lately. The prices being charged per gallon are positively criminal.

Now, we shouldn't blame those who run the service stations we stop at, as they have nothing to do with the pricing. Instead, we should be lodging our complaints with the oil companies and oil producing nations.

There have been no reports of any gasoline shortages recently. Instead, there have been reports of OPEC cutting back oil production and American oil wells being capped off.

Folks, there's only one reason this is done, and that is to raise the price of gasoline at the pumps. In other words  price gouging.

If any other business did anything remotely like this the state and federal governments would step in and put a stop to it. Not so with petroleum, though. Could this be because oil money helps keep many of our politicians in office? I wonder?

In the 1960s and 1970s there was talk, from the federal government, about finding alternative energy sources and not having to rely as heavily on petroleum products. When was the last time the feds bothered to say anything about alternative fuels? I, personally, can't remember. Can you?

We've all heard the stories about there being carburetors capable of getting 50 miles per gallon, and the government having the technology to change from oil dependence to another source of fuel.

However, these are just stories, unless the government is lying to us, and it wouldn't do this, would it?

Instead of taking this lying down, we need to be writing to our elected federal officials, letting them know our feelings on the issue. It wouldn't hurt to remind them we control their future employment, too. We need to ask them to offer the oil producing countries a compromise  food for oil. We've done it for other reasons, and an economic boycott is a useful tool.

On the home front, the feds need to step in and have the wells uncapped so the oil can be turned into gasoline and heating fuel.

But if they're unwilling to do this, come November it is up to us to help them join the ranks of the unemployed and put someone in office who will work for the needs of the people, not the desires of special interest groups.