gas prices

**ICantSpellDawg** · 09-03-2005, 02:01

i recently read that americans, on average, are spending less of a percentage of their income on gasoline then they did throughout the entire 1980's. milk as well

not counting the new orleans disaster, does anyone have any info on this?
i cant remember the link

**Red Harvest** · 09-03-2005, 03:38

Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff

i recently read that americans, on average, are spending less of a percentage of their income on gasoline then they did throughout the entire 1980's. milk as well

not counting the new orleans disaster, does anyone have any info on this?
i cant remember the link

Commodities get cheaper over time as long as they don't become scarce: oil and food are commodities. Oil was at a high at the beginning of the '80's due to the Iran-Iraq war. Dairy farming was still viable for small dairies then too.

Milk has gotten cheaper by supersizing the dairies and thereby concentrating the collection. When I was milking cows in the early 80's before I could drive, one or two hundred head was about the minimum herd size to make a decent living. By the 90's it was a thousand or so. Now I hear it takes about ten thousand. Efficiencies of scale. Incidentally, I believe a fair bit of cost would be in transport (which is energy dependent.) None of the small dairies that lined the road I grew up along are still milking. Not a single one. We all used to milk, and raise calves. Most of the beef cattle in the area disappeared in the past 10 years too. Now the land is used mostly for hay to sell to the bigger herds. Or the pasture is rented out. I've noticed the same all along the hundreds of miles of highways when I drive home. Over 15+ years I've noticed fewer and fewer livestock along the road each trip.

Oil became cheaper as artificial restrictions were removed. The concern about oil is that it is now becoming scarcer while demand is rising. That is: exploration/production costs will be increasing as we exhaust the easier/better fields. We are soon to find out if this is true since the Saudi's have been the last with swing capacity and OPEC artificial constrictions have ended, while demand is growing at better than the historic norm.

**Ice** · 09-03-2005, 03:39

That's probably because gas prices are through the roof here in the good old USA (Michigan atleast) so less people are driving.

**Gawain of Orkeny** · 09-03-2005, 06:23

Well it was cheaper until the hurricane. Now its a bit higher. I dont know if its as high as in the 70s under Carter though.

**Aenlic** · 09-03-2005, 07:46

Actually, I believe that gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation, were highest under Ford, not Carter. Nice try though.

**Gawain of Orkeny** · 09-03-2005, 07:55

Yeah your right . But it was still Carters fault.

So you see we have now reached a new high as ths was wriiten is april. Geez look at that only a little over two dollars a few months ago.

LINK

It sure made a farce of that article.