Rod writes:
>Gasoline is still the cheapest liquid you can buy. What is it in the US,
about $2.00 a gallon? Try to buy any other liquid for the same price.<
You're right. The graphs that indicate the real price of gasoline (nominal
price/consumer price index in the US) indicate that prices are only high
relative to a couple of years ago. The general trend in the real price
since the 1970s has been _downward_. The real price in 1998 was as low as
its been in the whole series since the series started in 1958.
Averaging over 6-year periods, the ratio of energy prices in the CPI to the
over-all CPI looks as follows, with 1982-4 = 100:
1958-63 74.9
1964-69 70.9
1970-75 69.7
1976-81 90.6
1982-87 92.2
1988-93 75.1
1994-99 67.7
If there's a trend, it's downward, though it's possible that the recent
uptick could turn into trend in the future. But I think a lot of the
complaint about higher gas prices is simply the whining of spoiled drivers.
(Hey, I drive a gas-guzzler! But I got it for free.) And Ellen is right
that prices in the US are clearly _too low_ (and that the energy crisis
shrinks in importance compared to the environmental crisis). The Europeans
have a better policy, since high gas prices discourage gasoline use and
thus global warming. Probably the petrol taxes over there should be raised
even further....
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
