The Price Of Gas

14 years ago, I wrote a post about how high gas prices were.  Go take a look at the prices I complained about!  They did eventually go down, but we're back at another high.

Government isn't usually a solution to problems, it often is the problem.  The president cannot control oil prices, but he could approve the Keystone XL pipeline, he could allow oil drilling on federal land, he could promote more frakking.  By not doing these things, the current president has contributed to our significantly higher gas prices.  I don't hold presidents responsible for events that occur during their administrations (unless they contributed to those events, of course), but I do hold them responsible for how they respond.  The feeble response of the current president--let's release a few drops from the strategic petroleum reserve!--merits mockery and derision.  (And it's good to point out that President Trump is the one who filled that reserve, and did so with relatively inexpensive oil.  What price will we pay to refill it?)  The fact that in less than 2 years we've gone from being a net petroleum exporter to being an importer again certainly deserves some attention.

The $3.40/gallon price in the link above sounds like it from the halcyon days of years gone by, and it was 14 years ago.  It's important to note, however, that I paid less than that just last summer, when I paid $2.89/gallon in Phoenix.  On my 4000 mile road trip last summer, the highest I paid was $4.40/gallon in the middle of nowhere on Interstate 5.

A quick calculation shows a 3.23% average increase each year from that $3.40 price to what I paid this week.  You might think that such "inflation" is minor, but don't forget that the $3.40 price was considered ridiculously high at the time.  And the 60% increase from what we paid last year is certainly not what anyone would consider minor.

A lot of that post from 2008 could have been written last week.