It Has Begun…
By SueB
Unfortunately, this is worth clicking on to see full-sized:
This entry was posted on April 14, 2008 at 7:50 pm and is filed under House of Cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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April 15, 2008 at 6:19 am
I had to get gas yesterday and it was 3.26 which means it went up 7 cents overnight. Luckily I own a hybrid so it was the first time I had to put gas in it this month.
April 22, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Hmmm. It has been a couple of years since we could buy petrol for the equivalent of that price. We will fill up today, and will pay about $5.60 for a gallon. Does that mean that “it has begun…” here too?!
April 22, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Bryan, yes, gasoline prices in many other parts of the world have been well above US prices for a long time now. However, I don’t think a dollar-to-dollar comparison is the point — Europe (and many other areas too) has accommodated those prices and developed (or had all along from pre-oil days) an infrastructure that can handle those prices without triggering panic or economic meltdown. I think the USA is fairly unique in that the infrastructure is quite dependent on cheap oil/gas. So when prices rise, effects occur that would not occur in other places, simply because we don’t have the infrastructure to allow things to keep going — long commutes, overload of consumer debt with no wiggle room, just-in-time inventories of retailers with no local market alternatives (at least not sufficient alternatives to feed and clothe the population), etc. Add to that the culture, the mental attitudes that I believe will trigger panic long before it’s actually warranted, just based on the fear of changes and uncertainty, and yes, I think $4.00 a gallon is somewhat of a turning point for the USA. But as I said, it’s not the absolute dollar cost that is the problem, it’s a matter of reaching a stress point beyond which the US simply doesn’t have the physical or psychological wherewithal to go and still remain conventionally functional.
April 25, 2008 at 9:47 am
I’ve noticed a 20 cent increase every week while riding the bus to work. It seems like the people who are stretched financially are changing their behaviour. It was $3.50 yesterday in Philadelphia.