As long as a couple of you brought up a political issue relating to our
Tigers, making the assertion that it's the greedy oil companies raising
the price of gas and railing against SUV's, we'll join in. We're
qualified since we own a Tiger and an SUV. First off, since when do us
Tiger owners have a gripe with other vehicles that don't get good gas
mileage? Most SUV's probably average around 14-15 miles per gallon
(check the federal figures). We know plenty of Tigers (mine included
when I'm blowing away crummy Porsches and BMW's in our Tiger) that are
lucky to get 10 mpg in city driving. When's the last time someone bought
a Tiger and asked the seller "what kind of gas mileage does this baby
get?" The social implication I gather from the SUV comments is it's
somehow immoral to drive an SUV. I don't quite get that. To paraphrase a
line from the Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, "Mileage???? We don't need
no stinking mileage!!!"
As to the rising fuel prices, we don't like them any more than you do.
However, understand where the price increases come from. Sure, fuel
manufacturers, like any other companies in business to make money, will
always take advantage of fundamental reasons for the prices going up and
maybe increase them a bit more than necessary. However, we can solve
this by buying only from the gas stations with the lower prices. The
higher priced stations will be forced to lower their prices to compete.
On the manufacturing side, the cost of energy (and it takes a lot of
energy to make a gallon of gas) is going way up and the oil companies
have to pay that cost too. It also costs a lot more these days to
produce fuel to meet new formulations required by the government. As
with all production expenses for any product, there are ultimately
passed on to us. OPEC has recently cut production. Less crude oil from
which gas is made. OPEC charges more for the now smaller supply of oil.
Since we're not drilling enough of our own oil, were "under the barrel"
and have to pay the higher price per barrel. Solution: we need to drill
for more oil, and then build more refineries. The government has blocked
this from being done over the last few years. Also, a very big
percentage of what you pay per gallon is not profit to the oil
companies, but taxes to the government. And no, I don't work for an oil
company.
In summary, we're heading out on the highway to go to dinner in the
Tiger in a few minutes and maybe hunt for a few inferior cars to
embarrass, and maybe blow a bit of our proudly capitalist unburned raw
fuel from our over carburated engine onto the cars we just passed. And
loving it.
Steve and Jane Sage
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