The truth about the price of gas and food and everything else

I’m no expert. I’m no economist. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Do not listen to me. Reading this post is not advised.

I’m only going to tell the truth. If there even is such a thing. And I’m going to tell it as I see it. Feel free to disagree and hate my guts.

Advisory: This post will only contain information of interest if you use fuel and/or eat food. Everyone else can safely ignore this information.

Welcome to Tom Conference 2012. I am the keynote presenter.

In the beginning humans huntered and gathered. Then they figured out how to grow things. “Hey, if I grow it here, I’ll have more of it, I’ll know where to find it, I won’t have to roam as far to gather it, and I’ll have more of it. Life will be better.”

The invention of farming was notable. Meanwhile, humans were busy inventing other fun things like various ways to kill each other (the #1 all time champion in terms of human research and developmental effort) and the concept of money.

For a long time, humans lived rather spread out and sprinkled across the landscape. The primary way of living was rural, with humans living in small groups, and farming was highly localized to these groups.

This was of life is known as agrarian. (If you don’t know how to pronounce that word, just imagine what it would sound like if Captain Jean-Luc Picard was to say it.) According to my dictionary, agrarian is “relating to a social system upon which agriculture is the sustaining foundation.”

Now humans congregate in great cities. There was a major shift from the agrarian way of life to an industrial one. Part of this was the industrial revolution. But another major piece was that humans fled the countryside for more urbanized life. Population densities of 0-2 people per sq. mile climbed (in some areas) to 1,000 or more people per sq. mile.

What is a city? One definition is a geographical area where people live who have no direct control over the means of their own survival. Food is produced somewhere else. Fuel is produced somewhere else. Most everything must be brought in.

Survival type of things.

The things you need to survive under the direct control of other people. What could possibly go wrong? Remember the California electricity crisis of 2000/2001? (Wow, that long ago? It seems like only yesterday! I’m sure we’ve learned so much since then.)

Your keynote speaker. Tom 2012.

First they hook you, then you become dependent on it, then when the shit goes sideways the prices jump by 800 percent. You have room in your monthly budget for variations like that, right?

This is an example of how it works: Let’s say a gallon of drinking water at the grocery store costs $1. Then a tropical depression swoops in and relocates your entire neighborhood. Suddenly the price is $40 a gallon or more. Don’t take it personal. It’s just the cold equations.

See how easy that was? Now all you have to do is imagine the exact same thing happening with other things. Like your groceries. Or the cost of gasoline for your personal locomotion device. What if each of those suddenly became 80 percent of your budget? Uh oh.

Isn’t this fun?

Because, when you stop to think about it, when the chips are down and the bottom falls out of everything, what you really want is the fate of you and everyone you love to rest in the hands of greedy humans who don’t care if you live or die. Humans who just want their profits.

I mean, what are you going to do about it? Make your own food? Please! Walk those three miles to work? Be serious.

When the very things needed for survival are controlled by someone else, how is it possible to choose your own destiny?

Now bring on the discussions about supply and demand!

This concludes my motivational talk for today. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.