Gasoline Prices
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Americans are worried. Really worried. Because gasoline prices have now exceeded $3.00 per gallon. And there is talk they may go as high as $4.00 a gallon within a year. I grew up in America. In high school I remember paying $0.299 per gallon. Its' a good thing gasoline was cheap too, because my '56 Chevy had two four barrel carburetors. Fuel economy was not a high priority in the 1960's.
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During the last half century I have lived in Europe twice. During the 1970's I lived in Germany for a few years. I was in the U.S. Army sitting in an office at 3d Armored Division Headquarters in Frankurt on the Main. My goal was to avoid being killed in Vietnam. Then later in my life I was the General Manager of the European Division of an American food processing company for 15 years. I early retired and moved back to America just over one year ago.
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This morning I built a quickie spreadsheet to convert British Pounds per Liter of petrol to U.S. Dollars per American Gallon of gasoline. Thanks to the wonders of communication technology and the internet, it was easy to determine from the BBC that in England the average price of unleaded is now over $8.45 per gallon and is going up quickly.
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This upward price trend is going to continue. Crude oil is becoming more difficult to find and pump out of the ground. The demand for cars and gasoline among the two large population countries in the world, China and India, is suddenly growing at an accelerated rate. In America new refrinery capacity is not being added for various reasons - environmenmtal and regulatory issues, and a gradual shift to increasing amounts of ethanol.
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I don't especially feel the higher prices. In fact the prices here in America still seem pretty low to me. My Toyota Corolla normally gets 40 mpg, and my 250cc Honda scooter gets between 60 and 70 mpg.
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General Motors and Ford are beginning to see the consumer trend away from their heavy, 10-12 mpg cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Maybe the American consumer is in the early stages of catching on to the reality of the situation.
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My Toyota is quiet and comfortable to ride in. It has a great air conditioner and a nice sound system. And with the cruise control set I can drive all day long at 75 mph (120.7 km/hour). I see these fat ass fools driving their gas guzzlers, speeding up and slowing down erratically, and generally just pouring their fuel down the toilet. And it makes me wonder about the survivability skills of these bozos.
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