an tSionna: Gasoline

Ten year chart of gasoline courtesy of GasBuddy.com.  I think this is the one commodity where most Americans understand the price due to how deeply it's embedded in everybody's life.  I went back a decade on this chart to illustrate a point.  From 2004 to now gasoline is up 131% or roughly 13% on an annualized basis.  Huge inflationary spiral right?  Maybe not.  Most of the rise in gasoline occurred from 2003 to 2008 during the last expansionary phase of the economy.  In fact gasoline on an inflation adjusted basis in 1990 was roughly $2.25.  That's roughly a 50% increase and roughly a 2.25% annualized rise.  

Gas fluctuates with the seasons but it is currently trading lower than it was in 2007 and has been locked in a trading range since 2010.   Unless the Government imposes higher fees and taxes it's likely that gas will remain locked in this range given the technology that let's us extract oil from places that were formerly uneconomical to develop.  At the same time our cars are becoming more fuel efficient and electric cars are finally becoming a viable alternative to fossil fuels.  Without a foreign crisis to move the cost higher it's likely gas will stay in the range it's been in for the foreseeable future.