With the war in Iran and the Straits of Hormuz closed, Crude Oil has skyrocketed, taking gasoline prices with it. But how are gasoline prices doing on an inflation-adjusted basis? Are they higher than 2022's prices? Are gas prices really at all-time highs? How do today's prices compare to what your grandparents paid? Was gas really that cheap during the 1950s and 60s? What caused gas prices to crater in 1998? How do today's prices compare to prices during the 1970s OPEC shock? What is the average inflation-adjusted price of gas over the last century? Are we above or below the average? The answers might surprise you. When you adjust for inflation, the story of … [Read more...]
Energy Inflation- Oil and Gas Inflation
By Tim McMahon, editor It is extremely difficult to decide how over or under priced a commodity is when the scale we are comparing it to is constantly changing. By adjusting for inflation we can see what is happening to the price much easier. It pays to know what prices are in "Inflation Adjusted Terms". Once we adjust the gasoline price for inflation we can see that the average price for a gallon of gas since 1918 in June 2010 dollars is $2.39. So it is easy to tell whether gas is currently "cheap" or "expensive". For instance, the Annual Average gasoline price for 2009 was $2.34, which was extremely close to the long term average price of $2.39. While in 2008 the annual average … [Read more...]