High, High, High

We have officially reached the highest gas price ever according to this Reuters article.

U.S. retail gasoline prices hit a record high for the second week in a row and matched the inflation-adjusted peak reached in the early 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, the government said on Monday, as concern about low motor fuel supplies pushed up pump costs.

So, that is talking about the infamous “inflation adjusted” figure that I’ve been hearing of since we reached the $2.00 a gallon mark. The article says that the national average is $3.22 or $3.18 a gallon depending on which survey you look at.

Here in the Ozarks we are usually lower than the national average but this time a little higher at $3.26. The gas price, around here, mysteriously jumps about ten cents a gallon when the tourists start showing up.

Who are you mad at politicians, environmentalists or big oil companies? I guess it doesn’t matter in the end because we are going to pay whatever they charge us, right? I am also hearing that consumers aren’t backing off of usage, demand for gas is as high as ever. There has always been this theory that when it comes to vacation time; people are going to go, at any cost.

In years past, this tourist area would often see increased traffic when gas prices went up. The logic being that we are sort of in the center of the country and people would come here as opposed to driving to somewhere farther away or flying.

What’s odd is that traffic here seems to be a little less than in past years. Nothing scientific, just seems like it, at least, isn’t any worse than usual. I have to be in Branson at 10 in the morning tomorrow and that will be a good gauge of the situation. That is usually prime traffic jam time. I’ll let you know on that.

I know that I’m not driving as much. I’m avoiding driving as much as I can. I’m buying stuff in bulk to avoid trips to the store.

You can argue about alternative fuels, hybrid cars, building more refineries, drilling in Alaska and offshore, China’s rapidly increasing consumption, the amount of Federal, State and local taxes vs. oil company profits; all of that until the cows come home. One thing should be certain if we use less the price will go down. It is a supply and demand situation. So, that should be a constant in the equation.

I’d like to do an informal survey.

I want to know the answers to two questions.

1. Are you using less gas because of the prices?

2. Is there anybody out there that has decided to stay home this summer instead of going on vacation?

Give me some feedback.

Off the subject: Since I have moved to the new place I have been using a cable company for high-speed internet service. Since I don’t have a T.V. in the house I have no use for there other services so, I am the oddball customer. They have contacted me a few times wanting to know if I want to up-grade my package to include great and wonderful T.V. opportunities.

While I was writing this post, they called again with more offers and asked me if I had any questions. I said, “Do I get a price break for the cable outage that lasted almost two days?” To my surprise, they credited my account for $1.92, that is almost 6/10ths of a gallon of gas.

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Tags: gas prices