As a Senior in high school, you would expect one of the biggest topics to be college or grades or our future in general but in reality, the biggest topic as of now is gas – more specifically the fluctuation of gas prices in a span of one week. I decided to interview a few people at the school to see the different opinions on gas prices. What I didn’t realize was that the inflation of gas prices is one of the most common causes of annoyance at Santiago.

The questions I asked were:

What do you think of the gas prices personally?

What is your opinion of the reason behind the increase in gas prices?

Mrs. Plebani answered:
“I think they are insane, and it made me really depressed because I realize that we will never see gas prices below $5 ever again and I think it’s gonna be $5 or higher and I think I was a little delusional when I thought it would go down to three dollars.¨

¨ With war gas prices do go up, However, I learned that a lot of the oil we get comes from the middle east and not like from Russia and that Europe’s oil comes from Russia. Now Europe is pulling more from the middle east, and now the middle east prices are going up because there’s a bigger demand than supply. However, I’d feel that after the war the prices should be going down. Also though looking at this in perspective, I am grateful that I have to pay more for gas, instead of having my whole country bombed, to me this is like small potatoes, like having to pay like $1.30 in gas but my family is safe, my home is safe, I’m not ruled by a dictator so you know on the large scale of things I should feel grateful.¨

Ali Syed (12) answered:

¨I personally think that they are really high for no reason¨

¨First it has to do with covid, and supply/demand, second it has to do with our president and his blocking of the Russian oil trade.¨

Adam Nechav (12) answered:

¨I don’t like them because they’re very high, I drive a truck and the fact that it’s $110 to fill up my tank now is very unfortunate, so I can’t really drive my car outside of Corona without bleeding my parents dry. Like I literally only go to and from school at this point¨

¨I don’t know enough about that to answer that question, I can guess that it’s because we closed the pipeline and all that but the thing is I don’t really know what’s going on¨

Mr. San Angelo answered:

¨ Well there are two ways to look at it, I think the oil industry is price gouging us right now. We get 1 to 3% oil from Russia and all of a sudden our gas has gone up to $1.50? I mean it’s also supply and demand, when the demand was low when we have locked down 2 years ago, the prices were down because there wasn’t a demand. California doesn’t even touch Russian oil, it doesn’t even get to California, it goes to the east coast, so I don’t know.¨

¨A Lot of people believe it’s the president but it’s not, because the bottom line is Congres; Makes laws and pays the bills. The president’s only job is commander in chief of the military and the ENFORCE laws that are already on the books, he cannot make laws, especially for something like private industry. The supreme court’s job is to interpret laws to see if they are constitutional or not constitutional, so the president has no power to tell a private billion-dollar industry that gets 12 billion of welfare to drill oil. The oil industries however can manipulate the price of the oil. It is all about the profit motive.¨

Angelo Rose (12) answered:

¨Personally I think that their ridiculously high, I’ve been seeing them going up and I’m not a fan, I’m sure everyone else feels the same so thank god I drive a Prius though and I only have an 8-gallon tank so idk¨

¨ Honestly I don’t even know why the gas prices are increasing, I’m assuming it is because of the war, I heard Sans rant and I’m not really that informed about this.¨

Sami Ramierez (12) answered:

¨ It’s very unnecessary like I just got a car and I don’t even wanna fill up my car with gas like at this point I’ll stick with a bike like I can’t believe it, I don’t even wanna drive my car anymore like when people ask me to drive anywhere like my gas kinda runs fast……¨

¨ I think it’s because of the war and something about their oils, I’m not really sure but they are just raising it to take our money away¨

Hearing all of the varied perspectives was quite helpful in assisting me in making my own judgment on gas costs. Obviously, this isn’t going away anytime soon, and it’s evident that everyone is getting different sources of information or none at all in the case of our generation. In the end, it’s critical to understand and put things into context. As Mrs. Plebani was discussing, while this increase in gas prices may be unneeded or trivial, it is far preferable to having to personally deal with the anguish that the people of Ukraine are enduring. So, the next time you pay an extra $1.50 for gas, remember the lives that were lost in order for you to be taxed this fine.