Dropping Gas Prices

I just finished reading a news article on Reuters about how gas prices have taken a huge, record breaking, drop this past week. Good as this news is, it was interesting to note that average prices across most of the country still seems to be above $3/gal. See the excerpt below. For the whole article go here.

"In the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) weekly survey, gasoline was the most expensive on the West Coast $3.42 a gallon, down 15 cents. San Francisco had the highest city price at $3.60, down 12 cents.

The Gulf Coast had the lowest regional price at $2.99 a gallon, down 45 cents. Cleveland had the lowest city pump price, down 38 cents at $2.90.

The EIA also reported gasoline prices were down 29 cents at $3.46 in Chicago; down 12 cents at $3.44 in Los Angeles; down 30 cents at $3.38 in Miami; down 18 cents at $3.36 in Seattle; down 24 cents at $3.22 in Denver; down 24 cents at $3.16 in New York City; down 27 cents at $3.06 in Boston; and down 32 cents at $3.03 in Houston."

Some of those gas prices seem really high because unleaded at the Citgo across the corner from me is $2.71 a gallon. I'm guessing that the prices they took their averages from included those "we're on the corner of a highway and can charge an arm and a leg" prices of strategically located service stations. These averages were based on regular unleaded prices, not plus or premium, which are much higher. That reminds me of something my ex told me when we were engaged (he managed a gas station/store), "The difference between unleaded and premium is about $0.04/gal. to the retailer." When he told me this it was in '91 and gas prices were much lower. There was about a $0.20 difference for the customer at that time. Now, of course, it is higher and so is the difference.

My granddad owned and ran a Texaco service station for many years. It wasn't fancy, but the building was solidly built. And the pumps let you know how much you were spending with a nice ding every time the meter turned over another dollar. Back then you got about 3 gallons for a dollar. That the meters reminded you how much you were spending says something about the mindset of the country. People were careful with their money. I'm delighted to see gas prices dropping. I still wish we could go back to the days when the attitude was that folk were respected for their desire to economize, make their dollar go as far as it would, and retailers seemed more inclined to support this.