The Liquid Disconnect

Well, one good thing about the current economic crisis is that the price of gas (or as I say - petrol) is going down. That's only good assuming you still have a job to pay for the gas, but that's a whole other story.

I find people's obsession with the price of fuel somewhat amusing, especially here in the US. At its most expensive, gas peaked at just over $4 a gallon. People were outraged.

The reason I find this particularly amusing in the US is because back in the UK, gas costs approximately four times what it does in the US. People were complaining how bad things were when really, they had no idea how GOOD they have it. If you can fill your car up for less than $60 - then that's a real bargain.

I've been thinking about this recently and wondering why people think their gas should be inexpensive. Why they expect it to be so. Think about it. Before your gas can get to the pump a whole host of things need to happen. The oil companies in the first instance have to prospect for oil, that means drilling lots of test wells at huge expense to find the oil in the first place. Once they find it, they then have to invest another huge amount of money to set up an oil rig/pump. Now the oil is pumping, they then have to put it in containers (which cost money) and transport it to a refinery (which costs more money). At the refinery, the gasoline then has to be extracted from the crude oil, re-barreled and then distributed all over the country/internationally. None of this takes into account the thousands of people who make all this happen who also need to get paid.

Despite the oil companies posting record profits year after year, it's fantastic that a gallon of gas ONLY costs a few dollars given the processes involved. Instead of us thinking cheap gas should be a right, we should be downright grateful that it's as cheap as it is.

This thought then sent me off on another tangent. If we're so upset about what we pay for gas, what about other liquid products that we purchase with no thought whatsoever as to the price.

I have compiled a short list of things that are routinely purchased and then done a price conversion as to how much a gallon of each of them would cost. It makes for some interesting reading:

Can of Soda ($1) - Gallon ($10.60)
Bottled water (anything from 3c to 8c per fl oz) - Gallon ($3.84-$10.24)
Liter of Milk ($3) - Gallon ($11.36)
Small Starbucks Coffee ($3) - Gallon ($31.80)

Now people can argue that the reason they get upset about fuel prices is because they have no choice but to buy gas, the oil companies, in effect, have them over a barrel (pardon the pun), but as you can see, gas is one of the cheapest liquid products you purchase. Why aren't we all up in arms about the cost of bottled water? What needs to be done to that besides some filtration and bottling? How is that price justified? How can we begrudge the price of a gallon of gas when we'll part with the same amount of money or more for just 1/10th of the same volume of coffee? Again, what process is involved in getting coffee to our stores that comes even close to the process that gets gas to the pump? The manual laborers who pick coffee beans probably make less in a month than you or I make in a day.

Personally I'm all for alternative fuels. The sooner we get away from oil and gas and stop choking the planet to death, the better, but seriously, the next time you want to complain about the price of gas, think about the last time you had a soda, or a coffee.

Opposite side of the street cleaning

In New York City, they have opposite side of the street parking four days a week. What this means is that every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, a little sweeper truck cruises around the streets sweeping up all the dirt and detritus that Manhattanites feel is their right to dump in the street.

If you've never been to Manhattan, I can tell you that the streets are packed full of parked cars - and all of these need to be moved come street cleaning day, so the sweeper truck can properly clean the street (otherwise the lovely NYPD traffic department slap a $65 parking ticket on your vehicle).

So my question is this... How do so many people in Manhattan manage to (a) also afford to own a car and (b) also be home at least two days a week to move their cars.

What do these people do for a living?

I'm in the wrong job.

The US Election

It would be remiss of me, in a blog about living in America, not to comment on the recent US election.

For me the whole election was somewhat of a sideshow since, as a permanent resident and not a US citizen, I was not allowed to vote (why that should be so, when I pay taxes, have health insurance and will send my kids to US schools, I have no idea - but that's the law). As things stand, I do not see myself ever voting in a US election since I have no intention of relinquishing my UK citizenship, for the sole reason that it gives my kids dual citizenship, which is possibly the greatest gift that I can give them.

That aside, I'm glad Obama won. Had I voted, he would have got my vote. I think it was the right result and I think Obama is what the US needs right now in terms of repairing US relations overseas. You only needed to see the happiness around the world when Obama was elected to realize that people everywhere think similarly.

What was interesting to me was how the news networks covered the result. Time and again I heard the same comment "Clearly race wasn't an issue for the voters in the election," and then they would cut to an African-American reporter almost in tears saying something along the lines of "I never thought I'd see this day. We never thought a black man would be president." So for as much as the media claimed the election wasn't about race - they then proceeded to make it about race.

What has become clear in the US, is that people of African-American descent can do anything. For example, in the last few years we have had Halle Berry winning a best actress Oscar, and two Super Bowl teams with African American coaches. Perhaps now that an African-American has been elected to the highest office in the land, the ongoing demon of "First African-American this, and first African-American that..." can be laid to rest. Clearly, the opportunity to be the most powerful man in the world is open to everyone - and by default, therefore so should everything else. The sooner people of ALL races stop harping on about things, the sooner we can put racism behind us.

Now that's not to say that we'll ever be completely free of racism and prejudice. We're all guilty of it to a greater or lesser degree and there will always be bigoted and ignorant people, but for me and I'm sure many other people in America, Barack's election to president had nothing to with the color of his skin, he just made more sense than John McCain.