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Originally Posted by sciguy125
I'm getting a little tired of people complaining about gas prices. They aren't that high. There's a small spike right now, but it's not that bad. (There's also a storm interupting gas production at the moment...) People are failing to take inflation into account. Didn't anyone ever wonder why you could buy a new car for less than $500 in the early part of the 1900's? Inflation my friends. People right now are so happy that their retirement funds may make it over $1 million by the time they need it. But you know what? That's nothing. A few decades from now, a $250k house will be over $1m.
Back to my point about gas:
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/I..._Inflation.asp
The price of gasoline in the US has been about the same since 1986 when taking inflation into account. The only reason people complain about gas as opposed to the rising bread prices is because gas fluctuates more. Gas stays at a reasonable average, but it has temporary highs and lows. Didn't you notice that people start complaining every few months, then a little while after, the prices start to fall again and people stop complaining? Most other things are still affected by inflation and increase in price, but they are more of a stable increase.
But to answer your question more directly, I think I'll ease up on the pedal a little while the prices are up. In the San Jose area, it looks like gas is around $2.75 at the moment. |
I disagree. It was only like two summers ago when gas was below $1 per gallon and that was in California. Okay, that may have been just a short dip but it was constantly around maybe $1.50.
For whatever reason, as soon as we started the war in Iraq, the gas prices went over $2 and never came back down and they never will.
I don't disagree that the fact that inflation is occurring but I think gas prices are increasing at a much accelerated rate, and most of it I believe to be artificial.
Gas prices are raising far more quickly than salaries, and with how many products depend on gasoline and diesel transportation to dispurse them, their costs are going up too.
However when you do think about it. Gas isn't all that expensive. It just seems like it because we use so much of it.
So look at it this way, where else can you get THAT MUCH combustible energy for less than $3? Actually, the only thing I can think of that you can get for less than $3 per gallon is water and maybe milk (not a grocery shopper so I don't know exactly) and neither of those even have any combustible energy (unless you use some more energy to separate the hydrogen out of the water).