[Broadly speaking, the United States should have plenty of gasoline inventories to meet demand. At the end of last week, the country had about 194 million barrels of gasoline, and on an average day, Americans consume about 9.3 million barrels.] The key thing that I can't answer is will consumers act appropriately, ... If they decide to rush the system, it can't handle it even in the best of times. |
[In less than a week, gasoline prices have jumped by as much as 60 cents a gallon, with stations selling premium grades at an average $3 a gallon, according to AAA. On average, gasoline is 50 percent more expensive than it was last year.] We're in uncharted territory, ... We haven't experienced something like this since the 1980's. |
[Since then,] we've had people say, 'Why don't we?' ... But no other states have tried it. |
As an economist, I can think nothing else. |
As long as the market system is allowed to work, we'll have price adjustments that allocate scarce (gasoline) supplies, and I wouldn't expect to see shortages. |
Eventually, if you don't fill up, we run out of storage room and that creates a supply backlog, |
Everyone knows how high prices have been and how volatile they are for petroleum products this year, |
Gas prices have gone up, but so have crude oil prices. |
Get ready for winter. |
High oil prices are certainly a drag on the economy, ... Oil is taking money out of the pockets of consumers that could be spent elsewhere, increasing the cost of doing business and the amount of foreign exchange dollars that need be funneled overseas. |
I think most people would agree that two-thirds of the economic slowdown we've seen is due to higher energy prices, ... And with higher energy prices, consumers will either have to reduce savings rates ... or reduce consumption. |
I'm concerned about inventory impacts. |
I've got grave concerns, ... I thought we had learned this lesson 25 years ago. |
If you don't provide the relief, nothing will happen. The start-up costs are just too massive. |
If you were to, for example, increase your ethanol usage to 20% of the fuel supply, you'd use 100% of the corn crop. |