Todd Fatheree wrote:

As an aside, here's something interesting I found. On an inflation-adjusted
basis (2005 dollars), the price of crude oil peaked in the early 80s at
$84.29/bbl. In fact, from the late 70s through the early 80's, crude oil
cost more than it does now. Of course, you'll never hear that in a
newscast, because it suits their purpose to report "record oil prices".
Here's another one...in the early 70's, crude oil traded at (again in 2005
dollars) $9.03/bbl.


Maybe where you live, but in the SE U.S., we got that news last week,
the week before and the week before that. Regional TV newscast and the
local "liberal" paper both covered it.

No big deal. I still don't like paying closer to three bucks a gallon
than is comfortable.

One pundit, as noted earlier, has stated that it's likely gasoline will
hit $4.67 a gallon by years' end. I was predicting three buck gas
months ago, around here (and this is one of the lowest priced areas in
the U.S.).

The rationales are almost excessively simple. In Europe, it's political
greed (taxes) added to high oil prices; here, it's greed, period, not
tied to any particular political party.