Most people are benefiting from these low gas prices

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Yet the big energy companies cannot let a day go by without some story in the local media about how it will hurt the oil industry and how jobs will be cut. A real wet blanket yet millions of people are saving tons of money right now and are able to enjoy life more without putting so much in the gas tank. Why can't big oil just let them be happy a little while?

We all know these prices won't stay low forever. Don't worry, big oil, your strangle hold on people's budgets will be in place again before you know it so shush your belly aching mouths already!

I consider the gas prices now DECENT.

Remember, in 2001, you could get gas in New York City for under $1 a gallon. The $2.60 or so a gallon is well past the rate of inflation from 2001 to the present.

I would consider anything under $1.50 to be "low". What we pay for the time being is merely lower than insane.

I didn't say it was lowest it has ever been in the history of the world. It's lower than it's been in a while.

I truly hope we get back to 99 cents a gallon, just like it was in 2001.

In the early 1970s, my father used to pay 35 cents a gallon. Then, the 1973 Oil Embargo caused the price of gas to go up 20 cents a gallon overnight! The toll on the Triborough Bridge in New York City was 25 cents. He just threw a quarter into a machine.

It stayed under a dollar a gallon through most of the 1970s.

This $4 a gallon business is ridiculous. But we must have perspective. A couple of years ago, people in the UK were paying about $10 a gallon!

Ana, I understood what you meant.

But I still wish we weren't pay these exorbitant gas prices!

Had the same train of thought when I heard the first of the current wave of newscasters tell us that "gas prices are falling".

I thought "cool, that will help the economy, and help reduce unemployment!" As soon as I had that thought the newscaster went on to say "and the oil industry says this will hurt the economy...".

But yeah- folks like me who drive dozens of miles every day just to get to work- will be getting (in effect) a boost in income. We spend less money to earn money. So we have more money left over. Indeed everyone who drives at all will have one expense lowered-meaning more money to spend on other goods and services-which means more employment for those supplying us with goods and services. And its coming right at the holiday buying season. So its gotta be doing more good than harm to the economy.

Ironically, the oil companies are partly to blame for the low prices. Due to fracking and other newer oil recovery methods, the market has been flooded with petroleum and the laws of supply and demand constitute that whenever a commodity has a surplus, prices are driven down.

On a side note, I filled up for $1.95/gallon today!

Seems like there are too many backwoods rough necks running things and not enough economic majors.

Ah ah ah, everyone, please come to France, a Gallon of gas here is like 6$ (after conversion between Euros and Dollars and liters to gallons), yes prices have gone down but they are still to high, with 85% taxes on gas here plus an extra 20% Vat on top of that we are mostly paying taxes, not so much for gas really.
On the other hand these low prices are having severe consequences on the economies of other countries in the world, resulting in crisis's and it's affecting the people, regular people, something like 200 to 350 million people are suffering from that.
Also lower gas prices mean more consumption, meaning more pollution what is very bad for the planet and will only accelerate global warming, not good. Solution is we all go electrical and give up gas for good, then we will really be saving money, and the oil countries and monarchies (who for most also finance terrorism and especially ISIS) would go dry and stop financing their crap.

Don’t worry—we’ll stop polluting the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels when these run out. The Earth isn’t infinite.

If we continue on the route we would have killed out the entire planet from fossil oil before we even get a chance to burn it all.

The part about more consumption - you see if that happens, the prices are bound to go up. Countries like Russia should hear the message D-I-V-E-R-S-I-F-Y.

My mom grew up in the oil business and she knows first hand you cannot depend on oil for livelihood because there are so many factors involved, one of them over drilling, which what has led to lower prices. When Sarah Palin gets on a platform and yells Drill Baby Drill most do not realize the implications of that statement so they blindly cheer her on. If the industry wants stable prices, they need to think manage baby manage but during a boom everyone wants to make as much money as they can. It's kind of like a housing bubble in a lot of ways only in energy and with the Keystone Pipeline, it can only be ongoing unless they find new markets for the oil, as in developing more countries, or, if a big war is created because military guzzles gasoline and oil. These falling oil prices might actually pressure countries into entering conflicts when they might otherwise be more hesitant just to cause the price to go up.

6 bucks a gallon is not bad for France.

I wish I understood what $ per gallon means...

OK, apparently there are 0.22 gallons in a litre. We hit £1.43 per litre for diesel in 2012. That's about $11 per gallon (using either the exchange rate at the time or the current one).

35 cents a gallon seems ridiculously low. About 5p per litre! Totally consistent with what I've heard from ancestors, but still. I'm glad it isn't that cheap any more.

Is it oil that causes the most pollutants or is it coal? I don't see how cheap gas prices are a problem. Actually, they aren't. This is artificial because the oil industry wants to make as much money as possible. If they had their way gas would be $10 a gallon everywhere.