Hardbite

I find it hard to believe that after being raped by OPEC and our own gas companies for the past couple years, we now find our own gas companies taking advantage of a national disaster. Within hours of Katrina hitting gas prices jumped. I realize that some refineries were hit and that New Orleans is a major port for importing oil but all fuel in stations and storage yards around the country had no effective change in cost.

In some parts of the country gas prices doubled in 2 days, here in Phoenix it went up $.70 in 2 days. They are saying it could hit $4 a gal within a month. This will effect the cost of everything you buy as well and you will see the price of everything go up because of the costs to transport it to the stores you shop in.

Check it out the oil companies have been producing record profits for the past couple years, with profits up 800 to 1,000%.

What can we do?

1 Write you Congressman

As much as I hate seeing the government involved in anything write a note to your U.S. Congressman to let them know that you are very concerned about the price of gas in our Country and you would like them to start work on legislation that would help control the cost of gas and prevent the gouging by our own oil companies. An easy way to contact your Congressman is to click here: http://mygov.governmentguide.com/mygov/dbq/officials/ Just type in your zip code and put your State in the drop down box. Select your Congressman and in the contact information you can write a note right there. If you don't know who your congressman is, you can go to this site to find out http://www.house.gov/writerep/.

2. Affect the gas companies sales. Most experts agree to affect price we need to cut consumption.

A couple of ways I think would be affective are:

We as bikers can do that easier than others.... Ride your bike to work at least one day per week. If you drive 40 per day round trip and get 15 MPG in your car and 40 on your bike you will cut your weekly gas consumption by 12 1/2% each day you ride your bike to work. Multiply that by the millions of bikers across the country and you are making an impact.

There are several ways that have been around the internet for years if only people would do them, the one I think would have an impact is to NOT buy from the majors only buy from the independents, even if they buy their gas from the majors you will affect the stations and stores of the majors. If all of a sudden sales drop in Mobile Oil's stations 20,30 or 40% both in gas and retail sales they will have to do something to bring people back in. The retail end is big dollars to them and they will fight to get it back. The one problem with this is that it requires us the consumer to make a change and people don't like change so while a few of us have done this in the past the majority of the sheep have kept buying at the same place they always have. Well with gas now becoming a major budget item in most households and people looking at cutting other expenses to cover gas costs maybe a few sheep will become wolves and start predatory tactics like this to help bring the cost down.

Mongo

I'm more serious about buying a motorcycle now. It's kind of sped of the process for me, well...that and making some crazy OT money. Can't wait to blow it all on a bike!