I have talked to a few progressive minded people and they couldn't disagree with me more. They say that gas needs to be drastically cheaper now. Of course some people are suffering to a great degree and they should be helped. However, it seems like a lot of people are complaining about things like "i can't buy that boat i wanted" or "it is costing me $200 a week to fill up my Ford Excursion" or "we had to have a BBQ over Memorial Day weekend instead of driving from Maine to California like we wanted to". It seems a lot people are complaining because they can't spend excessive amounts of money on things they don't need. If most of us can't afford food in six months then no, this isn't worth it but for the most part our problems involve not being able to buy totally useless sh*t. I'm not trying to dismiss the problems of some, of course there are people out there who are suffering for real, such as no longer eating or living indoors, but i think most of us will get along just fine. I agree it would be nice if gas was $1 a gallon but i think we have to take the hit to end this oil addiction once and for all.

Jack, the question doesn't make sense to me. Worth what? It also seems to assume that the high prices in the US are temporary. Gas has been over $4/gal in Europe for decades, due to the more appropriate tax levels there, and people still use it. These prices might never again fall to 2007 levels.

On the plus side, high gas prices are finally causing people to curtail unnecessary driving, which is good.

On the minus site, high oil prices are making Iran rich. I think it was here I first learned that incremental cost of extraction for Iranian oil is something like $20/bbl -- a lot more than Iraq or Saudi Arabia, so when oil was $10-20/bbl they weren't getting rich at all. Now they are. That is not good. I'm not trying to demonize Iran but I don't see them as a good influence on the world.

The possibly of long term benefits, like decreased oil consumption, alternative energy, more fuel efficient cars, etc.

I said it was worth it, but then again, I've given up driving. I only use my bike/public transport now. I kinda figured it was hypocritical of me to drive, considering the industries it supports, and my worldview. Honestly, I hope it hits $10/gallon. Maybe then others would decide to do the same.

YES! ABSOLUTELY YES!

I'm a poor person that must drive, so gas prices hit me hard.
However, in the long run I will most certainly bennifit from the national change of habbit these prices are causing!




ALSO, It's not just gas that hits our pocket hard.
It's everything that is made from or dependant on crude oil.
We need to reduce our dependance IN ALL AREAS of oil consumption!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/opinion/28friedman.html?hp

Truth or Consequences
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Imagine for a minute, just a minute, that someone running for president was able to actually tell the truth, the real truth, to the American people about what would be the best — I mean really the best — energy policy for the long-term economic health and security of our country. I realize this is a fantasy, but play along with me for a minute. What would this mythical, totally imaginary, truth-telling candidate say?

For starters, he or she would explain that there is no short-term fix for gasoline prices. Prices are what they are as a result of rising global oil demand from India, China and a rapidly growing Middle East on top of our own increasing consumption, a shortage of “sweet” crude that is used for the diesel fuel that Europe is highly dependent upon and our own neglect of effective energy policy for 30 years.

Cynical ideas, like the McCain-Clinton summertime gas-tax holiday, would only make the problem worse, and reckless initiatives like the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep offer to subsidize gasoline for three years for people who buy its gas guzzlers are the moral equivalent of tobacco companies offering discounted cigarettes to teenagers.

I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”

No, our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.

This candidate would note that $4-a-gallon gasoline is really starting to impact driving behavior and buying behavior in way that $3-a-gallon gas did not. The first time we got such a strong price signal, after the 1973 oil shock, we responded as a country by demanding and producing more fuel-efficient cars. But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we let Detroit get us readdicted to gas guzzlers, and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today.

We must not make that mistake again. Therefore, what our mythical candidate would be proposing, argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr., is a “price floor” for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.

To ease the burden on the less well-off, “anyone earning under $80,000 a year would be compensated with a reduction in the payroll taxes,” said Verleger. Or, he suggested, the government could use the gasoline tax to buy back gas guzzlers from the public and “crush them.”

But the message going forward to every car buyer and carmaker would be this: The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big gas guzzler today, you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills. You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home. At the same time, if you, a manufacturer, continue building fleets of nonhybrid gas guzzlers, you are condemning yourself, your employees and shareholders to oblivion.

What a cruel thing for a candidate to say? I disagree. Every decade we look back and say: “If only we had done the right thing then, we would be in a different position today.”

But no politician dared to do so. When gasoline was $2 a gallon, the government never would have imposed a $2 tax. Now that it is $4 a gallon, the government should at least keep it there, since it is really having the right effect.

I was visiting my local Toyota dealer in Bethesda, Md., last week to trade in one hybrid car for another. There is now a two-month wait to buy a Prius, which gets close to 50 miles per gallon. The dealer told me I was lucky. My hybrid was going up in value every day, so I didn’t have to worry about waiting a while for my new car. But if it were not a hybrid, he said, he would deduct each day $200 from the trade-in price for every $1-a-barrel increase in the OPEC price of crude oil. When I saw the rows and rows of unsold S.U.V.’s parked in his lot, I understood why.

We need to make a structural shift in our energy economy. Ultimately, we need to move our entire fleet to plug-in electric cars. The only way to get from here to there is to start now with a price signal that will force the change.

Barack Obama had the courage to tell voters that the McCain-Clinton summer gas-giveaway plan was a fraud. Wouldn’t it be amazing if he took the next step and put the right plan before the American people? Wouldn’t that just be amazing?

The only way to get a Republican's attention is to hit his wallet. Let them feel the pinch! And let's finally make some progress. I think we've got their attention......

(full disclosure: I work from home!)

Damn right. I fully believe Americans are too lazy to change by any other method. Every time I see an SUV in a parking lot, I just want to key it.

I just got back from a trip to the coast to begin the process of cleaning out my moms house so we can sell it.
It's about 175 miles each way, and about 50% freeway. Considering it was a nice weather weekend, and it was a friday and saturday, and it was a beach road, the traffic was the lightest I have ever seen it on all roads.


I think the effect of high gas prices is quite evident.



BTW, it cost me $76 to fill up for the round trip. Clearly I also would not have been out there if I didn't have to be.

The costs of personal transportation is the least of our problems. When the price of gasoline goes up one cent, the cost of gasoline for the Postal Service rises more than $1 million. I use this example simply because it the one I'm familiar with...think of everyone that uses vehicles: city governments, state governments, the military, other delivery services. The list is endless and the consequences only beginning.

Indeed. High grocery prices? Everything in what ever market you frequent had to be trucked in.