Gas prices reportedly reached over $5 per gallon in Indianapolis, and here in Bloomington, it was common to see a $0.30 hike. I had to detour my route home yesterday afternoon, as traffic was nearly stopped in places where cars were lined up two-wide in the road to get gas.

That's just ludicrous.

Why were these people in such a frenzy to hoard gasoline? No more people needed gas today than yesterday. Was it worth waiting in line for two hours to top off the tank?

The media has really skewed some events of the past couple of days, but gas hoarding started before the media could even suggest that our supplies could be limited. This was the fault of paranoid consumers.

While at a stop light near my house yesterday, I witnessed over 25 cars packed in a single line waiting to fill their tanks. Gas station employees were directing traffic in the parking lot so people wouldn't start fights over who got to the pump first.

As far as I'm concerned, these people deserved to pay three times the normal price to gas up. Gas station owners were simply following the economic patterns of supply and demand. Demand for gasoline was outrageous yesterday. Some stations ran completely out of fuel, and some only had premium left by the end of the day. With demand like that, and supply being only what they have underground, it only makes sense that prices would rise. If I myself owned a gas station, I would have done the same thing.

Raising prices has two outcomes. If demand continues at its current rate or increases, the dealer is going to make more money. If the consumer is willing to pay it, why not? If demand decreases because of higher prices, then the frenzy will begin to subside, and prices will drop back to normal. This is true if the price went up 20% or 200%. Simple economics. The fact is that things are worth what people will pay for them.

Most people I've talked to about the recent price gorge want to bring up the fact that gas station owners are playing on a major tragedy, and that it's unethical. They think these people have no conscience in making a buck from other's fears. This attack was made because some group didn't agree with our way of life. Capitalism is our way of life. We're all out to make a buck, and if that means playing on people's emotions, so be it. It's not the first time.

We live in the Information Age; it's been dubbed that for years, and most of the people in this country readily accept it. But I don't think that's where our focus really lies.

By calling the current era the "Information Age," it implies that our focus is on the information. Having a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, available any time with our always-on connections, it certainly would seem that way. We can find out nearly anything we desire in a few moments with references on the web, via e-mail, or any other fast means of communication.

But that isn't really what we care about; we don't use that information yet. We're more concerned about *having* it than *using* it. The method of transport is the primary focus: how the information gets from point A to point B, or more importantly, how fast it gets there. We're all obsessed with increased bandwidth, speedier processors, and how many frames per second our 3D video cards can crank out, even though we usually just look at a sexy 2D web page. If a breakthrough in medical science occurs, do we need to start reading the 600 page white paper as it streams over our connections, or is the same information just as valuable and valid if we wait two days for the snail mail arrive?

Make no mistake about it: we live in the Communication Age. The Information Age will arrive directly after.

Feel free to comment, question, call me stupid, etc. E-mail link is to the left.