Another viewpoint about Gas

Gas prices are funny to me. They are funny due to everyone’s perception. Right now, everyone has an issue with the way prices have shot up specifically in the past week. You hear people say this is ridiculous and something should be done about it. The question is what should be done or could be done. I would even ask you if you know if things are bad at all. Take a look at the image at this link. You will see two lines. The black one represents cost which will represent the prices you have been pay for gas when you fill up. The other line (light blue) represents the price for the gas at the pump adjusted for inflation. In the end, we come to three conclusions. The first we have been getting a below market price for gas for quite some time. The second conclusion is we are at where we should be right now with gas prices.

The third conclusion is we need to stop focusing on the gas prices and looking at what we are doing with the gas. Two things make gas impact our pocket books. First, we drive cars that have improved very little in fuel efficiency over the same previously discussed period. Twenty five years ago furl efficiency was not much better with cars. Standard was 15 to 20 miles. Yeah sure you could go out and buy a car with closer to thirty miles per gallon but with technology the way it is I think it should be expected that 40 should be readily available. There has been no pressure on the car companies to make though because everyone is in love with their gas guzzling SUV’s that are getting even worse gas mileage.

To follow up with the first point – and I admit I have not looked this up – but I bet you would find the average American goes through gallons of gas WAY FASTER than they ever have in the past. We all drive long distances to work and find it necessary to drive anywhere and everywhere. All in all, due to those two factors the demand for gas has gone up which basic economics say that gas has to go up in price.

I think in the end, I am just letting people know that we are creating a case against ourselves due to our habits and decisions.