99% of what we hear from the talking heads is, "How can we get the price of gas down?" As I have said, "The price of gas is not going down". It is clear that the fast rise in the price of gas hurts poor people a lot more than rich people. This is clearly the case, why is that? That is the "slant" that I want to explore.
First, what is different about poor people compared to rich people? Poor people do not earn as much as rich people. That is too simple, there must be more to all this. Why don't poor people earn as much as rich people? Now we are getting some place. What is different about poor people? Basically, their work is not "worth" as much as the work of a rich people. Look at your doctor. Why does he cost so much? It is because his time is "worth" more than your time. The doctor looks just like you and he has two kids just like you, so what is different? We are making progress. What did the doctor do that the poor person did not do? See we need to look at facts rather than jumping to conclusions. The doctor paid attention in the free public schools and got good grades rather than socializing all the time with their similar friends. Many even dropped out of the free public schools without graduating from high school. You might have notice that very very few doctors ever dropped out of high school or got pregnant out of wed lock.
There is a "good" thing about gas prices going up. How can that be? What it does is to penalize or punish people who did not get good grades in school or who dropped out. Parents and our society does not appear able to punish people who are socially irresponsible so the job is left to the market place and the price of gas. Hey, that is the way things work in the real world. Now, our government can step in and screw up the natural market place and protect drop outs, but they do it at the expense of those who have been responsible. The net affect is to get more drop outs and fewer doctors. Do you think that might have something to do with the fact that we have to import over 50% of our new doctors?
When things like gas prices go up slowly, people don't seem to notice it as much. Now, when it goes up fast, as it is doing now, it gets our attention. The problem with the people who find themselves poor is that they want to blame someone else and claim that they are victims. Until they face the fact that they only have themselves to blame, we will not be moving forward. The good thing is that high gas prices have gotten our attention. Now, we have to start doing the right thing and stop trying to turn the clock back. Look around the world at countries that do not have any oil or coal and see what they are doing. Some are doing well, while others are in the toilet. It does not take a genius to see that the well educated, hardworking and socially responsible countries are doing well while those who don't do the above are not.
We could have learned this same lesson by just watching the advance of "AIDS" across the world. In which countries did AIDS move the fastest? Gas prices are a little like AIDS and I predict that those countries who concentrate on lowering the price of gas rather than earning more will lose. Regarding AIDS, we focused on a cure for AIDS while others just prevented its spread. It cost a lot to try to cure AIDS, while it was "free" to stop spreading AIDS. It is going to be interesting to watch and compare how we handle gas prices with how we handled AIDS.
PS-----
I have told this story before, but here goes again. When I was a kid and did not have shoes to wear to school, I was motivated to do something about it. I got myself a shoe shine kit and went to work. I picked cotton after school at age 8 and put the money in the bank. If some one were to have given me a "free" pair of shoes, I don't think that it would have motivated me to get a shoe shine kit and shine shoes. Do you? I hope that high gas prices will motivate many of us to go to work and act socially responsible. We are all in this together and that means, as John Smith said back in 1608 at Jamestown, "if you don't work, you don't eat". That was the first town in that is now the USA and without that statement, Jamestown would have died. Is it any different today? My ggggggg father and mother were there and that is why I am here today. The "spark" is not dead.
