Yay! Higher gas prices!
Now that I've caught your attention with my post title, let me explain. Unlike most people, I'm a fan of high gas prices. I'm sure there's a point where I'd start walking to work, but the extra 50 cents per gallon costs me maybe $20 dollars per month. It's $20 dollars I could use for other stuff perhaps, but it's not the end of the world and it's not nearly as bad as the thousands I spend on a poorly managed social security program. Now, there are of course the people who 1) fill up their tanks more than I do and spend much more than $20 dollars extra per month, or 2) the people who are working their butts off to barely make ends meet. And, of course, gas prices affect the price of a lot of other stuff. This is painful, but I maintain that gas is simply not a requirement to survive (unlike water and oxygen.) There will come a point where Americans simply won't agree to pay for it anymore - which brings me to my argument.
Though it's unfortunate, we happen to live in a country that doesn't do anything about a problem until it actually becomes a problem. Now I don't like it, but that's the mentality we have as a people. So, these high gas prices have started to really make a difference in the priorities of consumers. People are looking for more gas efficient vehicles, which creates demand, which creates a market. Various car companies are spending lots more money on Hybrid technologies, which keep getting better and better. More money is being spent on alternative fuel sources such as this cool little vehicle:
http://www.teslamotors.com/
It's a fully electric car that does 0-60 in 4 seconds and can drive 250 miles on a full charge. It can't replace my current car yet, as I like being able to do long road trips, but this is a huge breakthrough on previous electric cars that had a range of about 60 miles. Hopefully this sort of innovation will result in a huge breakthrough in energy storage (better laptop batteries, cell phone batteries, etc.) There will some day be a car that's cheap, does not run off gas, is quick and easy to "recharge", and drives like a Viper - and higher gas prices is going to drive that sort of innovation. It's either that or we wait until we run out of oil completely.
So bring on the high gas prices, it hurts now but if it results in a better world I'm all for that.
Mike
