Had a discussion the other day with a friend about gas prices. I complained how they've ballooned in the last decade. He claimed that prices have only increased, on average, around a dollar per decade over a thirty year period. That just didn't sound right to me (and I'm old enough to remember).
Wanting to explore this further, I found the following chart:
Looking at this just makes me fume.
In actuality, our gas prices after the spike in the Carter years remained pretty steady.
As this should be no surprise here, the cost jumped twice over the last thirty years. Once during Bush 1 (a slight move from a little over a dollar to a dollar sixty) and during the entire Bush 2 era.
Sure. There may be less supply than before, but that doesn't appear to be the case today. There may be more countries using oil, but if the demand is continuously met, that also wouldn't account for the monsterous spike we've seen in the last decade.
So, once gain, as we always knew, Wall Street and it's fucking speculation has screwed us again. That can be the only logical accounting for an average jump from $1.20 in 2001 to over $4.30 today.
Given that our politicians are forever in the pocket of these folks, I don't expect our situation to become better any time soon, if ever.