The cost of gasoline

That would be last year.
There was also the Colonial pipeline hack in 2021, and another shutdown in late 2020 because of the vid.

 

'uber adds 'temporary' surcharge while gas prices surge'

 

But also don’t pass said surcharge to reimburse their drivers (per my friend who does all the delivery apps)

 

It's supposed to begin on 16 March
New fuel surcharge to help drivers and couriers | Uber Newsroom

 

Now if only eatstreet and door dash would follow Ubers lead instead of paying less than the federal minimum

 

makes sense, times like these are always an excuse for increasing corporate profits.

of course, i continue to hope that prices keep going up, and we get more serious about the grid and alternative energy (except nukes)

 

Yes, greed is a beautiful thing isn't it.

 

The airlines are old hands at that. Are they still at it?

 

haven't seen any news, but nothing would surprise me. i heard flights were pretty much back to pre pandemic levels. people are tired of hanging around

 

I posted this article in another thread but it applies here also.

We are very lucky this isn't like the 1978 gas shortage where gas was rationed and it went up to $4 a gallon in 1978

The Gas Shortage of the 1970’s - Oh, The Madness! | Groovy History

For younger people the current gas situation probably seems like something that has never happened before but for older people this situation is old news and not half as bad as we have seen it before.

 

i wonder if any long term good came out of that crisis, or if we didn't learn a thing

 

The historical gasoline prices listed here indicate an average price of $0.62 per gallon in 1978. That was substantially up from $0.36 in 1973.

Were you converting the figures to 2022 dollars? According to cpicalc, even that would be only $2.80 in today's dollars.

If the price had hit $4 in 1978, that would be equivalent to $18.04 per gallon in today's dollars. But again, that is not anywhere in the history I'm seeing.

Where did your $4 a gallon figure come from?

Edit: I see it was mentioned in the linked article as a "spiked to" figure for May of 1974. That would have been the equivalent of $23.35 per gallon in today's dollars.

 

"By May of 1974, it had skyrocketed to over $4.00 per gallon. The shortage and price hike were reportedly due to two major oil refineries being closed. Supply couldn’t keep up with demand and everyone was scrambling to get the gas they needed; mainly so they could get to work. Vehicles of the 1970’s were gas guzzlers, so a tank of gas didn’t last long. It got so bad that people were regularly stealing gas from unattended vehicles."

I was alive then - and I did pay over $4 a gallon for gas as many older people can vouch for the price then. I lived off base and actually spent a few days living on base just so I could be sure to report for duty on time in case I couldn't get gas, in order to avoid the military justice system for not reporting to duty. I don't think I am imagining things.

Similar situation in 1978 also.

Why in the world would I post that if it wasn't true? I have no agenda or anything to prove.

Here are 3 times in the last 50 years when gas prices or shortages were big news | History | lancasteronline.com

 

I did find that same quote within the article you linked in #33. You'll see I referred to it in my edit of #35. Again, it refers to May of 1974, and was either a local effect, transient effect (during closure of two major refineries) or both, such that the national average price for 1974 as a whole was still $0.39.

So what seems to be going on is that a lot of the information available today for that far back has been aggregated by year and nationwide, and at that scale it's harder to see price swings that happened week-by-week or in specific locations.

The place where week-by-week retail prices were consistently recorded seems to be a thing called Oil & Gas Journal, first published in 1902. There seems to be online access available for 1989 and later, but that doesn't help for the 1970s. I've just requested a few 1974 and 1978 issues through my library, but probably won't see them until next week some time.

Sometimes people do post things they know aren't true, but keeping each other honest online is about more than just that. There are a lot of ways that, even when no one is being sneaky, details from 50 years ago can be more complicated than what we remember, and hard to get right.

That article also says "the national average price for a gallon of gas nearly doubled from 1978 to 1980, topping $1 for the first time". Of course that doesn't rule out that prices of $4 could have been seen earlier than that, as strictly local or regional prices. It just means the national average was nowhere near $4 then, and indeed not until June 2008 (same article).

 

Of course you are right.

Why in the world do you quote every part of a post detailing personal experience with your input?

Maybe all post should be previewed by you before they are posted for everyone to see.

I think I'll move on, his is kind of creepy.

 

Ehh, it's a thread on "the cost of gasoline", opened by Bob, with about a dozen people participating.

So it's kind of like a "conversation". Nothing wrong with posting a personal experience, like "I remember paying $4 some time back in the '70s." Understanding that somebody else might have a personal experience like "I remember when $4 was hit for the first time in June 2008."

So when that happens, sometimes it leads to wondering who's wrong or who's crazy, but sometimes it leads to figuring stuff out, like "ah! there were some local isolated spikes to $4 in 1974, and the national average hit $4 for the the first time in 2008", which turns out to be better information than any one person opened with.

It's cool when that happens in a conversation. That ending up with better information than any one person came with is what's supposed to happen in a conversation.