Extract from Associated Press Report 8th
April, 2011
Cost of gas weaves its way into all aspects of life
WASHINGTON — Quick: What do these things have in common? Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Wall Street volatility. A cranky, even angry American populace.
Answer: They all have something to do with gasoline.
No matter what happens in the world today, just about everything seems to point back to fuel and the tricky politics that emerge when prices spike.
.............In an era in which globalization has become a given, gas prices are the most obvious, most closely felt connection between the daily lives of Americans and the larger world.
Has there been a time in modern history when that's been more apparent than the past few weeks?
Gas prices have taken on greater importance to Americans. They rank it above issues including Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, terrorism and taxes: 54 percent called gas prices a highly important issue to them personally last fall, but 77 percent said that in the latest poll.
GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications conducted the poll from March 24-28. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Many people don't expect relief from soaring gas costs anytime soon: Two-thirds say they expect the higher prices will cause financial hardship for them or their families in the next six months. That group includes more than a third who say gas cost spikes will cause serious financial hardship. This on top of a still-poor economy.
Consumers on average said $2.36 per gallon was a fair price. The national average was $3.65 during the week the survey was taken.
Albert Mercado, a restaurant employee from Wallingford, Pa., is among those feeling more than just a pinch.
"When I swipe my card at the gas pump, it stops at $75 and I'm nowhere near full," says the owner of a 2004 Ford Explorer who lives outside Philadelphia. He adds: "I have not been driving as much."
And Mercado, 44, has little hope that costs will fall anytime soon if at all. After all, he says, he once worked at a gas station and knows how the price game is played. "Something's got to change. I doubt it will," he said..
Consider the words that came out of one president's mouth: "This country needs to regain its independence from foreign sources of energy, and the sooner the better." That was Republican Gerald Ford — in 1975.
Nearly four decades later, Obama said this: "As long as our economy depends on foreign oil, we'll always be subject to price spikes."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Cost of gas weaves its way into all aspects of life
WASHINGTON — Quick: What do these things have in common? Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Wall Street volatility. A cranky, even angry American populace.
Answer: They all have something to do with gasoline.
No matter what happens in the world today, just about everything seems to point back to fuel and the tricky politics that emerge when prices spike.
.............In an era in which globalization has become a given, gas prices are the most obvious, most closely felt connection between the daily lives of Americans and the larger world.
Has there been a time in modern history when that's been more apparent than the past few weeks?
Gas prices have taken on greater importance to Americans. They rank it above issues including Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, terrorism and taxes: 54 percent called gas prices a highly important issue to them personally last fall, but 77 percent said that in the latest poll.
GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications conducted the poll from March 24-28. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,001 adults nationwide and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Many people don't expect relief from soaring gas costs anytime soon: Two-thirds say they expect the higher prices will cause financial hardship for them or their families in the next six months. That group includes more than a third who say gas cost spikes will cause serious financial hardship. This on top of a still-poor economy.
Consumers on average said $2.36 per gallon was a fair price. The national average was $3.65 during the week the survey was taken.
Albert Mercado, a restaurant employee from Wallingford, Pa., is among those feeling more than just a pinch.
"When I swipe my card at the gas pump, it stops at $75 and I'm nowhere near full," says the owner of a 2004 Ford Explorer who lives outside Philadelphia. He adds: "I have not been driving as much."
And Mercado, 44, has little hope that costs will fall anytime soon if at all. After all, he says, he once worked at a gas station and knows how the price game is played. "Something's got to change. I doubt it will," he said..
Consider the words that came out of one president's mouth: "This country needs to regain its independence from foreign sources of energy, and the sooner the better." That was Republican Gerald Ford — in 1975.
Nearly four decades later, Obama said this: "As long as our economy depends on foreign oil, we'll always be subject to price spikes."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
