Today’s Gas Prices 05.23.08

Today on the way to work we noticed that two gas stations at the same intersection had about a 17¢ difference in the 87 octane gas price.  Which naturally told me that the lower price station was about to do a price increase.  We stopped and filled up since we were sitting at ¼ of a tank anyways.  Sure enough, coming back through there, less than 30 minutes later, showed the expected price increase.

I think over the next few days, maybe a week or so, North Georgia will be seeing $4/gal for the low grade.  Even with this price, and hearing about it on the news constantly every night, I notice no difference at all by the number of cars out.  They are expecting a slight decrease for the holiday weekend compared to those before.  But apparently the price isn’t enough to force people to cut back on driving…yet.  On another note though, I have noticed quite a few more motorcycles out than before.

My personal thoughts are we won’t see any easing on prices until the $USD strengthens significantly in it’s exchange rate.  But for that to happen, I think the Fed is going to have to feel confident enough about the housing and credit slump to begin to raise interest rates again.