I found this on another board+++++++++++++++++++++> by msstate2, 3/18/08 4:02 ET
Perhaps that 'cheap gas' was really the costliest
When I was in the USAF on temporary duty to Aviano, Italy, in 1958, the price of gasoline there was 1,250 Lira ($2) a gallon. Today, 50 years later, I paid more than $3 a gallon for gasoline locally.
This brings to mind a breakfast I attended in 1978 at the Gulf Hills Dude Ranch for the business people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The purpose of the breakfast, which was provided by an oil company, was to inform the local business people all about the oil business and how oil is obtained, processed and delivered.
At the end of the presentation, the speaker opened the floor for questions. Several people brought up some questions and the oil company team answered them.
The last person to ask a question opened with this: "You won't want to or be able to answer this question, but it is a very troubling question."
Here is how he posed the question:
Before the oil crises in 1973, the price of a barrel of oil was $3. At that time, the price of a gallon of gasoline was about 30 cents. That amounts to a 10 to 1 ratio. Or, a gallon of gasoline was 10 percent of the price of a barrel of oil.
Then, at the time of the breakfast, in 1978, the price of a barrel of oil was about $30. At that time, the price of a gallon of gasoline was about $1.30. That amounts to about a 23 to 1 ratio. Or, the price of a gallon of gasoline was about 23 percent of the price of a barrel of oil.
The audience member's question: "Why were you over-charging the public for a gallon of gasoline before 1973?"
Most all of the other people at the breakfast stood up and said, practically all at once; "Yeah, why was the price of gasoline priced so high at .30 cents a gallon before 1973?"
The oil company team got into a huddle and whispered to each other. After they came out of the huddle, the spokesman said: "You are right. We here, can't answer that question. It will have to be posed to someone of higher authority in the oil company."Source: This letter was in the Biloxi Sun Herald