I think the oil companies are missing the boat on this price of gas thing. They could be taking advantage of a key fact about the free American market, and the American consumer.
All it would take is a little initiative, and a good ad campaign, and hordes of Americans would wait in line to pay $8 a gallon for gasoline. Now. Seriously.
Think about it. Starbucks made a huge amount of money selling foofy coffee for ridiculous prices, by making it trendy. Women pay through the nose for some of the ugliest, foot crippling shoes on the planet. We won’t mention handbags and purses. With the right snob appeal, men acquire automobiles for prices that would buy a nice home. When was the last time you heard anyone bitch about the price of coffee, or purses, or BMWs? They don’t. They make sure you know they have them, and they make sure you know what they cost. Human nature, American culture.
So I figure, instead of asking the American taxpayer to cough it up, or raping the oil companies with a new “windfall profits tax”, one of these oil companies needs to figure out how to market a brand of gasoline for the truly with it/made it segments of our society. And charge $8 or $10 a gallon for it. Now. They just need to put that little hint of “status” to it. People will wait in line. Limit the number of stations, and make sure they’re in the trendy parts of town. After all, Starbucks proves the inadvisability of the “one on every block” model. By definition, you can’t keep the cachet if it gets too common.
What would this do? Well for one, they’d have more to spend on research and new wells and refineries, which, face it, we’re going to need sooner rather than later. It’s much better for the companies themselves to figure out how to do that than to wait for the nanny-staters to take over and do it. And for another thing, when was the last time you really saw the nannies shake down one of their pet industries? It doesn’t happen. So by making designer/status gasoline brands, the industry assures itself of a little more , er, breathing room than they enjoy now (if you know what I mean).
I mean, ideas like the smart car are cute, and hybrids are pretty trendy, but they aren’t accessable to the common man. But $8 a gallon designer gas, guaranteed to bring you status, coolness, love, happiness, respect… they’d line up for miles. Just like they do now for snooty burnt coffee at $4 a cup, designer sunglasses at $300 a pop, and handbags for $youpaidWHAT?!
And, since I’m not into money and status, you can steal this idea. Live long and prosper. Hope. Change. But quit yer whinin’ about gas prices. What are you going to do, take the bus? That’s cool.
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