Monday, June 9, 2008

Gas crosses $4 threshhold

As pointed out by one of the most left-wing cable news programs that I tend not to watch, the price of a gallon of gas in 2001 averaged $1.47/gallon. This morning when I filled up, it was $3.93/gallon. When I drove home, it had jumped ten cents. Well, at least Delaware is consistent with the national average. How unfortunate, and yikes!

One thing it would be interesting to track would be what a price of a gallon of gas was based on the closing price of a barrel of oil the day before. So, when gas spiked to $138/barrel on Friday June 6, the corresponding gas price would have been $3.93/gallon or so. I alluded to the fact a little more than three months ago that it seemed fishy that gas prices had such a quick lock step with the price of a barrel of oil, which would suggest some sort of illegal collusion or price fixing. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

A barrel of oil around that day (Feb. 26, 2008) was approximately $103/barrel. It's hard to tell what the rate of change is based on two random data points, but I think everyone can agree that the price of a gallon of gas isn't going down any time soon. It certainly would come at no surprise that if three months from now, we're paying another dollar more per gallon. The question is how much more is too much more before the working middle class is even more squeezed out from making ends meet.

Here's a thought DART - run more buses to more locations and more often. Or maybe as part of a broader economic stimulus package we should think more seriously about a regional mass transit system running down the middle of the state and along side or in the middle (raised) on parts of 13 and 1. I've suggested as much before; maybe I will have to give that idea some more thought and elaborate to see if it gains any steam.

1 comment:

Anonymous Delawarean said...

Curiously, the price of gas this morning at the same station had dropped to a (still un)reasonable price of $3.96/gallon. Did something happen in the span of less than 10 hours to cause this price fluctuation or is something testing the patience of the invisible hand?

To me, this is the sort of price fixing that should be investigated.