GAS PAINS

Yes, I’ve been feeling those all day (see below) but that’s not what I want to talk about. Steven Taylor is wondering why the left isn’t happy with the new Euro-style gas prices:

Now, as someone who drives over thirty miles one way to work, I have reason to be unhappy with the gas prices, however, I still have my snarky question for the left: why aren’t they happier that we are being more like Europe?

Could it be that because the hike is prices came about not as a result of higher taxes? Hmm, yes. That might be it.

Yes and no. They’re probably unhappy that the prices aren’t high enough yet. At $2.099 (what it’s going for here in southeastern Wisconsin), the price of gas is just an expensive nuisance. But it doesn’t keep people from moving around, and it doesn’t force them back into the center cities. Gas would have to go up at least another $1.50 a gallon to bring that about. And for that kind of price increase, you’re going to have to raise taxes about, oh, $1.50 a gallon.

Besides, you’re starting to see some grassroots movements. I was told by many people not to buy gas today, because if nobody bought gas, the oil companies would lose something like $4.6 billion dollars in a single day, and that would bring Big Oil to its knees. Why, tomorrow morning, it would probably be back down to $0.83, like it was when I graduated high school in 1990.

Of course, since over the last few years, gasoline sales in May have averaged just a little over 300 million gallons per day (source), that means that somehow every gallon of $2.099 gasoline sold generates $15.33 in profits–and that’s just for the oil companies! Wow, no wonder everybody hates them–they can make $13.231 more in profit than a gallon of gas costs! People must be buying an awful lot of Slim Jims and Diet Sprite along with their gas.

Since again, according to the government , only about 70% of the pump price of gasoline goes to material and marketing costs, that makes the actual amount of consumer money going to Big Oil more like $440 million a day, and it ain’t all profit. So the e-mail meme was off by a factor of ten on the gross, and an immeasurable amount on the net.

But I’m sure the 5% or so of drivers who might’ve bought gas today but didn’t really have them quaking in their boots. Of course, since they’ll all be back at the pumps tomorrow, maybe not. Maybe we should just all accept that gasoline is a commodity, not a utility, and leave it at that.

NOTE TO SELF

Next time, if there’s brown stuff inside the head of lettuce, don’t just cut it out and eat the good parts.

Oooogh.

KORNHEISER SHOW DETAILS SOLIDIFIED

Via the futon critic:

LISTEN UP (Monday, 8:30 PM) stars Jason Alexander (�Seinfeld�) in a comedy about a well-regarded sports talk show host and columnist who struggles to get the respect and admiration from his family that he gets from his fans. Based on the writings of real-life sports commentator and columnist Tony Kornheiser, Tony Clineman (Alexander) is an irreverent sports show host who banters about all things sports with his witty sidekick, Bernie Widmer (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), a former football player turned sports show host, on their television talk show, �Shut Up and Listen.� Tony has also begun writing a humorous syndicated newspaper column that includes commentary on his family who are less than thrilled to have their trials and tribulations made public. Tony’s wife, Dorothy, works as a fundraiser. While not a sports fan, she is always supportive of her paranoid and obsessive-but-loving husband. Lauren (Daniella Monet) is the Clineman�s know-it-all, soccer-playing 14-year-old daughter. Mickey (Will Rothhaar) is their 15-year-old golf prodigy son. While Tony�s inability to self-edit before broadcasting his thoughts is what makes him most endearing to his fans, it keeps his friends and family on their toes as everything could be fodder for his column. Jeff Martin (�The Simpsons�) and Lindy DeKoven are the executive producers for Regency Television in association with CBS Productions.

SACK OF WOE

I really didn’t know what category to put this in . . . but there’s news today that members of the cult-fave rock band The Smithereens are about to make it into the Hall of Fame! Unfortunately, it’s not exactly the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.