Gas Prices in Relation to the Economy
Gas prices are completely outrageous. Are gas prices the main reason for the dramatic downturn in the American economy? I strongly believe so, as the economy is affected by buyers consuming goods and services and at what rate they do so.
People are having to spend more money on gas and less at other places. The higher price of oil is also inflating prices on every product known to society, since it costs businesses more to ship the products. Oil is used in many products that are used daily by all of society, including plastics and styerfoam.
Since 2004, Americans have seen over a 100% increase at the pumps. As gas costs rise to $4 a gallon, oil companies are earning around $100 billion each year. Out of the top six most profitable companies in the world, four of them are oil companies according to CNN’s statistics. Why won’t these oil companies lower the price per barrel and just make $50 billion a year? Understandably, no company would want to shrink their profits on purpose, but they would still be very profitable without feeling responsible for our rapidly depressing economy.
Their greed drags the hard working blue collared American’s down. It should almost be illegal for their profits to be as high as they are due to the fact that everyone has to use oil. Why does business and moral ethics not apply here as they do with every other type of company? How do these oil executives sleep in their mansions knowing they had a lot to do with roughly 2,500 people losing their jobs that day?
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