Pat, it's the Island thing that's pushed the price up to $4.25 a gallon.  And no, that price is for regular.  Premium is $4.44 on the Island right now.

Pete, I had a Toyota Camry Solara convertible with a high-performance engine that ran on premium.  I got rid of it.  Not only was the gas expensive, but the car ate fuel injectors!

Randy, you understand how it is when you live on an island.  Everything is more expensive.  No undersea petroleum or gas pipelines from the mainland, right?

It's part of the dilemma of island living.  You get wonderful privacy and a "gated" community.  And you pay for the privilege.

Anthony, any price reduction would make most folks feel better!

Robert -- Yeah, they'll use any excuse to crank up prices.

Elizabeth, I read today that the French and the Dutch are protesting gas prices.  I believe the Dutch pay over eleven dollars per gallon.

Jesse -- It's true, motorhomes don't exactly get great mileage, do they?

Jesse, I used to have a Ford F-250 diesel truck that I used to haul building materials when we were building our cabin.  Boy, am I glad I don't drive that thing anymore!

RE/MAX Kai Lani --

High fuel prices are really messing with the U.S. economy.  This problem isn't going away anytime soon!

One thing's for sure, the cheap energy is gone.

I used to serve on the Board of Directors of a company that owned gas leases in several Texas counties and also was involved in patents for enhanced recovery of heavy oil.  There were so many obstacles to promoting anything involving enhanced recovery, mostly because the price point per barrel wasn't high enough to justify the cost of applying new technology to the problem.

The industry has wrung the maximum number of barrels out of most of the Texas oilfields.  When the easy oil was depleted, they started experimenting with horizontal drilling and steam displacement techniques.  But there's just so much you can do when the price isn't sufficient to justify the methods used.

RE/MAX Kai Lani -- the problem is, the "free market" isn't a pure concept.  The government subsidizes banks and various industries, and lobbying money influences what government does.  That isn't exactly pure capitalism, IMHO.

Karen, I live in Minneapolis and I also spend a fair amount of time on Madeline Island, where I have an office.  The Island is my second home.  In winter months, things are pretty quiet there.  it's a great place to be in summer, though!

With the oil price situation, even if the government doesn't subsidize the oil industry, we all wind up subsidizing them through paying ridiculous prices!  It's "pay me now or pay me later"..

I'm not quite that much of a conspiracy theorist.  It wouldn't work in Minneapolis & Saint Paul, as we don't have a public transportation system that serves the entire metro area!

Jerry,

The social engineering might not be intentional, but that doesn't mean it isn't having that effect.  In the last week, I've talked with several clients who are considering either (1) bicycling to work, or (2) buying a motorcycle!

People are responding to these high gas prices in interesting ways.  It's human nature to want to have some control over what the outside world throws at you!

Jerry, what you said about gasoline costs as a percentage of income is probably true.  We've had inflation over the nearly thirty years since the late 1970s and, in real dollars, we're probably paying about the same as we were then.  It still seems to be causing families a lot of pain.

Jerry, I appreciate your many comments above!  I hope things do stabilize.

LaNita, we still have our share of old technology in northwest Wisconsin.  It's part of the charm...

:)

Tracy,

Now the airline companies are asking the government to intervene.  High fuel prices are threatening to put them out of business.

Ross, I'm not counting on government intervention anytime soon.  I enjoyed Pete's photo too.