People are lemmings (Gas hysteria)

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:02 am

I posted this on Animbalball, but thought it might generate some interesting discussion here about the idiocy of humans:

So today, all across the nation, and certainly at the crazy level here in Michigan, people decided they had to get one last fill-up before gas shot up to eleventy-billion dollars per ounce.

A rumor was circulating online that gas was going to hit $5/gallon at midnight due to hurricane Ike. On my way to work on Friday at about 3:00pm, I drove through traffic jam after traffic jam due to crazy long lines at every single gas station. The mad dash for gas continued until well past midnight, with fights, car accidents and the like.

Governor Granholm addressed the state today pleading with people to stop panicking because they were causing the very condition they feared worst: A shortage of gasoline. Earlier in the week, the gas went up about $.30/gallon to compensate for the refineries that shut down voluntarily for about a week due to the storms, in order to keep the gasoline supply relatively stable.

Well, this morning at 3:00am when I got out of work, I stopped at 3 gas stations since I currently have 1/8 of a tank of gas, which may not get me through my next 3 working days. All 3 stations were out of gas.

All that drama and bullshit caused by everyone today caused the gas shortage. Due to the onslaught of gas customers, several stations increased their gas prices to $4.29 and $4.59 per gallon, to keep people from draining them. There were 2 reports of stations that had increased their per-gallon price to over $6.50. The Michigan State Police issued a bulletin/request to all law enforcement agencies in the state asking us to report any gas station selling gas at over $4.25/gallon so that they could be prosecuted for price gouging.

I have not seen this kind of fuel-based panic since the 1970's. I may not be able to find a gas station with fuel to put in my vehicle for the next couple of days. Good thing I have that 5-gallon stash in my garage for the lawn mower.