Energy prices haven’t budged in 50 years—but oil is crazy expensive

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Americans pay about the same as they did in 1960 for most forms of energy, says this infographic produced by the home energy audit folks at WellHome. Except for oil, which is now on average even more crazy-expensive than it was during the oil crisis of the 1970's, when people were ready to bash each others' heads in to be next in line at what few stations still had fuel to sell. That’s not reflected as much in the price of gas as you might expect, in part because the scale of this graph minimizes swings in gasoline prices, and also because there isn’t a one to one relationship between oil and gas prices. (Gas is also influenced by the costs of refining it and getting it to market.)

Regardless, the lesson here is that anything we can do to give consumers an alternative to oil for transportation will help ease the pain they feel in their wallets. And because just about every alternative, from walkability and mass transit to electric cars, has a lower carbon footprint than conventional vehicles, efforts to help the bottom line by moving us away from oil are also a de facto climate policy. It's cliche to call it a win-win, but there you have it: some things are self-evidently a good idea.

[Danno 1,228]

RUn the numbers with gas at the price it was when Obamer took office and see what you get.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

RUn the numbers with gas at the price it was when Obamer took office and see what you get.

Mitch and John will see to it that the economy falls back into a deep recession and gas prices will fall back to where they were when we were in the mids of the last great recession. No worries. Cheap gas no matter what that means for the overall US and global economy. Yeah!

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Only a sucker would think the prices at the pump are ever going to go down. They have went up through the roof in the past ten years and they aren't likely to go down no matter what. The US is sitting on a ####### load of oil atm...so much oil in fact that it isn't even being pumped and processed.

It doesn't matter if the economy goes up or down, people at the pumps are still going to be hosed by the oil companies. It is what it is.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

RUn the numbers with gas at the price it was when Obamer took office and see what you get.

Checked! Yep still WAY lower now than the high under Bush.