Friday morning: regular gas at my usual "cheap" station is $4.06/gal.
Saturday afternoon: $4.10.
This morning: $4.14.
The nearby stations (i.e., close to the freeway), brand-name or otherwise, are in the $4.25~$4.38 range. At the moment. While the pundits ask whether $5/gallon gas could ever happen, I'm seeing it no more than a few weeks off. And, despite what I see out my window, it's not even summer yet.
What'd Tam say a few days ago?
Fortunately, I own a wheelbarrow.
Unfortunately, those of us doing productive work in the private sector don't get cost-of-living raises. Oh, wait, private-sector wages have kept up with inflation... if you go by the Government's official inflation numbers.
Time to liquidate my retirement fund and buy a warehouse full of beans?
Update: Human intuition doesn't handle exponential functions well. My revised rough guesstimate, after seeing this midday's prices and applying a calculator to the perceived trend, is: cheapest regular in the San Jose area at $5/gallon about a week from now. GasBuddy shows the most expensive regular in the neighborhood being $4.44/gal at the moment, so, yeah: fuel price apocalypse coming right up.
Update 2: As of early-afternoon Monday, local cheap gas is still at the same prices as early-afternoon Sunday. Apocalypse not quite so imminent.
Update 3: Here it is Thursday, the Oneth of March, and prices have been level-ish the past couple of days. If it was speculators running up prices, they must have run out of money.
Comments