 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
 Wednesday, April 13, 2022 — 9

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JASMIN LEE

Editor in Chief

JULIAN BARNARD 

AND SHUBHUM GIROTI

Editorial Page Editors

ficial position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Julian Barnard
Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Brandon Cowit
Jess D’Agostino

Ben Davis

Andrew Gerace

Shubhum Giroti

Min Soo Kim
Jessie Mitchell

Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes

Nikhil Sharma

Sophia Lehrbaum

Joel Weiner
Erin White

Devon Hesano
Rushabh Shah

Alex Yee 

Anna Trupiano
Jack Tumpowsky

T

hanks to the compounded 
negative 
effects 
from 

multiple recent events, gas 

prices have surged across the country 
— averaging more than $4 a gallon as 
of April 10, 2022 — which has been 
cataclysmic for the average worker 
and the economy alike. Efforts by 
the United States and its allies to halt 
purchases of Russian oil to reprimand 
their invasion of Ukraine have been 
largely to blame for the skyrocketing 
prices. Most gas stations around the 
country have only two to three days 
of product in stock, and are therefore 
forced to charge customers what 
it will cost to refill their reserves, 
a concept known as “replacement 
cost.” 

However, gas prices have been 

steadily increasing in the United 
States since the initial stages of the 
coronavirus pandemic, when costs 
plummeted so much that they even 
briefly turned negative. As families 
sheltered in place at home, the 
average family’s driving was cut in 
half, according to AAA. This plunging 

gasoline demand resulted in OPEC 
and other oil-producing nations 
reducing production by 10% of the 
world’s supply. Once restrictions 
eased and families returned to work 
and school, demand for oil once again 
increased but could not be satisfied 
after 
significantly 
diminished 

production. Thus, gas prices began a 
steady upswing, rising to the extreme 
levels we are facing now. 

When President Biden took office 

in January 2021, prices had already 
reached $2.38 a gallon. Now, crude oil 
averages around $100 a barrel. While 
many have tried to point to Biden’s 
policies as a source for this surge, there 
is little to no evidence for this. As soon 
as he took office, Biden terminated 
the Keystone XL Pipeline, a decision 
that not only gained him his fair share 
of criticism but also signaled hostility 
to the oil industry. However, even if 
the Keystone Pipeline were in place 
today, the impact on prices would be 
measured in pennies. Prices would 
have continued to rise nevertheless. 

Biden’s staggeringly low approval 

ratings have necessitated lowering 
gas prices on a bipartisan level. 
While some politicians have called 
for suspending gas taxes, this short-

term solution would not only serve 
to be ineffective but would also 
betray our climate goals, as well as 
take away funds from Michigan’s 
transportation fund. As economists 
explain, “a full suspension of the 
gas tax would not lower the price of 
gasoline by the full amount of the tax 
because producers bear some of the 
tax burden.” What’s more, during 
past gas tax holidays in Indiana and 
Illinois, “researchers found that 
consumers don’t get the full benefit of 
the gas tax suspension; (rather,) some 
of their savings flow to oil producers.” 
A more effective short-term policy, 
proposed by Illinois, would instead 
freeze the gas tax at its current rate, 
allowing consumers to save millions 
of dollars while simultaneously 
honoring 
our 
country’s 
carbon 

neutrality commitment for 2050. 

Another short-term solution would 

be applying pressure on our country’s 
largest oil companies to incentivize 
drilling. Currently, around 9,950 
issued drilling permits are unused by 
oil corporations. Biden has accused 
these corporations of “sitting on” 

From The Daily: What to do 

about high gas prices

I

n July 2020, I purchased a 
pair of generic white New 
Balances. 
I 
loved 
those 

shoes. They fit right in with the 
rest of my modest wardrobe, and 
I was sad to throw them out this 
month, after almost two years of 
their distinguished service to my 
feet. 

I am not a fashionable person. 

I couldn’t even begin to describe 
what makes “good” or “bad” 
fashion sense. And yet, it appears 
that my seemingly inconsequential 
shoe choice coincided with the 
decline of a mid-2010s fashion 
trend, “normcore.” Popularized 
by 
“trend 
forecaster” 
Sean 

Monahan of the K-Hole collective, 
“Normcore, as it came to be 
understood, was about embracing 
the banality of plainness, of not 
being alternative, and of not 
seeking difference to affirm your 
individuality,” writes Donovan 
Barrett 
of 
Highsnobiety. 
By 

wearing New Balances, I had 
accomplished each of these goals 
— even if I did so without much 
grace. 

Unfortunately, I am still behind 

the curve. A year after I purchased 
those shoes, Monahan predicted 
on his Substack and in The Cut 
that American (read: millennial 
New Yorker) culture is already 
experiencing 
another 
“vibe 

shift.” Goodbye, he postulates, to 
Jerry Seinfeld’s bulky jackets and 
chunky sneakers. Welcome to the 
renaissance of Effy Stonem, indie 
sleaze and the end of the hyper-
digital, hyper-“cancel culture” 
era. 

After the profile in The Cut, 

the term “vibe shift” began to 
take shape in the media as an idea 
that extended beyond just fashion 
trends. 
Buzzfeed 
columnist 

Elamin Abdelmahmoud argues 
that “vibe shift” can also function 
as a framing device to analyze 
broad 
changes 
in 
American 

culture. In his opinion, the 
pandemic, 
anti-establishment 

Trump politics and now the war 
in Ukraine have all contributed to 
a decline in social trust. America’s 
democratic 
institutions 
are 

being challenged, and foreign 
countries are demonstrating that 
autocratic regimes will not easily 
capitulate, 
rebuffing 
political 

scientist 
Francis 
Fukuyama’s 

bold prediction that stable, liberal 
democracies would become the 
dominant world order. 

The “end of history” argument 

arose in response to the Soviet 
Union’s 
dissolution 
in 
1989. 

America believed, after the Cold 
War, that the project of liberal 
democracy had been vindicated as 
the supreme form of governance. 
However, as we have seen over 
the past two decades, efforts to 
democratize in other parts of the 
world have been overwhelmingly 
futile. It is amusing, therefore, 
that 
Generation 
Z 
would 

revitalize the late ’90s-Y2K-early 
2000s aesthetic in which that 
optimistic spirit was born. 

America then is unlike America 

now. In the late ’90s, the internet 
and other technological progress 
spurred 
an 
economic 
boom. 

Productivity soared, wages grew, 
incomes rose and, at the turn of 
the century, the unemployment 
rate dropped to 4%. In 2018, Neil 
Irwin of the New York Times 
wrote that the modern economy 
might be on a similar track 
towards ’90s-level growth. The 
labor market was (and still is) 
“tight,” which means the ratio of 
job openings to job seekers is high, 
and a persistently low interest 
rate has kept investors confident 
enough to keep pumping money 
into the stock market. 

Then, the pandemic happened. 

Investors remained optimistic 
and the stock market flourished, 
but the effects of the pandemic 
were not felt evenly among 
Americans. If positions could not 
go remote, people lost their jobs 
or were forced to put themselves 
at risk of contracting COVID-19. 
Fiscal stimulus measures from the 
Trump and Biden administrations 
helped keep people afloat, but 

now, after a little more than 
two years since the start of the 
pandemic, inflationary pressures 
have forced the Federal Reserve 
to begin raising the interest rate 
in an effort to prevent the post-
pandemic economy from spiraling 
out of control. 

It remains to be seen what effect 

raising the interest rate will have 
on the economy. Rate increases, if 
they happen too fast, can cause a 
recession. A potentially troubling 
development is that the yield 
curve, a measure of investment 
in U.S. government bonds, has 
inverted. This means that either 
investors are less confident in 
the U.S.’s long-term economic 
prospects, or, a more benign 
cause, the Fed’s decision to end its 
program of purchasing bonds is 
starting to affect the bond market. 

Even if the economy does not 

enter a post-pandemic recession, 
the economy will still be a vibe 
killer. Gen Z’s nostalgia for the 
turn of the century is harmless, 
as long as we simultaneously 
maintain a sober perspective 
on the economic direction of 
our country. When we leave the 
University of Michigan, we will 
not enter a housing market as hot 
as it was in the ’90s, especially 
if we don’t build more homes. 
And, if the precarious, stunted 
experience 
of 
the 
millennial 

generation is any indicator of 
what Gen Z will face as we 
lurch into adulthood, unabated 
optimism is not how I feel about 
life post-graduation. 

So, go ahead and buy that outfit 

you’ve saved on your Pinterest 
Y2K moodboard. Maybe don’t 
start smoking cigarettes again, 
something that I witnessed a 
group of assumedly freshmen do 
over the weekend. But as you ride 
the vibe shift’s wave, keep an ear 
to the ground (as I know we all do) 
and plan your economic future 
with prudence. It does not yet 
appear that the vibes of our time 
are spilling over into a speculative 
fervor on Wall Street, but we 
should be careful to not let that 
become our reality.

Don’t let the “vibe shift” warp 
your economic outlook

ALEX YEE

Opinion Columnist

THE MICHIGAN DAILY 

EDITORIAL BOARD 

S

amsung has become what 
some would call a “meme” 
to Generation Z today. No 

matter how many new models 
come out, no matter how amazing 
their cameras are, no matter how 
easy their user interface becomes, 
they will never be able to infiltrate 
the technological culture of today’s 
youth. This is for one reason: Apple 
didn’t make themselves better 
than their competitors — they 
made it impossible to leave their 
web of interconnected products. 

The second you stop using 

an iPhone, you lose a world of 
capabilities as well. You can’t join a 
group chat with over 10 people. You 
can’t receive AirDropped pictures 
or send pictures to iCloud. Say 
goodbye to Apple Pay, iMessage, 
Apple Wallet and more. Good luck 
transferring your contacts and 
data with no iCloud and a new 
interface. There may be a million 
reasons that a new phone company 
transcends Apple, but they will 
never be able to hold a candle to 
Apple’s digital army. 

This quite literally captivating 

nature demonstrates the ways 
in which technology and social 
media companies have trapped us. 
As a young adult, it is impossible 
to live without an assortment of 
technology tools that have become 
as essential to us as food and 
water. In high school, I was the 
last of my friends to get Snapchat. 
A seemingly insignificant plight 
in today’s world, this one detail 
proved to be a large impediment in 
communicating with my peers. 

The modern world of flirting 

takes place increasingly online, 
and especially over Snapchat (ask 
any girl the last time a guy asked 
her for her actual number; I can 
guarantee she will have a hard 
time remembering). I watched 
as my friends “snapped” their 
love interests, made group chats 
and posted stories. All the while 
I watched from afar, in the social 
media-less jail I felt I was in. 

What people don’t tell you, 

however, is that this spectacular 
world of social media, led by 
the confines of Snapchat and 
Instagram, isn’t so glamorous 
after all. Those “guys” my friends 

were talking to were really just 
asking for nudes. Instagram wasn’t 
about promoting confidence, but 
instead tearing it down. This life 
was a numbers game: how many 
followers, how many likes, how 
many streaks, etc. 

So why do we do it? Why do we 

feed into a system that continually 
hurts us, tears us down and takes 
away from our face-to-face human 
connections with others? The 
answer isn’t in the allure of what 
these companies have to offer, 
or the factors — addictive colors, 
algorithms and even notification 
sounds — that keep you in. It’s in 
the reality of being unable to leave 
once you’ve entered. 

The way technology companies 

market, whether it be hardware 
(Apple, Samsung), cell service 
providers (AT&T, Verizon) or social 
media 
(Instagram, 
Snapchat), 

is making it harder and harder 
for you to leave. They’ve taken 
over communication. iMessage, 
Snapchat, Instagram and Tiktok 

Prisoners of modern technology

CLAUDIA FLYNN

Opinion Columnist

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