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Sticker Shock, Returning to a Pump Near You?
Posted by Hillary Rosner on April 4, 2006 - 1:52pm.
Gas prices could rise back up near $3 per gallon, as the price of a barrel creeps back toward the $70 mark. But after last year's surging gas costs, consumers might not even blink at shelling out even more money at the pump.
As one economist put it in a lengthy Seattle Times story on the subject of gas prices, "we're getting kind of used to it." Still, if prices at the pump rise and stay high for long periods, it could have effect the economy.
And it could also provide a window onto how much is enough - at what price and after what length of time will consumers truly start driving less, or trading in their gas-hungry cars and trucks for sleeker, more efficient vehicles. As another oil expert put it to the Seattle paper, "We are going to find out at what price level we start rationing demand."
Photo credit: Seattle Times
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Effect the economy? Keep dreaming
by Anonymous on April 4, 2006 - 8:15pm
People are getting used to it because despite all the liberal rhetoric and hyperbole, not a single person has become poor because of gas prices.
No matter how hard you people try, you are not going to talk down this economy. It is the strongest it's been in years, and not in a bubble. Gas prices could be $5.00 a gallon and people would still pack the stations.
Capitalism always wins.
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Speaking of capitalism
by Paul_Freibott on April 6, 2006 - 4:24pm
How could gasoline be the only product that American consumers are not price-sensitive to? I thought it was a simple rule of economics that in a capitalist marketplace, when price goes up and the product stays the same, people buy less. It's basic logic, but gas consumption seems to defy that logic, which otherwise is as solid as the law of gravity. Who wants to pay more for the same thing? Not just for gas, but for anything? I don't get it.
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