Sticking it to the oil man

If you’d like to see the concept of “vertical,” you don’t need a geometry text. All you have to do is look at yesterday’s oil prices. I’m eye-balling the graph right now. Yesterday’s action saw oil move straight up, I’m talking T-square vertical, by about $3 a barrel. Subsequent hours pulled the price down a little, but it was still up $1.65 for the day, which was enough to keep it over the $100 mark.

That vertical spike was spooky. Here’s what happened: Just when oil markets finally seemed to be settling down a bit, the OPEC boyz held a powwow and decided to stick it to the Man.

But wait, they are the Man.

Why, yes. Yes, they are. So they decided to stick it to the chumps. Which is us.

What a way to cap a week, eh? On June 7 the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s increased rate schedule took effect, so at least things are consistent.

Indeed, 2011 is shaping up to be a wallet-zapper. So I’m looking for silver linings. Why not?

For example, a freak-out about oil prices can really stir up the car market. If you’re into cars (and I’m into cars, trucks, jets, helicopters, and, for that matter, anything else that moves and makes a lot of noise), market flux can spell some opportunities.

During the disco era, when everyone was shaking their booties, OPEC was rocking the Casbah and I was working at a gas station when a price-shock hit. There was a stampede for economy cars. I remember one lady asking our mechanic to help her find a small car right away; she was in a panic over gas prices.

“I want an economy car,” she said, “and I don’t care how much it costs.”

That statement struck me as poetic paradox. Still does, actually. So it was clearly time to unload my economy car at the newly inflated value, which I did, and I scored a newly deflated full-sized Chevy as a result.

I loved that Chevy. My girlfriend loved that Chevy. My pals loved that Chevy. Their girlfriends loved that Chevy. So I’d hitch rides in my friends’ cars small cars during the week, and on weekends we’d launch the Chevrolet which, when laden, had the same displacement as the USS Nimitz, and roughly the same turning radius, too. That Chevy was our flagship, a rolling tribute to atavistic defiance. And it was all made possible by high gas prices. Such are the joys of hedonic economics; it’s totally counter-intuitive.

In fact, oddly enough, living in our own bubble as teenagers insulated us from the groupthink of the outside world. We didn’t like high gas prices, but we didn’t ride the anger bandwagon, either. We just did what we could afford to do, and we made the best of it. Which, as it turns out, was pretty darned good.

I don’t know if that philosophy of life will win any intellectual awards. But I’m sticking with it.

Meanwhile, if we want to ponder things on a fancier level, here’s more silver: Alternative energy. Whenever oil prices go bonkers, it’s a tap on the shoulder. I used to work in the alternative energy industry, and I’ve seen some of that technology go from esoteric ideas, to drawing boards, to prototypes, to bankable projects. Some of this stuff is viable. Some of it isn’t. Fortunes will be made by those who can discern the difference.

Rare earth metals are a good example of an opportunity. Slobs like me didn’t give them any thought in the old days, they were mere byproducts of mining for other minerals. But now that wind turbine generators use them (in their magnets), some of these metals are a lot more valuable now. So you can connect the conceptual dots between high oil prices, on one hand, and higher rare-earth metal prices, on the other. That’s just one example to hit my bigger point: The world is a vast web of these intriguing little relationships, and the wackier things get, the more opportunity there is lurking in the crevices.

So, while I’m not happy about high oil prices, I’m not going to get angry about them either. I’ll just quietly go about my business.

Or maybe not so quietly. A devilish thought is flirting with me: I’d like to buy another flagship. They’ll be cheap now, having, once again, fallen out of fashion. Ah, the mind wanders. Yes, the possibilities! I think I’d look good in a big Mercedes; something top-of-the-line with a high-revving short-stroke V-8 engine. A car like that just screams, “Mobil! Shell! Thirsty!” and everybody runs away in horror. These days, you can probably pick one up for about a dollar a pound.

Hey, thanks, OPEC. If living well is the best revenge, then it’s a great way to stick it to the Man.