Gas Prices = National Ripoff

Wake up America! We are being suckered! We all can feel our pocket books slowly and significantly being drained by the outrageously high gas prices. All of this is occurring while big companies like Exxon post their biggest annual profits ever!!!! Record oil prices helped the world’s largest public oil company earn $39.5 billion in 2006 (CNN, 2007 http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/01/news/companies/exxon/index.htm). So, while we are going broke……they are becoming wealthier then ever. So what is being done? Nothing! Nada!

“It is our view that the huge profits that continue to be made by oil companies – and the countries that have huge oil reserves – should be re-invested in finding new sources of energy and energy conserving technologies,” Geoff Sundstrom, a spokesman for the motorist organization AAA, said in a statement. “Not doing so invites a future of economic and environmental distress for people around the globe.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out. However, it is not in the future we will face economic and environmental distress; it is now……Americans are hurting at the pumps. So what do we do? Do we continue to sit around our ‘camp fires’ debating and complaining to people who could care less? Do we wait for big companies such as Exxon to “re-invest profits in finding new sources of energy and energy conserving technologies?” Well, if you wait on these people……I will save you a horse!

We as Americans forget when to truly speak. We gripe, complain and worry all day. We speak our minds often and criticize regularly (and it is our right to do so). However, when do we unite?  If we would just stand together and tell this nation we will not accept these high gas prices any longer…..we could make a difference. It takes one person to make a difference………so they say. But, what if we have a nation of people who want to make a difference? It can start here and now…….with Americans speaking when the time is much needed and required. Or…..we can sit back and get slapped…..because that gas monkey won’t ever get off our backs. So what do we do?

The question of mankind and the importance of leadership?  We need leaders. Leaders stand up and can unite or destroy a nation. Leaders can inspire or depress. Leaders can guide us or lose us. We need leaders who will stand up, unite, inspire and guide us to a nation ran by Americans and not crooks. Because right now, our leaders are standing idly by while the American people are being ripped off. This friends is not leadership, it is self interest. When leaders have self interest in mind, can they really have the interests of the American people in mind? I think not!

So, if the leadership is out there, and I know you are. NOW is the time to stand up and lead your fellow Americans. We need you and our country needs you. It is time to put the interests of this country and her people first. How much effort would it take for the country to take a half day off work and march down the streets saying…..We are sick of being ripped off and we are sick of paying these outrageous gas prices! Make a change.

Something to ponder on: In 1955, you could buy a McDonald’s cheeseburger for about 20 cents. Today you can get a cheap cheeseburger for about a dollar (value meal). It took 52 years for the prices to rise 80 cents. In 1997, you could buy a gallon of gas for about 90 cents. Today, the average gas price is $3.18. In a measly ten years, gas prices have skyrocketed to a national increase of $2.28 per gallon! How far will they rise until we can no longer drive to work and we are all broke?

It is time to make a difference. I am just one voice in the night, we need more! State your case! State you thoughts! State your ideals and suggestions! Make a difference!