Kicking oil in the can

I don’t want to be labeled a “Debbie Downer” or anything, but the state of our economy has had me bummed out the past few weeks. Oh, who am I kidding? Frankly, the economic crisis has made me want to do nothing more than grab a giant bottle of Pinot Noir, drive to the beach, stare at the ocean’s vastness and feel sorry for myself. 

Clearly my master plan has a few flaws, which is why I haven’t done it. Yet. But the obstacles hindering my escapism have nothing to do with the legality of drinking on the beach. They boil down to two things. I can’t afford wine these days. And I can’t afford to waste the money on gas getting to the beach … or can I? 

Just as I was about to throw in the towel on my completely rational strategy for avoiding the tough times, good news finally arrived from the fear-mongering media (which I hold more than a little responsible for putting me in my paralytic state of panic). The price of oil is at a 14-month low. Last week in fact, oil prices tumbled to near $70 a barrel, after peaking at an all-time high of almost $150 a barrel in July. This has resulted in gas prices dropping for 16 straight weeks, the longest downturn since just after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the American Automobile Association of Southern California.

In the past month alone, gas has plunged more than 40 cents and, since the peak prices this summer, is down more than $1 per gallon in Southern California. Of course, prices are still about 38 cents higher than they were last year, but still, at the rate prices are declining we might just see prices dip below $3. Hip hip hooray! The beach plan may yet be a “go.”

Driving gas prices down is a significant decrease in consumption, stemming ostensibly from the recession we’re in. (Yeah, I said it; time to pony up, Paulson.) In fact, according to the Energy Information Administration, last year Americans consumed about 9.3 million barrels of gasoline per day (or roughly 390 million gallons every day). In the last month though, we’ve been consuming only 8.8 million barrels a day (about 369 million gallons) representing a more than 5 percent decrease in consumption. Thus we arrive at cheaper gas prices. Hmmm … couldn’t that decrease represent … savings, which could be put in my wine budget?

Let’s take a look. With gas at the nice round figure of $1 less per gallon, each day of the last four weeks Americans have saved $369 million dollars. That’s almost $2.6 billion dollars per week that we’re not spending on gas. Granted there are almost 300 million Americans, so every man woman and child in the US would only be saving a little more than a buck a day, but all the same, if I can save a buck a day, within a week or so, I can get myself that bottle of Pinot. And in another week, I will have figuratively saved another seven bucks, which may just be enough to cover my gas to the beach. 

Obviously this technical mathematical formula that I’ve presented isn’t going to win me any awards. But the fact remains that we are spending substantially less on gas than we were just a month ago. What I can’t help but find ironic about this is that we, the people, not our government have played an integral role in these savings. We have cut back on our demand for gasoline, which in turn may have played a role in price declines. We did it, and we’ve been doing it for a month. We are effectively saving billions of dollars by reducing the amount of gasoline we use.

Our government, on the other hand, is doling out billions of dollars, revising rescue plans seemingly hourly, pitching us on new programs and providing arguably false assurances that they’ll take care of this mess.  Seems to me that as the “little people,” we collectively identified a problem and quietly but effectively implemented our own measures to fix it. Maybe our administration could learn a thing or two from us.

But I’m not going to be the one to tip them off.  I’m going to be at the beach, and I’m not even going to be feeling sorry for myself. I will raise a glass to lower gas prices, but mainly I’ll be toasting us — as consumers and drivers — for our sensible approach to saving money through saving gas.

Contact Jennifer Hadley at jmhadley624@yahoo.com.