this may be true, but it still doesn't ease the sting much of how quickly (and perhaps irreversibly?) prices have run up over the last three and a half years.
i gbutted up in january 2002 for 95 cents a gallon for reg unleaded. in southern california! i gbutted up for 89 cents-gallon around that time in colorado too (though i think CO is one of those 85 octane states for reg unleaded).
granted, that was a *rare* anomaly brought on by some strange blip in the market probably caused by ripple effects from 9-11 that put prices in the toilet for about 2 months. but what a nice two months it was! dang, i don't think i had seen gas for less than a dollar since i had been driving (which admittedly wasn't a long time).
by summer prices were up in the more normal range of around 1.40-1.50 a gallon. from then on out it's been a pretty steady climb.
i think it's human nature to want those 2 months of dec 2001-jan 2002 to be the "norm" for gas prices. so $3 a gallon doesn't look like a nominal, "normal" rise in prices that's steady with inflation; it appears to be a 300 percent runup in a mere 42 months.
i wonder how many monster SUVs and trucks were sold during that time? cheap gas, president telling us to go buy things or the persons will have won, the big 3 all doing the zero-percent financing, the height of the land yacht fad... now the bill's coming due... ;-)
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