gas prices
recently someone sent me one of those chain letters about gas prices are way too artificially high and the oil companies are screwing us and we should boycott the major franchises and how things were so much better in 1970 when gas was $0.29 a gallon. well, adjust for inflation and that $0.29 becomes $1.40 in 2004 dollars. add the extra $0.40 per gallon taxes that we pay now that we weren't paying in 1970. suddenly, today's $2.09 doesn't look quite so bad any more. since 1970 the world population has doubled. the supply of and the demand for oil have tripled. the price of a barrel of oil has been pretty steady at $20 (2004 dollars) for oh about a hundred years. supply has plateaued. if demand keeps growing at 4% per year... the price of gas has no place to go but up. the silver lining is that we will be forced to conserve. nothing like a smack in the pocketbook to make people do the right thing.