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Nation of Whiners: $4 gas still more affordable than back in the 60’s

Posted August 12, 2008

America’s Culture of Complaint is famous for losing perspective: New studies indicate that the cost of $4 gasoline, relative to incomes, is still far below what our parents spent on gasoline in the supposedly Golden Age of Kennedy.

by Indur M. Goklany and Jerry Taylor, LA Times.com

Baltimore — (TFN): Barack Obama thinks the government should intervene on gas prices to “give families some relief,” and last week called for releasing 70 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. John McCain proposes an end to the ban on offshore drilling and has pushed for a gas-tax holiday because “we need it, we need it very badly.”

But both candidates and the public are evidently unaware of a basic fact: Gasoline is more affordable for American families now than it was in the days of the gas-guzzling muscle cars of the early 1960s. Prices are beginning to come down somewhat, but this was true even when the national average was at its summer peak.

Two-thirds of American voters say they think that the price of gas is “an extremely important political issue,” and many believe that it will cause them “serious” financial hardship, according to a recent survey by the Associated Press and Yahoo.

Although it’s true that the real (inflation-adjusted) and nominal (posted) prices of gasoline are higher than at any time since World War II, even at the recent peak national average of $4.11 a gallon (California’s average Friday was $4.17), gasoline is still more affordable today than it was during the Kennedy administration.

Finish reading this excellent article here…

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