Misery At The Gas Pump

It seems like yesterday when I bought my current car although I've had it for exactly 4 years. Back then I wanted a car that was cheap and didn't cost much to run. I settled for a model that offered high mileage, low maintenance costs and cheap insurance rather than a bloated ego. In addition, I did not want a car note hanging over my neck.

At that time gas was hovering around a dollar fifty per gallon and so it used to cost me around $20 max to fill up my car. And since I used to fill it up every weekend before the gas ran out, it used to cost me around $12 for a week's worth of commuting.

Not anymore. A gallon of gas now goes for $3.70 and I've just paid $44 to fill up my tank . As if that was not enough, crude oil broke through $120 per gallon this week.

And if we are to go with Goldman Sach's estimates, oil prices will zoom past the $150 mark on their way to $200 per barrel. To add insult to injury, we are a few weeks to the peak driving season that is bound to drive up demand for gasoline. With the high airfare prices, you can be sure Americans will take to the road rather than pay high airfare prices further pushing up the demand for oil.

I can only imagine the pain of people who would drive nothing less than a SUV. With few cities offering the option of mass transit and the long commute times due to the vastness of this country, a lot of people have no option other than driving.

If the housing bubble fails to send the U.S. economy into a deep recession then you can be sure high oil prices will do so.