GASOLINE prices are at historic highs (Shutterstock).
I filled up my Chevy’s gas tank the other day at $6.19 a gallon. Two days later the price had risen to $6.29 a gallon.
It brought back many memories. I am old enough to remember when gasoline sold for 24.9 cents a gallon (mid-Seventies).
I can also remember when people expressed fear that gas might rise to $4 a gallon (two years ago).
Politics and civics can be complicated, so many people feel the key is to answer Ronald Reagan’s famous question: “Are you better off now than [insert years here] ago?”
The cost of any commodity or service is seldom tied to just one cause. Certainly, your fuel’s availability and price is influenced by the undeclared conflict with Iran, but also the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Russians are major producers and exporters of petroleum and Ukrainian attacks (in response to Russian attacks) on their petroleum refining facilities is helping to drive up the price of diesel fuel.
Weather, labor relations, global warming and blind luck all have an impact.
Also to be considered is the nature of oil prices: the costs go up in expectation of what is expected (or feared) to happen. If it looks like there will be a shortage or other glitch in supply, gasoline retailers raise prices now, as a hedge against the future.
Political leaders – Biden or Trump or whomever – can have an impact on gas or other prices, of course. But life and the world is complicated and there are plenty of other things going on in our country that offer ways to judge just how good a job the man in the White House is doing.
