Gasoline
Gas prices have been rising rapidly, correlating with the military action in Iran. I was driving on 29th Street and saw unleaded gas prices range from $3.279 to $3.299 per gallon. If I remember right, I paid $2.149 a gallon in February (a month ago as I type this). What the heck is going on?
As I understand it (I’m not a lawyer), Kansas has two laws that affect gas prices. One is a prohibition on price gouging in case of an emergency. For example, if a tornado came through town, a surviving gas station couldn’t arbitrarily raise the price of a gallon of gas to $100 per gallon. I don’t know what constitutes an emergency or how high an increase it would have to be before it was flagged as inappropriate, but I’m sure it is a narrow set of circumstances and a very high increase to apply.
The second one is a prohibition on selling gas for less than what a gas store paid for it. This was lobbied to protect mom & pop gas stations from having a large mega-mart drive them out of business by selling gas less than cost to attract customers to buy other stuff.
So, now let’s bring in the military action in Iran. Oil, from which gas is refined, is a commodity product (by grade). So, it doesn’t matter whether the barrel of oil (of a specific grade) that you make into gasoline comes from Iran or Venezuela, the buyer pays the market price. Think about the lobster tank at a sea food restaurant that has a sign advertising the lobster at market price, which will change from day to day. The restaurant, even though they’ve already bought the lobsters in that tank, won’t sell it for less than what they will have to spend to replace that lobster when they reorder.
When the military action in Iran started, the market worried about there being less oil available to sell either from the destruction of oil capability in Iran or the damage to ships carrying other countries oil getting drug into the conflict. Just like the lobster tank, every participant down the production line started to worry how much it was going to cost them to get a barrel of oil and started raising prices. Due to the volume and speed of use of oil worldwide, this price increase filtered through very quickly to the price at the pump.
“Be ready and keep ready, you and all your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them. After many days you will be mustered. In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them. You will advance, coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you. “Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’ to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth. Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to seize great spoil?’ “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.” - Ezekiel 38:7-16 ESV
I have heard of several people who have stopped doing some activities because they just can’t afford to drive to them given the current situation. Each of us certainly needs to reflect and pray on being a good steward of the resources God has entrusted to us. But, also know that God has a sovereign plan and can use all unhappy circumstances to his glory.
