Interesting gas price history info that I found

[Horse with no Name]

Three curves are shown on the plot. The upper, black curve shows the actual price paid for each gallon. The lower curve is the data adjusted for inflation using April, 1979 as the datum. That is, the data in this curve has been adjusted to "April 1979 dollars". The "CPI-All Urban Consumers for all items less energy" was used to adjust the data using monthly average data interoplated to the actual purchase dates. The CPI data is from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The third, faint line, shows the average price for the entire U.S., again from the BLS.

The plot contains data from 1018 fill-ups.
http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html

[Gatchaman]

1. Unless I'm paying in 1979 dollars

this is fucking useless.

[Horse with no Name]

4. That is what I thought too

But I am not good deciphering these types of things, but I knew several here would know.
This looks to be something that is justifying the current rise in gas prices to me.

[Neil Lisst]

9. No, they're useful to prove that gasoline is up dramatically under Bush

[cantstandbush]

2. It's bullshit because inflation has been figured several different ways

over that time. The admin has even fudged inflation figures for 2005-2006. The only real measure of what is going on in the economy is what is happening to 'households' of working men and women and not the households of unearned income millionaires.

[Neil Lisst]

10. these charts support your position - that gasoline is really UP

not just with inflation, but really UP much higher than it should be

This chart proves that the bite being felt by consumers at the pump is higher than any time except the spike of the late 1970s.

[Inland]

3. It's true that current price at pumps not record.

However, it's also true the energy prices caused stagflation in the seventies. Our economy is fragile, fragile, fragile. Anything bad news can really hurt.

[lyonn]

8. Wages are stagnant, prices on consumer items outa sight

It's called republican economics.

[Neil Lisst]

11. they're not far below the inflation adjusted 1979 price, however

and it's probable they will bust that price this year.

I fully expect Bush to blow out all the previous highs when he attacks Iran. Oil is gonna go nuts.

[Inland]

14. Yes, it gets close to the last time the economy was in trouble from oil

IOW, you don't HAVE to set a record. At a point it causes problems. If the economy wasn't fragile to begin with, I would be shrugging my shoulders.

[Neil Lisst]

5. Great charts. Here's what they show, for those who might ...

need some help.


The top two lines track each other closely. Those are unadjusted prices, and show a dramatic increase under Bush.

The bottom line is the price adjusted for inflation, based upon the base period of April 1979. It shows a dramatic increase under Bush.

Notice the corresponding spikes under the Daddy Bush reign of error, when he pushed it up with his war.

Notice the longterm stability of the real price under Clinton.

[Horse with no Name]

6. Thank you

So these charts seem to be true? Of course, this is only in Texas, and our gas is generally cheaper than everywhere else.
I honestly don't have a clue.

[Neil Lisst]

7. these charts are for Texas

These charts do not show how Texas fits in with the data, but it's safe to say that generally they all followed a similar track for actual prices.

The adjusted prices show that it's not just inflation we are experiencing under Bush. Gasoline really is costing a lot more of our average dollar.

[bananas]

12. Don't forget that gas prices drive inflation

When gas goes up, everything else goes up too, because it costs more to tranport everything, including food.

[newswolf56]

13. This is an absurd comparison because most of us -- in fact all of us...

who are neither ruling class nor were riders on the dot.com tide -- have NOT gotten a REAL raise (defined as an increase in disposable income) since 1973. Union members have barely managed to keep up with inflation, while the rest of us have fallen behind. Best way to see this ugly fact -- in service to capitalism, both private-sector and government statistics deliberately conceal it -- is to compare the inflation in housing costs (one of the few true indexes to the increasing worthlessness of the dollar) to the percentage by which the average wage has risen since 1973: though this will vary with the region, on the West Coast the ratio is very close to 5:1, that is, housing prices have increased $5 for every $1 that wages have increased. Contrast this to the fact ruling class (executive) pay (and therefore concentration of wealth) has risen to a ratio of nearly 1400:1 during this same time period -- that is, $1400 in executive pay to every $1 in salary -- and you have an accurate picture of how capitalism is reducing the United States into a Third World sweat shop: gasoline and heating fuel prices are now following the norm set by housing: not merely driven by the increasing worthlessness of the dollar, but methodically increased both to further the concentration of wealth in preparation for the post-Peak-Oil apocalypse and to increase the fear, misery and subjugation of the working class -- that is, all the rest of us. Once again, the ultimate relevance of Marx and the historical truth of class struggle as the ONLY accurate explanation of what is being done to us.