Gasoline Prices Revisited

Gasoline prices have plummeted by 35 - 50% from their peak in the past two months.

Would everyone who thought the gubmnt should "do something" about high gasoline prices two months ago be willing to recommend that the gubmnt do something about low gasoline prices these days? E.g., if they wanted gasoline taxes lowered in early September, would they want gasoline taxes raised now?

Here, courtesy of Phil Miller, is a link to a site that charts some gasoline prices of interest. At this site, you can choose from many different jurisdictions and from many options about the time span covered. It is interesting just to play around there for a few minutes, exploring different price charts.

With apologies for the poor resolution, here is a chart I generated at that site last Friday, showing average gasoline prices over the past three months in Canadian cents per litre for Ontario (green), Alberta (red), and Michigan (blue). This chart shows that current average gasoline prices in all three jurisdictions are lower than they have been at any time during the past three months.

The effects of Katrina and Rita are readily apparent. I see, too, that average prices in Ontario were much higher during the Katrina and Rita spikes, but are now lower than the average prices in Alberta, something we noticed when we were in Edmonton two weeks ago. But also note that gasoline prices today are lower than they were in early August, before Katrina was even on the map.

As a matter of fact, this nine-month chart below shows that current average gasoline prices are now lower than they have been for most of the past five or six months:

Surely, the gubmnt ought to do something about these plummeting prices.
Phil Miller has more here.

Topic: Economics