I know the topic of gas prices has become redundant but this story from the New York Times caught my eye. Each day Americans reach into empty pockets to meet the rising gas costs. For US citizens along the border its a different battle. The gas prices in Mexico are astonishingly cheap, around $2.66 a gallon. But the cities along the border are notorious for crime and violence. Therefore the question for these US citizens living on the border is to go 5 miles across the border and possibly save $20 but risk their life, or stay inside the borders and pay twice as much. The attractiveness of Mexico’s gas is becoming stronger every day, and thus traffic along the roadways of the border is gradually becoming heavier in volume.
This article claims that “The low gasoline and diesel prices that draw Americans here are a result of subsidies provided by the Mexican government to curb inflation and make fuel affordable to the poor”. So it is almost completely by accident that our neighbor is offering such incredibly low prices while our domestic gas prices are skyrocketing. Because of this discovery, many things are becoming more at risk including American lives of those who travel to the perilous city of CIUDAD JUAREZ and American businesses on the border being forced to close. The prices between the two countries are so different that: “One Texan in the trucking industry, who declined to give his name for fear of being prosecuted for tax evasion, said he saved $12,000 a month by fueling his four-truck fleet in Mexico”. It is however uncertain that the gas prices across the border will stay where they are. The article is located here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/us/25gas.html?ref=todayspaper
July 9, 2008 at 2:52 pm |
Gas Prices are a topic in everyday conversation so even though the topic is redundant… it’s something people don’t get tired of talking about! Something that popped into my mind when I read this is that if people from Mexico were coming over and taking a resource like gas from US… we would be PISSED! We condemn immigrants from Mexico for coming to the U.S. for a better anything… and now we are doing it too!
Oil is a problem and maybe if Mexico has more reserves we could work something out with them… I don’t know it just seems wrong that people are doing that and I couldn’t see that flying if the situation was reversed.
July 15, 2008 at 11:53 am |
I like that article. I feel that this is a very important topic and that the government and other countries should try and fix this problem with gas prices.