National gas price average breaks $3 barrier
Well, it's official. Just in time for Christmas, the U.S. average price of gas is above $3 for the first time since late 2008. It's the highest national average ever for the holiday season. Ho-ho-ho.
The barrier fell overnight as the average price for a gallon of regular crept from $2.997 to $3.013 -- more than a week after the Maryland average price broke the $3 mark. The Maryland average stands at $3.02 today.
If there's a consolation, it's that the rate of increase has moderated from the first half of the month, when prices were increasing more than a penny a day in many markets.
All regions of Maryland except the Eastern Shore have now breached the $3 barrier. The highest prices are currently being found in the Washington area, while Baltimore lags about a penny behind the state average.
Ragina Averella, spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic said the fact that crude oil prices broke the $90 mark yesterday for the first time since October 2008 could portend further increases. She said some analysts fear that if crude oil continues to rise at its current pace, the average price could reach $3.75 by spring.
As a measure of how much potential Christmas money is being pumped out of the economy, Averella said consumers will spend about $34 billion on gas this December, compared with $28 billion the same month a year ago.
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
If you voted for Obama, gas prices don't matter.
Posted by: HarlanR | December 23, 2010 2:18 PM
$3 a gallon gas. How come every night onthe news we don't hear gas prices are Obama's fault. Cue up file from 2 and a half years ago all we h eard was gas prices are Bush's fault.
Posted by: Jason | December 23, 2010 3:30 PM
You're both kidding, right? Gas prices only went down when Obama was elected because we were at the worst point of the recession. Fewer people were able to drive/pay for gas and therefore demand plummeted. The supply remained the same and therefore gas prices dropped.
As more people are able to drive again and the economy recovers, demand has increased for fuel while the supply has remained fairly even to it's numbers two years ago, so prices are returning to where they were prior to the recession.
I'm not saying Bush was to blame for high oil prices or high gas prices and I'm not sure many in the media saw that angle either. I think the main criticism of Bush was that his solution to the problem was to increase drilling (which only helped in the semi-short term), instead of looking for alternatives and funding them to eliminate the dependency on a commodity that will only continue to increase in price as the supply begins to dwindle in the coming decades.
Not everything has to be Obama's fault or Bush's fault or Pelosi's fault or whoever's fault. But, I'll take the current administration's efforts to ween us off of oil over the previous administration's lack of effort to find a long term solution to the issue.
Posted by: Kyle | December 23, 2010 5:36 PM
You can whine and blame the prices on the Democrats and/or Republicans. Or you can join me--sell your car, buy some energy stocks, and see how you feel about gas prices then!
Posted by: John | December 23, 2010 10:15 PM
Thanks for the Christmas present Benjamin Schlomo Bernanke !
Posted by: John | December 24, 2010 11:44 AM