[aerohead]

Each year's World Almanac is a treasure trove of statistics going back to the time before dirt.Some of the values are adjusted to the Fed's constant dillution of the money supply but you can track things back very well.------ As far as memory serves me,gasoline prices remained constant throughout my childhood until October,1973,when fuel doubled overnight as a consequence of OPEC spreading their love.Prices would climb with each successive "energy crisis."---------- On the eve of G.H.W.Bushes Desert Storm,local regular unleaded was retailing here at $0.899/gallon.That went to $1.379/gallon overnight and we road a trans-decade price roller coaster until it settled back down to $1.379/gallon on the eve of G.Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom,where it took off again.Between hurricanes,pipeline shutdowns,loss of Hugo Chavez' friendship,OPEC,Japan,China dumping U.S.Treasury bonds and dollars,and going to a mixed basket of currency for oil purchases,along with emerging demand for fuel from a rapidly growing middle-class in India and China,combined with peak-oil,as the global depression reverses,it looks like we can expect fuel prices as we've never imagined.----- Demand-pull inflation will rear it's exquisite head at the pump.------------- It's a good thing I finally located my frictionless bearings,anti-gravity spray,and air neutralizing car wax for the years to come.