Jackassalope

Ah ha!

Gas has dropped to a nostalgic $2.85 a gallon at my local gas station. This, my friends, is a beautiful thing. Now, all of the people who pretended that they wanted to go green in order to help the environment can quietly go back to “not caring.” A sigh of relief, I’m sure.

It makes me think back to June of this last year when all of the analysts were predicting the inevitable increase of gas prices to an amazing $5.00+ a gallon. This prompted hordes of individuals to sell their gas guzzling vehicles for compact cars, thus tanking the market for trucks – I kept my truck, however. I feel even worse for all of those people who jumped onto the $2.99 a gallon gas guarantee offered by Dodge/Chrysler. In most cases, these consumers had to opt out of a several thousand dollar rebate offer in order to lock in the low gas rate.

I can’t help but blame the media for generating the nation-wide panic. There’s still no doubt that we need to keep developing more fuel efficient vehicles and looking for alternative sources, but there’s also no need for scare tactic journalism, which only causes knee jerk reactions and volatile market swings.

Yes, the cost of a barrel of oil increased to record highs, but most of us would have dealt with it differently if we didn’t have to hear about it every night on the news. “Gas prices rise again. Beware, the end of the world is near.”

Yet, when things start going the other direction, we hear nothing. $2.85 a gallon! I can’t remember the last time I paid that. But we don’t hear anything about it because all the news outlets want to report on is the volatile stock market.

“The market went down again today. Beware, the end of the world is near.”