Big Oil, Tenant Farms, and Hamburgers

Si Fallor Sum wants to talk about Big Oil, without talking about Big Oil. More to comment on reactions and human nature. Mostly because Fallor is not well versed in all the statistics and intricacies. Though it seems that it should be as simple as supply and demand. Perhaps it is, and the thousands of involved parties make it seem more complicated than it is. Election votes will be swayed in debates about it. Wars will be, or are being, waged over it. There will be talk of record profits. Rarely discussed as percentages, or if so after the fact so that it can’t displace the big number from our head. Si Fallor has no problems with the profits. If you are producing an ‘all important’ product in the face of record demand compensation is generally proportionate. (Sell two stories last month, four stories this month, income mysteriously doubles.)

What Si Fallor does have issue with are government subsidies to companies that are in the black, and the ridiculous gap between CEO and workforce salaries. Again, that is off topic and outside Fallor’s specific statistical knowledge. Human reactions. Some propose one chain boycotting. Others suggest one day purchasing strikes. Neither will work for a variety of reasons.

In the first case the same amount of gasoline is being purchased from Big Oil, just through different venues. This action only punishes the individual service stations that only make pennies on the gallon. Hence the trend to convenience stores, more money is made off the junk food then on the gas. The second suggestion merely shifts the purchasing a day ahead or behind. At the end of the week the same amount is used and Big Oil laughs at the antics all the way to the bank with your money. It’s akin to refusing to patronize McDonalds because you’re mad at the Pig Farmer. Go to Burger King, or switch the night out, the Pig Farmer still gets the cash. High on the hog.

If people want to bend Big over the Oil barrel, the only way to accomplish this is by cutting consumption. Supply builds up and cost goes down. People don’t want to change their ways. Or hold any responsibilities in their discomforts. The whole cake and eating it conundrum. Outrage instead screams for the government to price fix it, or release barrels of oil from the reserves. Temporary fixes with potentially greater negative consequences down the road.

General Paranoia mutters his amusement that so many wars are fought over the oil fields. More carbons to replace that taken. Mother Nature’s way of restocking for the species that come after we blow it. Si Fallor expected something more than the planet is out to get us, but Paranoia has been a little off. Probably the ribbing by Marshal Law over Miss Anne Thrope’s relentless advances.

There are hidden things about oil. All the plastics in our disposable society are derived from it. If only the plastic bottles were recycled it would save upward of five hundred thousand tons of landfill space, and more than 5 million barrels of oil. Still 7 out of ten end up in the trash. Easier to bitch at the pump. How often would we ever end up at the grocery store to return them anyways?

Human reactions. Si Fallor realizes that everybody is frustrated. Things are getting tight. Energy costs are rising. The cost of goods is increasing to match rising transportation costs. And, ironically enough, the cost of food is going to rise even more so as farmland for eating food is lost to alternative energy product. Solutions adding to the problem.

On the train of thought of costs, Fallor did some research on average household expenditures. Most, including gas, fall at or below the 5% mark. The biggest cost of living, topping 20% is housing. Sure Big Oil may ripple through everything else, but it’s Big Land that has everybody up against the wall. Forget Exxon and picket Remax?

Perhaps in the long run the rising cost of shipping will slow outsourcing and bring jobs back into the country. Jobs here help the economy here, fancy that. It’s likely to get a lot worse before it gets better. In the vernacular, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

In addition to the loss of food land the NTSB is going to raise the standards for vehicle roofs. Since, judging by the varied causes, the number of accidents cannot be reduced the survivability must be. The added weight of the requirement will further reduce fuel efficiency. Then the café standards will go up and the designers will be caught in a pickle. If Si Fallor were the engineer he might be tempted to make up for the added weight by removing the air bag. But, that’s passive aggressive. Maybe the difference can be made up simply by removing the mechanism that rolls down the driver side window. Double win. The balance is maintained and fuel efficiency rises as the pounds slough off when the drive thru window becomes inaccessible.

No matter what is done, they are all just temporary measures. Oil is, after all, a nonrenewable resource. Fallor asks once more for General Paranoia’s input. Expecting a diatribe on kickbacks and the shadow government. Instead nothing, but silence. Perhaps it’s not the overbearing Marshall Law and the wanton advances of Miss Anne Thrope that have him down. Perhaps he’s grown weary of the dire predictions everyone knows to be truth. If everybody knows what’s going wrong, how come nobody does anything right. General Paranoia slides into depression. A sigh as he envisions a not so future world devoid of gasoline and plastic. Imagine such a world. Big Oil finally dethroned. All of our lusts sated on the moment without sacrifice. Sacrifice of our own desires at least.

Si Fallor Sum