By: Michael H. Gora
The price of gasoline at the pump used to be the product of market forces: that is “supply and demand.” The present rise in the price of gasoline at the pump is being driven by the wish of the oil industry to defeat the re-election of President Obama while increasing their profits.
From the supply side there is no real shortage other than that created by the companies and the countries which are conspiring to create higher prices at the pump.
First the countries owning the oil like Saudi Arabia decrease the supply, shrinking the availability of crude by agreeing to pump and/or market less. At the same time the gasoline companies delay availability of refining capacity by choosing the next few months to retrofit and clean enough refineries to further squeeze the apparent supply.
Late last year the President disclosed that he was considering a push to eliminate subsidies and tax breaks to the oil industry, citing its profitability and virtual monopoly in order to decrease the current cost of government and reduce future deficits. Since that announcement the average price of gasoline has risen from about $3.00 a gallon to about $4.00 a gallon. As those of us who buy gas in Boca Raton know our gas prices are even higher.
The effect of the rise in the price of gasoline at the pump as it reaches and exceeds $4.00 a gallon at the pump and heads for $5.00 hurts each and every person in this country who drives a car, takes public transportation, buys food delivered to a supermarket by truck, eats food produced on petroleum fired equipment from tractors to fishing and scrimping boats, or buys anything in every retail outlet.
As retail sales wane so will wholesale sales causing the value of shares of stock in U.S. corporations such as General Motors, General Electric, Disney and the rest, except for the oil companies.
By the day before the November election andt $5.00 a gallon gas appears on those really big signs at each gas station, and a tank of gas in an averages sized citizen’s auto reaches $100.00 people who can afford it will be really ticked off, and people who cannot will not be able to get to work or buy food.
These people harmed will be members of both political parties and at every level of the economy. When $5.00 gas happens the buck will stop, as it always does, at the President’s desk and the manipulators will have won an election by hurting all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike. This President will have no ability to prevent this attack on the good and welfare of his fellow citizens, but will be blamed for it.
Michael H. Gora has been certified by the Board of Specialization of The Florida Bar as a specialist in family and matrimonial law and is a partner with Shapiro Blasi Wasserman & Gora P.A. in Boca Raton. Mr. Gora may be reached at mhgora@sbwlawfirm.com.