Thursday, January 01, 2009

A Gallon of Gas


Happy 2009, everyone!


Back on June 9, 2008, I offered the vast Mr. Dilettante reading audience to guess what the price of a gallon of gas would be on New Year's Day, 2009.

I guessed $2.49.
Gino guessed $3.25
Leo Pusateri guessed $2.79
Right Hook guessed $2.67
Uncle Ben guessed $3.90
Stinger guessed $3.39
Dan S. guessed $3.66
Brad guessed $3.70

As it turns out, none of us were very close. According to Twincitiesgasprices.com, the current average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline is $1.63, although gas can be had as cheaply as $1.47 at the Sam's Club in St. Louis Park.


So I guess I win. But none of us were close. While it's certainly nice that the price of gasoline has dropped well over 50% from what it was on June 9 (around $4/gallon), this will be a short-lived phenomenon. In fact, if we were to make the same bet for the price a year from now, I would not be surprised if the higher predictions would be more accurate. As Ray Davies reminded us nearly 30 years ago now, these things change.

4 comments:

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Yikes, I knew I was guessing high, but that was pretty bad.

Gino said...

now, i'm pretty sure i remember that guess date was for election day, and that was what i guessed for.

what was election day?
i think i was really close.

sheesh, i dont even remember that day, i was so out of it.

Right Hook said...

Nice graphic!

Anonymous said...

I think a big reason the price is down is because the credit crunch has severely curtailed the speculators being able to buy oil futures on margin.

Whatever the reason, I'm glad to have the cheaper gas and I'm especially thrilled with how much pressure it's putting on Vlad, Hugo and Achy-Braky-dinejad who's internal social policies require oil to be about double the current price or else the music machine comes crashing down.